Aconcagua – Reaching Base Camp of the Western Hemisphere’s Highest Mountain

It seems only fitting after summiting my tenth 14,000 foot mountain here in CO this past summer that I share the story of my 14,000 foot climb in Argentina.

This story really begins at my roots, my dad and my Uncle John are mountaineers at heart, and it was hearing Dad’s stories about climbing Longs Peak that got me excited about summiting mountains too. I proudly jotted my name down at the top of Longs the summer when I turned 14, and aside from not being able to climb the stairs to bed when I got home, loved every minute of it.

With three 14,000 foot summits under my belt by the time I reached Argentina, I was looking for a similar adventure, and what better opportunity than Mount Aconcagua, the largest mountain outside the Himalayas at 22,841 feet.

Now, I know what you’re all thinking, and no, I don’t have a death wish. Summiting Aconcagua is a week to two week long process, with various camps, acclamation procedures, highly specific gear, and an enormous amount of training. In other words, not doable during my study abroad. However, reaching the first base camp, Plaza de las Mulas was doable, and at 14,340 feet, was more or less the equivalent of climbing one of Colorado’s famed peaks. The difference was doing it with 35 pound packs on a multi-day backpacking trek of a kind I had never undertaken before.

Fortunately, I had my best friend to undertake this adventure with, Ryan, who was gung-ho about the idea from our first visit to the mountain in the winter when we learned the initial details. Since my tent sleeps three, we thought of including a third person in our catamaran, but no one seems quite as insane as us, or maybe it was just the threat of being a third wheel as Ryan and I’s relationship progressed. Anyway, it ended up just being the two of us. And one. big. mountain.

We set the date for late November, the first weekend the mountain was open to climbers for our exhibition, and together we hurriedly started to amass all the gear, food, and supplies we needed for the trek. Luckily, Mendoza is the city base for all Aconcagua trips so it was easy to find suppliers of camping gear such as a sleeping bag that Ryan needed (I’d hauled all my stuff down there, because who wouldn’t bring 50 pounds of camping supplies with them?). More difficult however, was finding fuel for my stove (which burns white gas primarily, but is designed to burn practically anything liquid, including straight gasoline). For some reason the airlines don’t let you bring white gas on the plane, (something about terrorists), so I had to go hunting around the city. I ended up being sold some sort of flammable clear liquid in a recycled Pepsi bottle from a Ferretería (Argentina’s version of hardware stores). It was sketchy, (to say the least), but hey, whatever it was, it burned. 

Another key hurdle was obtaining permits to access the camp. As Aconcagua is one of the seven summits, (the grouping of the largest mountain on each continent and a goal for many expert, insane mountaineers), it’s easy for the country to charge HEFTY fees for access to climbers and get away with it. For Ryan and me however, $500 each to climb just to the base camp was not doable. So with a little convincing in Spanish, English, and pointing, we argued that our student visas gave us residency status in the country, although temporary, and with a stroke of luck, we were granted resident passes to the camp, for a whopping $40.

I remember the night before the trek, we went through all our gear and divvied up who was carrying what. We’d put together breakfast rationings, bought lots of pasta makings, and sandwich ingredients since Argentine grocery stores are typically not stocked with freeze-dried backpacking food, and REI has yet to penetrate the Argentine market (get on that Sally Jewell!). That night Ryan also asked me how many times I’d done this before. “Twice” I said, and never for more than one night. For him, it was his first backpacking trip ever. Three nights. 35+ lbs of gear per person. Over 5000 ft. of vertical gain.

In the morning, it was a slightly anxious bus ride.

Ok, actually it was a VERY anxious bus ride, but not because of the mountain. 

>>Comedic Interlude<<

Here’s the thing, whenever you climb a mountain, (or anything high for that matter), you HAVE to stay hydrated. From the wisdom of my dear old dad, I’d learned drinking a lot of water ahead of time is key, because if you start dehydrated, your body will never be able to catch up. So the diligent mountaineer that I am, I drank LOTS of water the night before and morning of. Then got on a bus.

For five hours.

With no bathroom service.

