Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch
January 23, 2010 – Summit Success!
It’s 2:00pm and I’m calling from the summit of Aconcagua, the very top of the Americas at 22,835ft/6,960m. The weather has been remarkably stable today. Even now that it is snowing, there is still not a breath of wind. So we’ve had it pretty easy as Aconcagua summits go.
I’m standing here on the summit with Alain, Isabelle, Hugo, Alex, David, Nelson and Osvaldo. Osvaldo asked me just before I dialled the number to tell everybody that we’re very emotional and very happy to be here together.
A few hours before we reached this high point, Juancho, Don and Kelly had already made it here to the summit. They gave us high fives and hugs on their way down as we continued to the top.
About three hours into our morning and about 300 metres above our camp at Independencia, Line came to me and said “I just can’t get warm”. She was shivering and even though she had on her huge down jacket and all of her warmest clothes, we decided that her energy level was not going to be high enough for the long summit day. So Line and Apolo returned to high camp together. Otherwise, the entire team is great and we are now about to work our way down.
Congratulations to this entire team, hello to everyone back home, and we’ll let you know as we get back to Berlin and continue to move off the mountain towards Plaza de Mulas and Mendoza.