Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch
January 14, 2015 – Pancakes, Maple Syrup and Clear Skies at Plaza Canada!
Wow, what a morning at Plaza Canada today on Wednesday. There is not a breath of wind and the sky is perfectly clear. We are at 5,060 meter which is about 16,600 feet.
We went to bed with a couple of headaches last night but woke up this morning with everyone reporting no headaches and looking and feeling very good. It’s usually opposite when you go to bed your first night at a new elevation. But this team, because they are eating well, taking care of themselves and just acclimatizing well, are having the opposite experience. They all look good this morning. The weather may help.
The other thing that may help is Maria’s cooking. We did have our traditional first night at Plaza Canada taco night last night. People ate well we had fresh avocado, tortillas of course and lots of picante sauce. This morning was an amazing breakfast, Maria made pancakes. We do have maple syrup from Canada and we had scrambled eggs and ham.
Now life up here is not that simple. We have brand new North Face tents up here. We have big Agnes – our living and cook tent where Maria works and we have our meals.
We are still at altitude and the team are getting used to using Wag Bags. All solid human waste is removed from Aconcagua. We use the same bags and chemical powder system individually so people have their own and don’t have to do a group deal for management. We use these Wag Bags here and of course we carry daily down with our Bolivian porters and our waste is removed as everyone has to do on Aconcagua. Years ago here all of the camps smelled. We have close to 40 people maybe 50 sleeping here tonight. And believe me this place would be terrible if we didn’t use the new system.
So we are getting used to using Wag Bags, life at high altitude. The sun does not leave Plaza Canada until about 9 PM each night. We were out enjoying that last evening.
It doesn’t come back until 10 in the morning. We did in fact wait in our tents this morning until the sun came out and it was quite cold. Then we had that wonderful breakfast I described to you.
We are organizing some loads right now and our climbing team will climb partway up to our next camp the Condor today for conditioning and just to enjoy it. I want to take it easy as we get used to the first stage of the mountain, make sure we stay strong and stay on top of our game as we move higher on Aconcagua.
Later today:
Well it’s 4 in the afternoon and we have returned to Plaza Canada. The weather is still beautiful.
We all went for an acclimatization hike. We went about 1,000 feet higher than our immediate camp which we do sometimes just to see how we are doing. Rob and Gord used their heart rate monitors and kept on a steady pace and kept their heart at target range where they wanted it. The team enjoyed the beautiful weather, as well as climbing higher. This team is very well prepared, I am sure, and we are fortunate for the good luck.
Now, three of the Bolivian team did a carry all the way to Nido with really big packs. Maria stayed here in the kitchen. So she has everything prepared for us.
It’s several hours before it gets dark here so it’s good to be down here early, settle in a bit. Tomorrow we will be moving all the way to Nido de Condors camp and spend the night.