Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch
January 7, 2016 – The Team is Finally Entering Aconcagua Park
It is about 10 minutes to 10, 9:50am and I am standing at the Horcones Visitor centre, park entrance to Mendoza Provincial Park. Today the team is finally starting up the mountain, no more hotels, no more showers, we are going to be climbing higher and higher from this point. It’s been a crazy few days, travelling in Argentina, getting our permits, waiting on our delay bags, in case of Danny’s bag, having Mariela, Matias and Cosme (her young 2-month old son) deliver that bag last night at the Ayelen Hotel, in Penitentes.
The team at the entrance to Aconcagua Provincial Park
Everything came together in the end as it usually does. You know from the weather report and I am looking now at Aconcagua and I see nothing but dark clouds, it not raining now but you do know from my weather report, we are expecting rain today and it will change to snow as we move higher probably.
But weather changes, that’s the good thing, we are starting now in bad weather, we talked to a number of teams coming off the mountain who had the unfortunate experience to spend days and days up high with no chance to reach the summit.
We hope the mountain is more favourable to us and our aspirations as we move higher, but you know, it is one day at a time, we have a great team, Bolivian, American and Canadian parts of the team, all three. We are looking forward to being on the mountain, it is going to be hard, but we’ve got what we need and we are going to take a step at a time, as we climb, higher and higher and get our acclimatization done.
We will be at Confluencia camp tonight for the first of our two nights of acclimatization there, and they will be at the same elevation of the high point we were yesterday.
Listen to Wally's call
The team at the famous sign at Laguna de Horcones
Danny Andrade
Chris Von Gartzen
Scott Leech and Jason Funk
Ok, here we go we are at the famous sign at Laguna de Horcones, 2,950m above sea level, something like 9,700ft. or so.
This is a sign where we always take a picture when we begin. There is normally an imposing view of the entire South Face of Aconcagua behind and you can see all the way to the summit. Today we are just looking at clouds, but I got to report early in our first day walking that it looks better than expected. It is cloudy but right now it is dry, maybe we walk all the way to Confluencia without getting rain or hail. The team is on great spirits and it is great to be on the trail.
Listen to Wally's call
Woodie and Mathes
Mathes, in additions of all the excitement and the rigours of our travel so far, is keeping up with her studies and her homework from the Lovett School. She is working a couple of hours every evening and in our drive out from Mendoza to Penitentes, she was working in the van, as we drove along towards the mountain.