Highest peak of the Andes

My mountaineering destination for 2015 was South America’s highest peak, Aconcagua, located in the Argentinian part of the Andes mountain range, with an elevation of 6961 metres. This was my fourth expedition guided by Ryan Waters and Mountain Professionals and my fourth attempt to climb one of the Seven Summits.

After a ten hours’ flight from Frankfurt, I arrived on the 7^th of February in Buenos Aires at 8 AM and found it around 40 degrees warmer than when I left Oslo – from minus ten to plus thirty. The flight to Mendoza, at the foot of the Andes, took another two hours. Ryan picked me up at the airport and took me to our hotel where I met our second guide Chhering and the other two team members, Jodi and Richard. Of course, Mr. Nansen accompanied me on this trip as well.

The following day, we drove to a small town called Penitentes, which is a ski resort in the winter, but looked more like a ghost town in the summer. Here we packed our stuff and organised the last things, and the next day we started our three days’ hike into Base Camp Plaza Argentina. Our plan was to traverse the mountain, that means we ascended on the Ameghino/Upper Guanacos route and returned down the normal route after the summit back to Base Camp Plaza de Mulas.

Hiking into Base Camp

The trailhead was only a few minutes’ drive away from Penitentes. It was sunny and warm, but there was always some wind, so the temperature felt quite all right. Mules carried our luggage into Base Camp. They passed us shortly before we reached our first camp Las Lenas at 2900 metres, so that our entire luggage was available when we got there. We had burgers for dinner and went back into our tents quite early because it was windy and chilly outside and the warm tent seemed more tempting.

The next morning we left at quarter past nine. We had quite fresh air in the morning, but after an hour or so, the sun came up behind the mountains. So soon it was very warm again, and it became a very nice hike. The camp, Casa de Piedra at 3200 metres, which we reached shortly after three o’clock, was pretty small and packed with tents. I was looking forward to moving into Base Camp where we would have a bit more luxury with a kitchen tent to sit in.

Day 3 started with a real highlight: We had to cross the river next to our camp on mules – the most fun part of our trip that far. After that, we had a beautiful hike through a sunny valley with a little river. We stopped for lunch and took some good photos there. After about seven hours, we reached Base Camp Plaza Argentina at 4200 metres. Here we had our own dining tent and good service by the Fernando Grajales staff who are Ryan’s local partner here. We got a little bit of snow that evening, but overall, we had been very lucky with the weather so far.

The next day was a rest day for acclimatisation, which was very relaxing. We got up late, had a good breakfast, hung out at the dining tent, had a short discussion with Ryan what equipment to bring to the upper mountain, pizza for lunch, then a short hike in the afternoon up to 4400 m, a quick medical check at the base camp doctor, and finally dinner. We went to bed at half past nine because the next morning, we were planning to do a first carry to 5000 metres. Also at Aconcagua, we followed the “climb high, sleep low” approach, which means that you carry a part of your equipment to a higher camp in order to acclimatize to the higher altitude. Then you return to your previous camp to sleep there, and you move up to the higher camp the day after.

From Base Camp to Camp 1

We started at nine o’clock and carried some food, clothes and our boots for the upper mountain to Camp 1 at 5000 metres. It took us approximately four hours to get there. The backpack was heavier than the previous days when the mules carried most of our stuff, but it was still OK. After we came back, we chilled in the dining tent and then for an hour in our tent. It was a very warm day again, but now it become chillier in the afternoon. Unfortunately, we had to change our schedule a bit. The next day, we were supposed to move to Camp 1, but a bad weather system was forecasted for the 18^th to 20^th of February. We did not want to be high on the mountain then, i.e. not higher than Camp 1, so we took another rest day in base camp. Jodi, Richard and I went for a hike in the valley on the other side of the camp. Then we had lunch and chilled for a while in the lounge. In the afternoon, I went for an acclimatisation hike again 200 metres up from the camp. I also used the rest days to learn Spanish with the Babbel app that I had downloaded on my iPhone before the trip. The new weather forecast Ryan received, looked better for the 19th and 20th, so we decided to move up to Camp 1 the following day and take it from there.

We left Base Camp at ten o’clock in the morning. My backpack was not too heavy, so the ascent was not a big deal. At two o’clock, we reached Camp 1 where our “secret weapon” Chhering had already set up our tents. Chhering is used to living in high altitudes. He can climb mountains at an incredible speed and was a tremendous help for us in several occasions during our expedition.

From Camp 1 to Camp 2

On day 8, we continued our ascent and made a first carry to Camp 2 at 5425 metres. When we reached the saddle on our way there, a new mountain landscape opened up for us on the other side and we enjoyed the view. We made it to Camp 2 and back in four and a half hours including a break up there. The new weather forecast for the coming days predicted snow instead of wind. We planned to move up to Camp 2 the next day, have one or two rest days there and sit out the potential bad weather. I had been struggling a bit with a cold that I had got right before I left to Argentina. I still had not really got rid of it, so I was using nose spray and other medicine to free up my nose.

