Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch

January 13, 2010 – The Team Reaches Confluencia Camp

It’s just past 11am and the entire team has just entered Acongagua Provincial Park. We are now on our way to attempt to reach the summit of Aconcagua. We’ve said goodbye to our hotel in Penintentes and our last night sleeping in a bed.

Yesterday afternoon, after we returned from the pass and those beautiful views and our first attempt at acclimatization at higher altitudes, we returned to the hotel and we loaded large duffel bags that will be carried by the mules ahead of us. We loaded those on top of our vehicles and Juancho and the rest of the team drove them up to the corral where the mules would be. Then last night, before we had dinner, most of the group walked 600m above the hotel to a grassy col opposite the ski hill for a bit more acclimatization.

This morning was an interesting scene because the Dakar Road Rally, an off-road vehicle race, is doing an 8000mile/12,850km loop from Buenos Aires through Argentina and Chile and today they came roaring through the highway by our hotel. The race takes them through the same pass we were on yesterday. Alex is very interested in this road rally and he told us about the 220 off-road vehicles and 100+ motorcycles that are taking part in this 15-day event. It was colourful and fun to watch as we were waiting for our van to transport us to the provincial park.

Now I’m looking up from this beautiful little lagoon or lake right at the park entrance towards the same thing we saw yesterday, the imposing South Face of Aconcagua that leads right up to the summit where we hope to be standing before too long. This is an inspiring day to take off under the beautiful blue Andean sky. The team is getting along great together, we have a lot of fun, and the adventure now begins. Here we go!

At 2:30pm the entire team has now arrived at Confluencia Camp which will be our first multi-day camp on our acclimatization approach to ascend Aconcagua. We’ll be here for two nights at elevation 11,000ft/3350m. The weather remains perfect and the trail today was very beautiful. The team started walking at 11 o’clock and arrived at 2:30 which included taking a leisurely lunch break along the banks of the Horcones River. Things are going great and we’ll keep you posted as we continue to climb higher and work on our acclimatization on Aconcagua.