Aconcagua Expedition Dispatches
January 19, 2009 – Good Judgment Key As Team Climbs to Higher Altitudes
The peaks of Aconcagua are towering over the team as they climb higher and higher
It’s Monday the 19th of January. We have clear skies and very nice weather at Plaza de Mulas.
Yesterday the team did its first carry to one of the upper camps on the mountain, Plaza Canada at 16,500 ft / 5,000 m; which we will say is our Camp 1. This is already the highest point that some of the team members have ever been in their lives. The team did great! It was a good introduction to see what carrying our loads up these steep slopes of Aconcagua will be like. We’ll spend a few minutes up high and then return to Plaza de Mulas.
Yesterday’s weather, by the way, was quite windy and it snowed for most of the day.
We’ll miss Steve Lombardi on this trip but look
forward to many more adventures with him
Getting used to altitude is always an unknown. We come prepared, are always cautious and make good judgments. Yesterday morning Steve Lombardi, who has been on a number of BAI mountain adventures around the world plus many others and who knows his body well, told me in the morning that he has that gurgling feeling in his lungs. Steve has had pulmonary edema in the past and is susceptible to it so we took him down. It was confirmed by the doctors at Plaza de Mulas that Steve had fluid in his lungs. He went in a helicopter just a few minutes later back down to Penitenes. Steve is fine and we appreciate him giving it a try. We are going to miss him but we know that he will be with us in the mountains again. We are just very happy that we could get him out of here when that old problem occurred.
Scott was a fantastic addition to this team!
His enthusiasm will be missed
This morning Scott, Steve’s nephew, who is an amazing athlete and also has had many mountain adventures around the world, told me that he had a headache and a bad cough. The cough seemed to be related to cold weather in his lungs and asthma symptoms. To be sure we took Scott down to see the doctor and sure enough they listened to his lungs and said that he needed to take a helicopter out. Leila called down to the hotel in Penitenes where we knew there was a 9:00 ride back to Mendoza for Steve and she told them to hold the car for Scott. Just a few minutes later Scott and Steve were headed back together to Mendoza. Scott has been one of the real leaders in terms of moral and spirit on this team. I know he was disappointed about leaving but he said that he’d be back and that he wanted to go home and get in shape for another mountain another year.
Steve and Scott will soon be back in Mendoza, we will miss you guys! The rest of the team is now going to carry on. We will still report daily as we make our way slowly up Aconcagua. We hope the weather holds and our health remains good as we continue up to the summit.