Plaza Argentina base camp is at 4,200m and we were all beginning to feel the effects of altitude meaning it was time to spend a few days and acclimatize. I had a minor headache which is more than I had ever suffered from altitude in the past. But my appetite was still ravenous and the headache went away after taking an Advil. I was optimistic my body would begin to cope as we spent the next three days at Base Camp. Other members of the team had already started to take Diamox. Some for preventative reasons but others because they really needed it which was not a good sign.

After setting up our tents we gathered in the mess tent which is a somewhat permanent structure at Plaza Argentina. It stays erected for the entire climbing season. We gathered for tea and dinner and Mark explained the plan for the next few days. We would spend four nights at base camp and then evaluate how the group was doing. The first and third days would be rest days to aid in acclimatization. We were expected to go for a hike and do some exercise to elevate our heart rate for at least an hour but on those days the rest of the time was ours to prepare as we saw fit.

The second day was to be a “carry day” and Mark went into more detail on our approach to climbing the mountain. Many people are familiar with Alpine-style climbing from reading about Reinhold Messner. He made the approach popular in the 70′s after becoming the first person to summit Everest without supplemental oxygen. We would attack the summit expedition-style where you slowly move up the mountain establishing several longer term camps in a series of carry and move days. We would first ferry supplies up to a higher camp and stash them under rocks until we moved and established camp at that location at a later date. Because you are consuming fuel, food and other supplies as you go each carry day should theoretically involve carrying a lighter load than the previous day. Move days would tend to get more difficult the higher we went because there are fewer items you can do without as you get move up the mountain.

We all understood the carry to Camp 1 was going to be one of the most difficult days of the entire expedition, possibly only second to the effort which would be required on summit day. Understandably, everyone was a bit nervous with anticipation and wonder as we would soon find out how conditioned we were and how we stacked up to others on the team. The full-time cooking crew soon took our minds off this as they arrived with two rounds of soup, a monstrous meat and rice dish and dessert.

Base Camp Day 1: Rest Day

We awoke to the sound of a helicopter early this morning. I crawled out of the tent to see what might prompt such a commotion so early in the morning. I saw some people get in and the helicopter took off only to return a few minutes later. On the second trip you could hear the engine straining as a cargo net full of refuse and supplies was hauled out. When the helicopter returned for a third time toting away another full cargo net my curiosity wore off and I crawled back into my sleeping bag waiting for 9:00 to roll around when the sun would be shining and breakfast would be served.

When we finished eating everyone set about their own business. Some people did laundry and others headed off for a day hike. The guides all carried fuel and other gear to Camp 1 in an effort to reduce the loads we would have to carry the next day. One of the other clients on the trip, Jim, decided to help the guides. He was coming off ansuccessful summit attempt on Cho Oyo, an 8,000m peak in Nepal so he was well acclimatized. Later in the trip I would learn he was using Aconcagua as training because he was set to attempt Everest in May.

While everyone was busy running about camp I tried to relax in the morning by napping and taking pictures. The picture at the left is the view of the summit from the vestibule of my tent. You can see the moon setting over the Polish Glacier if you look closely. My head was feeling better today but I still was not 100%. After lunch I headed up the mountain in the direction of Camp 1 with my tentmate Mark and Jim’s wife Shannon. The trail to Camp 1 was easily identifiable but it was steep and had portions primarily consisting of scree making for a “two steps forward, one step back” kind of hike.

In an hour, with only our lightweight day-packs we managed to hike to a penitentes field. Early in the season these beautiful spike shaped snow formations are a bane to climbers because they are difficult to get through with a big backpack. Contrary to how they may look, they are incredibly strong often withstanding assault from a heavy mountaineering boot or ice axe. This late in the season the penitentes were smaller, a bit dirty and luckily for us a path had been blazed through and around them so they were not an issue. After the obligatory photos we returned to base camp about 40 minutes later. We learned the guides had carried full loads to Camp 1 and returned in about 3.5 hours making our hike seem like a meager effort.
Base Camp Day 2: Carry to Camp 1

After breakfast we exited the mess tent and Mark had divided all the common gear such as stoves, fuel and food, which everyone on the team shared, into fourteen, roughly even piles. We each grabbed a pile and put it in our pack along with any personal gear we didn’t need at Base Camp such as the heavy down pants, summit mitts and chemical hand warmers. A few minutes later we were headed off to Camp 1.

