Aconcagua Expedition Dispatches

January 17, 2009 – Team Checks in from Plaza de Mulas

It’s Saturday the 17th of January and I’m calling you from Plaza de Mulas Base Camp at 4,300m/14,107 ft on Aconcagua.

The weather on Aconcagua continues to change. Yesterday after reporting perhaps the best day I’ve ever seen on this mountain and what surely must have been a perfect summit day, I woke early this morning to see a very nasty looking cloud cap on the summit of Aconcagua. Now here at Plaza de Mulas, we have complete cloud cover and quite a bit of wind.

Right after breakfast this morning the guys brought over their high camp gear, gear that will be pushed higher on the mountain and the BAI staff is getting ready to assemble the loads that they will carry up to our high camps today. The climbing members of the team are still acclimatizing. First thing this morning, Leila took everyone’s pulse oxygen saturation level as a baseline to record to see how well we are doing with our acclimatization now that we are over 14,000 feet.

We also continue to have mules coming into Plaza de Mulas with supplies. Steve Whittington and Dan were still waiting for some bags of their climbing equipment, but it has now arrived and everyone is set. Now that we have all our gear, we are ready to begin to go higher up the mountain.

Acclimatization at Plaza de Mulas is about internet, showers, anticipation about going higher and watching our bodies. We are having a great time in this interesting place! People from all around the world have come here to climb South America’s highest summit.

We will keep reporting to you daily about the weather as well as our progress as we attempt to reach the summit of Aconcagua