Jussi Westergren’s Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch
February 3, 2011 – Acclimatizing and Keeping Warm at Plaza Canada
It is 10 o’clock in the morning Thursday, February 3rd. We just finished our first night at 16,570ft/5,050m, the camp on Aconcagua that we call Plaza Canada.
You know, acclimatization, allowing the body to adapt, is very important. Our bodies are wonderful machines and they make changes in miraculous ways to allow us to deal with changes in the environment. In this case, the higher we climb on Aconcagua, the lower the air pressure. Therefore, the harder it is for our bodies to absorb oxygen and pass it to the cells. But as I said, our bodies are wonderful machines and they make changes very quickly that allow us to adapt to the new conditions. It is important for us to go slowly so we can allow this to happen. That’s why we spent two nights at Confluencia camp, two nights at 14,108ft/4,300m at Plaza de Mulas, our base camp, and now we are up on the mountain at Camp I. We will spend two nights, at least, here at 16,570ft/5050m.
Now, Sara’s forecast from the Berg Adventures office in Canada turned out to be just right. The winds did increase during the night up to at least 15-25 mph/25-40kph. We are living in little nylon tents. We have three tents here, a small North Face tent for Jussi, a small North Face tent for me and a large North Face tent where Simon cooks all of our meals and where the guys live when they’re not preparing meals and serving. One thing you should understand is that we spend a lot of time here on the mountain in our tents and sleeping bags keeping warm. Last night after dinner we went to bed at 8pm and it was still light and this morning we did not come out from our tents until 9:30am, so we spent over 13 hours in our tents. I heard Jussi talking to Osvaldo this morning and he said, “It is like sitting in a cocoon. I think about my family, I do a little math, I organize my little house; it is quite nice.” So Jussi is learning that life as a mountaineer is simple, but you have to take care of details. You have a great opportunity to reflect and spend time thinking, which I know Jussi appreciates.
For breakfast this morning we had pancakes with fruit on top. Jussi reported to me as we went into the dining area, “This is becoming my favorite restaurant. We had tacos last night and pancakes this morning, great food.” After Jussi had fruit on the first two pancakes, he began to experiment and he reported that peanut butter and jam on top of pancakes makes another great dish.
It is this great food that gives us a quality of life here in the mountains, but it also allows our bodies to maintain the strength and energy we need to climb higher. We plan to climb up all the way to 18,0455ft/5,500m today, to the next camp, but we will return here to sleep. We will call to report how that goes as the day moves on, but just know that right now at Plaza Canada camp we are a happy team, we are enjoying breakfast and life is still good on Aconcagua.