Ryan and I laugh about this story now, but needless to say, it was a painful lesson in how to ration water intake. Ryan experienced the pain too as I squeezed his hand as hard as I could the whole way there. And yes. I made it. And yes, Ryan still makes fun of me to this day.

>>Back to the Epic Trek<<

It's so far AWAY!

After checking into the ranger station and hearing the required spiel about packing out trash, checking in at each camp, etc. Ryan and I set off on trail, capturing this picture before we set out with Aconcagua’s snowy south face clearly visible. What’s deceptive about this picture, and a fact that ultimately made this backpacking experience extremely challenging, is that the mountain is quite a significant distance away – it’s just so huge it’s hard to notice.

This brings me to logistical challenge #729 of the trip, which was also probably the most frustrating. On the maps they issue to backpackers, the rangers make a strict point NOT to state distances between camps in useful metrics such as kilometers. Rather, they use time. So from the bus stop to the first camp, Confluencia, the map said “4 hours.” Now this seems a little objective, Ryan and I thought. Is this a park ranger hiking the trail in 4 hours? An average hiker? A mule? We still to this day have NO IDEA how far we actually hiked over the course of the four days, although we estimate it was somewhere around 30 miles round trip.

Luckily the first stretch of the hike to Confluencia camp wasn’t too challenging, and we only gained about 2000 feet in elevation. So I took lots of pictures to ensure we had no way of knowing how on par we were with the timing on the map (Ryan was thrilled), but I have to say the landscaping required it…

The first night at Camp Confluencia gave us our first real taste of professional mountaineering:

Camp Confluencia

               
The good: Rangers available to check in hikers and answer any questions, as well as double check you are prepared for the next leg of the journey.

                 
The bad: Huge permanent canvas tents (usually globular in shape) with bunks for trekkers who hire companies to carry their gear (and probably them) up the mountain. Wimps.

                 
The ugly: Helicopter landing pads (with a helicopter practicing landings) for the many emergency rescues that happen each season.

Our first night also afforded its first set of challenges (aka lessons of the outdoors Lisa will never forget). Like my stove struggling to burn fuel (something it started showing symptoms of at Valle de la Luna) and which was extremely alarming since we needed heat to cook our food. 

The good news was Ryan and I eventually set up camp, ate our pasta, and managed not to freeze too much while watching the sunset and the stars burst into light.

Day Two of the Trek was actually a simple day hike around to the South Face viewing point of the mountain. The rangers suggest this because it helps climbers acclimate, and because the South Face is pretty darn impressive.

Some mentally unstable people have actually ice climbed all seven glaciers to the top on this face. Ryan and I were content to just gape at it aaaaannnddd try not to get blown over by the crazy wind whipping us around that day like rag dolls. 

Unfortunately, my tent was not so lucky in avoiding the wind. When we got back to camp, we found it in a jumbled mess (even all our gear inside didn’t hold it down) but fortunately the rangers were kind enough to pile some rocks on it so we didn’t lose our shelter completely. Also very fortunately, the only structural damage was a bent pole, no tears, no breaks. Phew! Luck was on our side…

…until an hour later when my water purification (my battery operated ionizer) died on me. This is the epitome of a rookie mistake, but in my defense, Argentine stores do not carry the type of battery my water filter uses. Katy had to bring some down from the States with her when she visited. Luckily, I had a backup filtration system with me, and we met Hairy Columbian Man and Rich Alaska Dude who were kind enough to lend us their magical purifying wand (ya sure UV light kills water borne bacteria and viruses) and gave us a nice stash of Coca leaves.

>>Backstory on Hairy Columbian Man and Rich Alaska Dude<<

These guys, Ryan and I learned, were set on summiting Aconcagua, AND set on doing so without a guide. Hairy Columbian Man I wasn’t too worried about. He did Kilimanjaro by himself. Rich Alaska Dude however, even though he lives in Alaska, informed us that he doesn’t really hike a lot, much less mountaineer. To make matters worse, they were carrying more gear than humanly possible, including Rich Alaska Dude’s incredible amount of fancy, brand new gear. They were departing at the same time as us tomorrow for the push to Plaza de Las Mulas and we said we’d see them along the way.