We took three breaks between Base Camp and Camp 1 including one which was a bit longer so we could eat lunch. But when it was all said and done it took us almost five hours to make the climb and the descent took approximately two hours. It was an incredibly tough day. Between the heavy packs, the last portion of the climb which seemed like it was straight up and the altitude everyone was beat by the time we sat down for tea in the mess tent. (The picture at the right shows the last half of the climb, the flattish area in the top left quadrant is where Camp 1 is located and the slope leading up to it is steep and nothing but very loose scree.) I felt fine with the altitude and I had been able to hang with the lead pack for the whole day but I was beginning to wonder if I had the strength and endurance to make it to the summit. Every step of the way I could only think “I should have trained more — the marathon wasn’t enough.”

Base Camp Day 3: Rest Day

After breakfast I headed out for another acclimatization hike with Mark, Kori and Bev. On the way back I noticed what looked to be a huge football pitch marked off with rocks. I joked to Mark about having a pickup game at 4,200m and then broke off from the group to clean up and do some laundry in the clean but freezing water from one of the nearby streams.

On my way back to camp a huge contingent of people from our expedition, other expeditions and some of the full time base camp staff were marching out towards me. It turns out Mark had mentioned the idea of a football game in passing and as word spread it just so happened there was a ball and the ground was set for an Argentina vs. the world match-up. We chose to make a smaller field than the full-sized one I had seen which turned out to be necessary. Most of us wouldn’t have been able to handle running a regulation field at this altitude. It was a beautiful setting for a game and we had a great time. In two games Argentina beat the challengers from the rest of the world both times, 3-1 and 7-0. We showed up to dinner ravenous and realized how incongruous the idea of playing soccer at Aconcagua base camp was with the notion of a “rest day”.

Camp 1 Day 1: Move up from Base Camp

We were all quite excited to be leaving Base Camp. The final logistical matter to take care of before making the move was determining the tent configurations for camps higher up the mountain. Since we had mule support through Base Camp we had brought extra tents and had not been filling any of them to capacity. In a strange foreshadowing of what was to come Mark told us that we’d spend enough time stuffed into tents so we should enjoy the luxury. There was one three person tent which only had one person sleeping in it.

We would need to consolidate and fill tents to maximum capacity higher up the mountain for two reasons:

• Less weight to carry. Mountaineering tents are heavy. We were using Mountain Hardwear Trango 3.1 tents which with guylines and all weigh in at over 5.5kgs/12lbs a piece. They divide up nicely amongst three people: poles, tent and fly all almost of equal weight.
• Warmth. While it might be a tight fit the body heat generated by three people in a three person tent is noticeable compared to just two people in that same tent. We all had sleeping bags rated to at least -29C/-20F but at the higher camps we were going to more than willing to trade the luxury of space for warmth.

On some expeditions determining sleeping configurations could be a troublesome task but luckily it went smoothly on ours. Mark and I decided we’d stay together since we got along well and Jim and Shannon wanted to stay together since they were married. So we approached Peter, who is a German living in Santiago and working for the German Foreign Service and his tentmate David, who is a South African working as a logistics manager for a mine. Shannon and Mark let them know we’d each adopt one of them and let them decide amongst themselves who would move where. David ended up moving in with Mark and I. This left the only other twosome, Yvan, a French Canadian greenhouse seed salesman, and Krzysztof, a Polish immigrant working as a general contractor now living in the Chicago suburbs to move in with Keith, a computer programmer from Scotland.

After breakfast we all packed up our tents, personal gear and the remaining community gear and headed off. From here on we would be self sufficient without the services of a permanent Base Camp service to rely on. It was a very long day but we moved at a significantly faster pace than we had on the carry day and were setting up camp four hours after we left.

The one troubling matter was that my new tentmate David who had not felt very well on the carry day was still feeling the effects of altitude. He hadn’t slept in two days and was feeling weak. He was able to hire a porter to carry his bag to high camp but we were all concerned because if he didn’t start to acclimatize and get some sleep in the next day it could mean the end of his expedition before we really even got started.

Camp 1 was in a position on the mountain which was more exposed than Base Camp so we did our best to setup in a small gully seeking some protection from the wind. But making camp still required a significant amount of time to pitch the tent because we were moving slowly and we had to build some sizable rock walls.

