Aconcagua Expedition Dispatch
January 18, 2016 – We Made It!
The weather forecast for Aconcagua today
We made it! The Berg Adventures climbing team stood on the summit of Aconcagua today. It’s been a very long day and a very, very beautiful day. Now, it is easy, almost 8 o’clock. I am watching Danny and Osvaldo descending the last section down into our high camp here at Berlin.
The team started climbing at 5 this morning. There were 8 climbers, four Berg Adventures guides and four Berg Adventures climbers.
It took hours just to get to Independencia, about 21,000ft, and it took many more hours to get into what we call the Canaleta.
Perfect conditions on Aconcagua summit day
At 22,000ft in the Canaleta, Jason realized that his energy level was too low to continue the rest of the way to the summit and got down without pushing too hard. So he and Efrain descended and made it back here safely at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon.
Shortly after they got here, actually before they got here; Chris and Javier had reached the summit and called us on the radio, and a few minutes later Danny, Scott, Sergio and Osvaldo reached the top.
Today was a remarkable day. Aconcagua is called the “Stone Sentinel” sometimes; I think that was all it was today, because there was no wind and it was not very cold, even though it’s always pretty cold at that high altitude.
So the team was given the responsibility, given the task to just climb, climbing that high into the atmosphere. I can look at their faces and see that they are extremely surprized how hard the effort was, but also extremely proud.
We made it, we stuck together as a team, and we will be here tonight at 19,600ft.
