Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch

January 29, 2008 – Plaza Canada and Cheese Crepes

Today is Tuesday Jan 29, it is early morning and the sun has just hit us. I am calling you from just over 5,000 meters about 16,500 feet above sea level at Plaza Canada Camp. Plaza Canada is one camp above our base camp for Aconcagua.

I am looking at completely clear blue ambient skies around me. There is not a breath of wind, which if you are familiar with this mountain, you know it is unusual.

Yesterday was a great day for this team. Opus and Claire finally completed their hurried journey in to meet us and walked up to Plaza Canada yesterday afternoon to join the team, we are all finally together. On the way up Juancho and Oswaldo dropped down from the main team to help Opus and Claire carry their heavy loads up here to Plaza Canada camp.

The entire team is doing very well. Yesterday, the rest of us Martin, Klaus, Steve, Mike, Line, Dave Christie, David Cohn , Alex and Leila and I carried on immediately up to Condores camp, above 17,600 feet with the expedition’s ‘Bolivian Super Hero Team’ which includes; Simon as our cook again, Oswaldo, Juancho and Nelson. We have a large storage area up there, where we have plenty of food to support this climb.

We are getting our weather reports from William in Rio De Janeiro and Tracy back home in the Canmore office. I have to say for summit attempt on the 2nd of February, the current forecast looks quite good, winds are always a concern on Aconcagua, and we don’t think we are going to have high winds in the next couple of days. Snow fall is not a big deal, it is going to get colder though, and I can guarantee you that as we were all made aware of the cooler temperatures when we walked into the Nido de Condores camp yesterday.

Right now Simon and Leila are cooking cheese crepes for breakfast; everyone’s appetites are really good. We are all going to move up to the next camp, maybe the Condor and spend the night and see how we feel. We will keep reporting to you. Cross your fingers for us that the weather holds. We are loving everyday we are spending on Aconcagua as we climb closer to the summit.