Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch

January 30, 2008 – Trek Up To High Camp

It is the 30th of January and I am calling your from Berlin Camp, our high camp on Aconcagua at over 19,000 feet.

The group came up here today from our existing camp, Camp 2, which is Nido de Condores camp. Now, as I told you yesterday the entire team has moved into Nido, this is an important camp for us at somewhere around 5500m. The Bolivian Super Hero team has stocked that camp with a lot of food. We are going to wait there until each member of the team has acclimatized to move higher in order to reach our summit attempt, which we will do out of this camp, Berlin.

The Bolivian Super Heroes are continuing to do remarkable work. Last night after we finished our dinner, Nelson dropped all of the way down to Plaza de Mulas base camp, to carry down a load of trash which had been accumulating. Of course, Nelson got up very early at Plaza de Mulas and before any of us went for breakfast he was back at camp 2.

Those who climbed to high camp with me today were Martin, Klaus, Steve and Mike; all four of these guys had seen this same camp last year in very, very different weather. As matter of fact they didn’t see it at all in the blowing slow and high winds we had last year.

David Christie and Leila, are just behind us now making the rest of their way into high camp. Line and Alex came up to the 300 meters, then returned to Nido camp. Opus and Claire stayed in Nido camp. They moved much faster to get there and they woke up with headaches. They knew they had to stay and not climb higher than Nido camp. In addition to Dave Cohn, who decided it would be best to stay in Nido and continue his acclimatization.

In about an hour and a half we will all be back together down at Nido de Condores, where we will keep watching the weather and crossing our fingers. We will continue to enjoy life high on Aconcagua, and take care of ourselves knowing in a few days time we maybe going to the top.