>>Backstory on Coca Leaves<<

Coca leaves come from the cocaine plant, but, unlike its powdery relative, is not a toxic drug. Rather, coca leaves are used in the Andes for the same purpose the Incans used them for thousands of years ago, acclamation. Hairy Columbian Man instructed us to chew the coca leaves the night before heading up to Plaza de las Mulas at 14,000 feet and sure enough, neither Ryan nor I dealt with altitude sickness, but I did have the craziest nightmare dreams ever the night before, so we ruled no more coca leaves for Lisa.

>>Back to the Epic Trek<<

Hairy Columbian Man took our picture!

Day Three was the big day, and Ryan and I got up early (not quite as early as Hairy Columbian Man and Rich Alaska Dude) to start our trek upwards. We quickly caught up to our overburdened friends however and after walking with them a ways, realized if we were ever going to reach Plaza de las Mulas, we had to ditch them. Slowly the pair turned into smaller and smaller dots behind us as we crossed what I fondly called

Crossing the "Desert of Rocks"

“The Desert of Rocks.” The reality is, climbing Aconcagua is most doable from the west face, but the initial trailhead and check in station is a ways away from the South face of the mountain, which means not only hiking to the mountain, but then wrapping around it to start climbing the west face. Basically this equated into a very long, hot trek where we seemingly made no progress, in part because of the enormity of the landscape. The end of the Desert of Rocks always looked so near, and then two hours later, would seem like the horizon hadn’t shifted at all. And of course, our lovely map detailed absolutely nothing about how long the trek actually was across the Desert of Rocks, except that it was supposed to take us around, quote, “8 hours.” So we hiked, and hiked, and gained more and more elevation and marveled at how large everything was around us.

Can you find Ryan?

Ryan the mountain goat a switchback ahead of me.

Finally, we got to the most challenging part of the trek, the homestretch to the camp which Harry Columbian Man had warned us was very steep. Honestly the switch backs were comforting more than anything. At least we were going up and besides, this was more the grade I was used to climbing 14ers at home. The only difference was having 30 pounds of weight on my back… and all the dead mules. Apparently this part of the trek is the most treacherous for the mules that frequent said “camp of the mules.” Ryan and I were certainly disconcerted by all the bones and slowly decomposing corpses. Lovely.

Fortunately we made it to the top of the climb and were greeted by a full view of the west face of the mountain with a condor flying majestically above us (probably waiting for us to clear out so he could head back to feast on mule). If you didn’t think about that part though, it was really quite an incredible moment.

Made it!

Plaza de las Mulas was more than a welcome sight when our weary legs finally brought us to the Ranger Station for check in. They were concerned by my bloodshot eyes (I blame the coca leaves) but once we convinced them we were ok, they snapped our commemorative photo and sent us along our way to set up camp.

I couldn’t believe we were at 14,000 feet. Sure I was goofy and lightheaded (Ryan can attest to my silliness), but it’s sort of hard to convince yourself you’re that high when you’re used to this view at 14,000 feet:

And this time you see this:

Cook baby cook.

Yup, we were in a valley for Pete’s sake, and nowhere near the tallest feature. Aconcagua looming above us was still another 8,000 feet up.

Aconcagua's west face.

Nonetheless there were vault toilet structures and more of the large domed tents for group treks. We were originally told we’d have to pay to use the toilets since they were operated by private trek companies, and that we couldn’t go number two anywhere else, but one company was nice and let us use their bathroom at our will since it was still the early season and not many mountaineers were around yet. Just us crazy exchange students.

Luckily, our water for dinner boiled quickly, but unluckily we had to melt and slowly filter the water since it came from a nice patch of snow (the water source was still frozen at that time). We were racing the sun at this point, but Ryan and I had become quite a team between Valle de la Luna and this trek and our efficiency paid off with nice warm bellies and sleeping bags set up before the sun set, which, when it did, was quite the spectacular sight.

Also unfortunately, we were very hyper aware of the fact that Hairy Columbian Man and Rich Alaska Dude did not make it to camp, at least not before darkness fell, and we hoped they were camped out somewhere safe, not among the mule bones.

