Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch

January 6, 2015 – Acclimatization Day

It’s the 6th of January and I am calling you from an elevation of 12,800 feet above sea level on the crest of the Andes right on the Chilean and Argentine border.

Our team of 12, 7 Canadians and 5 Bolivians, are together now. In fact we are ready to enter Aconcagua Provincial Park tomorrow to begin our climb. Now it’s been a busy few days for Elaine, Leah, Rob, Doug, Gord and Chuck on since they left Vancouver on American Airlines. Curtesy of American Airlines and a delay they got to spend a day in Dallas being tourists, going down to the museum at the Texas School Book Depository where JFK was assassinated. After one day of being Texas tourists they got to continue south. We were all together in Mendoza for a wonderful overnight and I think you have seen some images of that. We enjoyed steak and wine, fine wine – as you should do in Argentina. Mariela was an excellent hostess as always.

Yesterday we travelled out to Penitentes along the highway along the border. We have begun our acclimatization in earnest now.

Great adventure awaits us and the team looks really healthy. We are pleased to know that we’ve got everything we need. The mules are pulling out tomorrow to take our High Camp loads. We will be travelling somewhat slower, acclimatizing as we go.

We’ve got cloudy weather today. We couldn’t get a view of the summit of Aconcagua and here on the pass it’s feeling like we may have some weather ahead.

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Later today:

I’m calling you from the pass between Chile and Argentina 12,300 feet high.

We have been up here a couple hours and when we first arrived it was a bit cloudy and cool and now it has become extremely windy.

We are going to get in our van and drive back to Penitentes, where we will have lunch. We are going to pack our duffel bags and go out to the corral where they will be loaded on the mules this evening.

The team is doing great! Six of our team members from the West Vancouver area, Elaine, Leah, Rob, Doug, Gord and Chuck, the whole team is happy to be in Argentina.

We have had a lot of steak and wine so far and we are still enjoying some of that. But tomorrow we are supposed to walk into the mountains and we will keep you posted as to how that goes as we move higher.

For our first trip to high altitude today, just know that we are all extremely excited, happy to be with Osvaldo and the Bolivians. We can see that the 12 of us together are going to have a great climb on Aconcagua.

Stay posted and we will send you the news as we can. We will try to get photos out sooner or later from high on the mountain.

We are doing great in Argentina. We are on the border now and back out to Penitentes this afternoon and the team is really happy and excited.

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