June 23 - Acclimatizing at Condoriri Base Camp

This base camp of ours at Condoriri, I can’t imagine a better place to spend 5 nights and get acclimatized and conditioned for mountaineering in this beautiful terrain.  Scott Wagner and I were taking about that this morning when we got up.  It was quite cold, we waited for the sun to hit our tents just before 8:00am.  We then raised our cook tent and our wonderful cooks, Hemena and Charlie had hot drinks and then later a really substantial breakfast for us.  As the sun warmed our tents we all reveled in the great place we are going to be in for the next few days.

We’ve already climbed above our camp here to 16,400 feet (4900 meters) for conditioning and to look around.  We still have not climbed a named peak yet but we will begin doing that tomorrow.  Today Michael Boni asked for some practice on rock and he and I worked for quite awhile on balance and friction on moderately steep rock which will be useful on some of the ascents we are going to do on this trip.

Now we are back at our base camp after our climb to 16,400 feet and I’m watching the llamas graze.  You know when we left the road yesterday I was describing the scene of loading the llamas.  After I gave the dispatch yesterday, they began to tie the first of the loads on the llamas and Keith Wilson’s red North Face bag got tied on to a particularly fast little lama that soon as they released it started running at an unbelievable speed in the opposite direction of the Condoriri.

We are settling down as the afternoon sun drops.  I can report to you that the entire team, Scott, Bob, Keith, Shawna, Michael, Leila, John and myself are acclimatizing surprisingly well.  Everybody seems really fit, this is going to be a compatible and strong team and once again we are really pleased to be in the Condoriri as we pursue our mountaineering goals in the coming days in Bolivia.