Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch
February 6, 2015 – “We Are the Highest People in the World Today”
We woke up at 2:30 am, here at 19,600ft, Berlin camp, pretty mild night by Aconcagua standards, but certainly it is very high in the atmosphere, it's very cold. We are checking out what people are doing. Jim, whose oxygen saturation has been low quite bit during the trip, was not feeling that great. His oxygen saturation was still pretty low, healthy enough to be here but not a good sign for climbing higher and he had a headache. Jim decided to call Berlin his high point and he remains at high camp now.
We climbed a few hundred feet on the early hours and Leslie at about 6,150 metres, somewhere well up over 20,000ft, decided that was going to be his high point. Leslie is the other fellow on the trip who had lower oxygen saturation as he continued along and he wanted to try to climb higher than he’s been on Elbrus and he certainly beat that goal by about 500 metres.
The rest of us continued on to what really is the longest part of the climb for me and that’s the first hours after the Independencia, at 21,000ft.
Independencia is always a good breaking point for us, where we can assess how we are doing and Ed felt that he had reached a really good high point for himself today at 21,000ft. So Ed and I came down to see how Leslie and Jim were doing and the rest of the team members with the Bolivians, Osvaldo, Javier, Alex and Frein continued on towards the next big stop, the Candeletta at 22,000ft.
Like I said in the other dispatch, we are the highest people in the world today, we are quite sure, maybe somebody is over on Ojos or Mercedario but this is a big deal as this group climbs higher.