It had been a long day and we were all hungry. We had squash soup, burritos and Dulce de Leche Rellenos (a delicious chocolate covered sandwich cookie filled with Dulce de Leche, an Argentinean passion which I can most closely describe as caramel like). It was tasty but nothing like the food we had grown accustomed to at Base Camp. We all savored the onions, tomatoes and avocado because they would be the last fresh produce for the trip.
Camp 1 Day 2: Carry to Camp 2

Being at Camp 1 with three people cramped in a tent and stuffed in down sleeping bags a foot thick I experienced claustrophobia for the first time in my life. I spent the entire night feeling like I was drowning in down. With three people and all that down the tent felt like an oven which made it worse. David’s altitude sickness wasn’t getting any better and he did not sleep a wink for the third straight day. I think I slept for about 30 minutes and I looked pretty rough in the morning.

Luckily I still had my appetite which was a good sign and I was able to put away several servings of omelette at breakfast. I wasn’t going to let the last of the tomatoes, egg or avocado go to waste! Lack of sleep didn’t stop the activities for the day because we needed to carry the community gear and any personal gear we could live without to Camp 2. After breakfast Mark again had evenly divided gear for us to carry and this time I had hot drinks (tea, cocoa and powdered milk for 14 climbers is a lot heavier than you’d think!), fuel and water containers.

It was another long slog and about 30 minutes before we reached Camp 2 I was beginning to feel hypoxic which was similar to the sensation when you realize you’ve had one more glass of wine than you should have. At camp two we dumped the gear in a pile and then found all the big rocks we could to put on top of it. The intent was to keep it from blowing away until we were scheduled to uncover it two days later when we would move to Camp 2. Carrying 10-15kg (22-33lbs) boulders around at 18,000 feet just about took every bit of energy I had left. We took an extended break before heading down and I was still not feeling well. I was concerned my body was not going to acclimatize and was prepared to start taking Diamox as a last ditch effort as soon as I got back to Camp 1. However, the amazing thing about altitude sickness is when you start to descend, even the smallest delta makes a huge difference. Only 20 minutes into the hike back to Camp 1 I felt stronger than ever and the rest of the hike was uneventful.

David had spent the day at Camp 1 trying to rest but unfortunately he hadn’t been able to sleep and he wasn’t acclimatizing. If he was unable to sleep tonight it would be the end of his summit hopes and he would head down to Base Camp with one of our assistant guides.

Camp 1 Day 3: Rest Day

The hard effort of carrying to Camp 2 helped me sleep a bit better last night. I still felt like I was drowning in down but I was getting comfortable with the sensation and not sitting up gasping every 15 minutes like I was last night. We were in the tent for almost 14 hours because it gets cold as soon as the sun sets and you head into the tent a little around 7pm and come out for breakfast at 9am when the sun is again shining on camp. I probably got 3-4 hours of sleep. The general consensus amongst the expedition members was any more than 4 hours of sleep was a great night’s sleep.

At breakfast I learned not all oatmeal is like the Quaker oatmeal. In Argentina they grind the oats so it is much thinner and definitely less flavorful. However, the real shock was when I bit into the raisins and found seeds — they do not use seedless graps for their raisins here.

Shortly after breakfast David had a tough discussion with our lead guide Mark. In four days David had not slept at all. His eyes were very sunken and he had no energy. David would head back to Base Camp that afternoon with our assistant guide Marcela and from Base Camp he would walk out with a porter. Marcela would return to Camp 1 tomorrow because we needed her to assist with our move to Camp 2.

It was an emotional moment watching David leave camp. In a short amount of time most of the members of the expedition had become tight. We realized this was our family while we were on the mountain and tried to take care of one another. Having the extra space back in my tent made it feel that much closer to home and every minute in the tent it was evident what would happen if your body couldn’t handle the extremes of the mountain. Given my experience on the carry to Camp 2 yesterday this point felt extremely poignant.

That afternoon I went out with my tentmate Mark for another acclimatization hike. We hiked up to the big snow field in the middle of the picture at the left. While the views were fantastic we did not stay for long because we were encountering high winds on the mountain for the first time. When we made it back to camp we spent the rest of the day in the tent until dinner seeking relief from the relentless winds. At dinner time we braved the wind for all of 15 minutes and tried to eat together as a team. But as soon as we finished everyone dove back in to the tent. Inside the tents the wind was loud as any slack in the nylon flapped. Even with the rock walls and 16 ropes holding the tent in place (see picture at right) it would lean in the heavier gusts. Mark estimated the wind was blowing at 60km/h (37mph). It did not bode well for a good night’s sleep.