Sometime during the night, Ryan got the courage to actually get out of the tent and observe the stars at 14,000 feet. I kinda did, but I was not willing to leave the warmth of my sleeping bag and so just stuck my head out as far as I could and craned it upwards. It was quite breathtaking, both the cold and the stars. The constellations are different in South America, so the glittering canvas above me was quite unfamiliar, however it still had the same humbling effect and I found myself zipping up the tent and feeling a little more blessed than I had just a minute ago. I think Ryan stayed outside star struck for a good few minutes before succumbing to the biting cold and retreating back into the tent.

The next morning marked our last day of our epic trek, and Ryan awoke to find his contacts frozen solid in their case, which had been in the tent all night, thus proving our hypothesis that it was around 25-30 degrees in the tent, and probably in the teens outside. What was worse was the other frozen device, my water filter, which was rendered useless by the frozen mechanisms inside and was my last backup for water purification.

Since Hairy Columbian Man and Rich Alaska Dude wouldn’t be able to come to our rescue (they were still not in camp the next morning), we decided we’d have to conserve water as much as possible, then fill up at Confluencia when we passed by.

Thus began our grueling trek back down from Plaza de las Mulas: Across the God forbidden Desert of Rocks, to Confluencia Camp for water, then down the valley to the Visitor Center, THEN down the highway to the bus stop. And we had to do it all in time to catch our bus home.

After a final goodbye to our campsite and Aconcagua, we set out on trail only to run into Hairy Columbian Man and Rich Alaska Dude not far from camp. They had camped out on the side of the trail in the Desert of Rocks while the sun was setting, knowing it would be unsafe to continue during nightfall. Ryan and my reaction to this was, “good thing they had the sense to stop before dark,” followed quickly by, “but do they have the sense to realize if they can’t make that trek, they probably won’t summit?” We never saw those two characters again, and Ryan and I wonder to this day whatever happened to them. One can only hope it wasn’t a tragic end.

Hours and hours and hours seemingly later we finally crossed the Desert of Rocks with Lisa thoroughly angry about how long and vast the Desert was. We came to Confluencia not long after our water ran out, and eagerly filled up our bottles for the last haul, hoping the system the Rangers had in place did indeed require no filtration as they said. Otherwise it was going to be another miserable bus ride home.

One last look back.

It was as we were heading down the valley to the Visitor Center that I really started to fill the pain in my boot. As we were crossing the Desert of Rocks, my feet had been battered by the uneven surface of the rocks (there was not trail per se) and every time my left foot slightly rolled outwards, I felt an excruciating pinch on the side of my foot. No matter, we still had to keep hoofing it to get to the bus, Ryan rather blindly and me slightly maimed. We did come across a train of mules and their Argentine shepherd, heading up the trail laden with supplies for the two camps. I debated trying to climb onto one and forcing it downhill, but then I remembered all those mule bones up by base camp and decided maybe guiding a mule down the trail would not be my best bet to get home.

Mercilessly, we finally caught site of the Visitor Center, where we dumped all our trash, checked out, and officially claimed our trek up Aconcagua a success. But it wasn’t over yet, since we still had to walk down the highway a few miles to Puente del Inca to catch our bus.

I cannot even describe how painful those last few miles were. Luckily we were on pavement, but nonetheless every inch of my body was screaming to make it stop. By the time we reached the bus stop we had descended 5000 feet over approximately 15 miles, and had hiked consistently for 10 hours. The bus picked us up not ten minutes later.

Winding back down the mountains to Mendoza, Ryan and I were exhausted, but happy. We’d conquered a pretty major challenge with lots of little challenges built in too. And we did it together. Without ripping each other’s heads off. I’m not sure which was the greater achievement, but we definitely felt closer for it.

Laughing together on the way home about our adventure, Ryan and I decided one day in the future we won’t turn around at Plaza de las Mulas. One day, we’ll make it to the top.

-Lisa en Argentina

P.S. After taking off my hiking boot, I discovered the source of the pain in my left foot. It was a huge blood blister about the size of a quarter and raised a good half inch out from my foot. Yikes!

For less disgusting content, stay tuned for decent to sea level the weekend following Aconcagua, in Valparaiso, Chile (preview below).