Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch
January 10, 2016 – Acclimatizing at Plaza de Mulas
It was a beautiful day today at Plaza de Mulas. Those of you who have been following us probably know that going back to before Christmas, there is been very bad weather on Aconcagua in all levels, including here at Plaza de Mulas. Very few people reached the summit, I understand that around new year’s eve and new year’s there were a bit of break in that and a number of successful summits and a few people made on the other days.
It has been a lot of stories of bad weather this year. It looks different for us. I can tell you that everybody when they came for breakfast today was wearing their big down jackets in our dining tent; it is cold until the sun comes up.
It is pretty nice around here today. A few people will likely take showers, you can pay extra for shower here of course. You pay extra for the limited access Wifi, that we have a few hours each day and we are able to make Viber or Facetime calls and get the messages out and I was able to get a few photos out to kind of show you how life is around here.
Our team is already climbing on the mountain. I haven’t spoken enough about the Bolivian team, Osvaldo, Maria, Sergio, Efrain and Javier. They did a carry to camp I today, with our first load, then they came down, actually they came down on time for our doctor check which the entire team is required to do here just like we did back in Confluencia.
We went down and saw the two physicians that are stationed now, Veronica that we have known for years and Anita. We all checked out, we were told to eat less salt, bit high blood pressures, not unusual at altitude and we were told to hydrate well, which we will continue to try to do it. It is not easy to acclimatize, we felt a few headaches but I think the entire team is doing really well. We will see about moving higher on the mountain just to look around probably tomorrow and we will be returning to Plaza de Mulas.
It is dinner time now... we are going into the dining tent at 8:00 pm, just before we came the dog took off with one of Scott’s yellow crocs, luckily Jason got it back. We have become great friends with this dog. I think Mac was thinking of inviting him into his tent to stay on Scott’s sleeping bag.
Listen to Wally's call
The team on the way to Plaza de Mulas
It was a long walk to Plaza de Mulas yesterday, but that seems distant now... we are getting used to life at high altitude at Plaza de Mulas now
Mac on the trail
Mathes at Plaza de Mulas
Danny enjoying tea time
Jason gets his blood pressure checked at the clinic today by Veronica. The entire team checked out and are cleared to continue acclimatizing.
Maria gets her blood pressure checked also by Veronica.