We left Camp 1 shortly after ten o’clock in the morning and had a pleasant hike to Camp 2 – despite our quite heavy packs. Camp 2 was very nice and had a beautiful view towards the mountains in the West. It was very cold in the camp in the evening. The glacial river that carried quite a lot of water during the day was already completely frozen before sunset. Now it was even colder outside, but warm and cosy in my sleeping bag.

We had scheduled a rest day for the next day, but we could not have moved anywhere anyway because a storm started in the evening and did not stop during the day. I was awake most of the night and spent most of the day in the tent, except two necessary short visits outside. Apart from that, Ryan brought us breakfast and lunch to the tent. Inside the tent, Richard and I were trying to kill time. We were prepared that the next day would most likely be another rest day, but I hoped that the weather would become better so that we could at least leave the tent for a while.

Fortunately, the first storm disappeared in the evening so that we had a calm night, and I actually slept well. We had a nice start of the day, too, with sunny weather and cold temperatures. Later during the day, however, clouds moved in again, and a second bad weather front hit us. We got some more snow, but the storm ceased in the evening. Our new plan was to move to Camp 3 tomorrow regardless because the 21st seemed to be our window for the summit while there was a bad weather forecast both before and after.

But it turned out differently. This storm was really persistent. We were supposed to leave at nine o’clock in the morning, but we did not even start to get ready when we woke up because the storm outside was still raging. Ryan came with breakfast around ten, then we had lunch at some point, and I was outside once to go to the bathroom – which is always a bit of a challenge outside in a storm. In the evening, we had dinner, and when I was out of the tent afterwards, the only thing that had changed was that the wind and snow were coming from all directions at the same time now. So we went to bed and hoped again for better weather tomorrow.

Move to High Camp

Finally, on day 13 of our expedition and after four nights in Camp 2, we could move on. Although it still was a bit windy, we were the first team to break down the tents in our camp. Some teams had aborted the climb due to the storm and moved down. Others followed us later on our way up. We had quite a bit of snow, which made the trail a bit challenging, especially for Chhering who was breaking the trail. When we reached Camp 3, aka Camp Colera, at 5972 metres, there was a lot of snow there, too. Grajales expeditions had a storage dome here. The initial proposal was that we should all sleep in there on the ground, but Jodi and I preferred to sleep in a tent, so we had a bit more comfort before our summit attempt.

Summit Day

The 22nd February 2015, day 14 of our expedition, we started our summit attempt. Although Jodi and I had the comfort of a tent for ourselves, I had hardly slept (as usually before summit day). We left at 5:30 AM under a beautiful starlit sky. It was cold, but quite OK temperatures and not too much wind in the beginning. Already at the Independencia hut, early in the morning, I was quite exhausted and realised that it was going to be a tough day for me. The way to the summit seemed endless from here, but I had to move on. Shortly after, we could enjoy a beautiful sunrise, and it was nice to feel the first warm sunrays warming our skin. During the last hour before summit, we split up a little bit so that everybody could walk in their own pace: Chhering went first, as always, Jodi went second, followed by Richard and myself. Ryan stayed behind me.

After more than eight hours, at 2 PM, we reached the summit. What a feeling after this long effort! We had a perfect 360 degrees view and took some pictures, of course. There was hardly any wind at the summit, so contrary to what I had experienced at Denali the year before, we actually spent quite a while up there and enjoyed the moment. The way back down to Camp Colera took us almost three and a half hours, which is more than usual, so apparently we were tired.

Return to Base Camp Plaza de Mulas and back to Mendoza

We left Camp Colera at ten o’clock in the morning and started our descent towards Plaza de Mulas Base Camp. The first part was very steep, which gave me the chance to take a nice video with my GoPro camera. I enjoyed the rest of the trail down to Plaza de Mulas, which Jodi, Ryan and I reached first. Richard, who was very dehydrated on summit day, used a bit more time for the descent and arrived a bit later together with Chhering. When everybody was there, some of us enjoyed a cold Argentinian beer. Ryan ordered a helicopter, and we had a spectacular flight out of Base Camp to the trailhead. We arrived at Mendoza shortly after 11 PM. Then we had a late dinner at a cool restaurant before I finally went to bed in my very big and nice hotel suite. I spent two more days in Mendoza, mostly relaxing at the hotel pool, eating some good Argentinian steaks and tasting some Malbec red wine. Then I spent two days in Buenos Aires, a very cool city, before I returned from the Argentinian summer to the Norwegian winter.