It’s -16C, and that’s inside the tent. Outside, the wind howls like a banshee, gusting from 40 to 80km/h. And this is a bright Argentinian summer morning.
We (father, sons and nephew) are at Camp 2 – Nido de Condores – some 5570m above sea level, trekking to the highest point on the globe outside the Himalayas.
It’s blowing so hard that the ceiling of our tent flattens to within inches of our faces. Wearing every scrap of clothing we have, we scooch further down into our sleeping bags. Ilan, our head guide, “knocks” on the tent flap and we invite him in out of the freezing wind.
At 6962m, Aconcagua boasts many titles – highest mountain in the Americas; highest mountain in the southern hemisphere; highest mountain in the western hemisphere. And here am I, almost halfway up, over 50, wondering if I’ll make it.
Ilan advises “you won’t make it”. Gee, thanks Ilan. He explains that the temperature at the summit is -70C (sorry, did I hear that correctly?), with over 120km/h winds. That forecast is to continue, so Ilan is canvassing the tents looking for consensus – descend back to Base Camp (it took two days to get here) or tough it out and hope for a break in the weather.
The trek has been well organised. In Mendoza, our gear is thoroughly checked by Ilan and another local guide, Mauricio. Bizarrely, my cheap ski pants, bought at a certain German-owned supermarket chain in Australia, are given the nod of approval, but my name-brand down jacket from a specialist trekking outlet isn’t up to the task. Also, my socks aren’t thick enough.
The guides take us shopping for whatever we need. We hire gear we haven’t brought with us due to airline weight restrictions (eg, sleeping bags) or don’t own and may never use again (such as double-plastic boots and crampons for walking on ice). And I bought socks.
With hindsight, this process was invaluable. I may have been incensed by the denigration of my expensive jacket – OK, and my socks – but on those subzero mornings, I was grateful for the guides’ insistence that I obtain better gear. Ours is an eclectic group – besides us four, there are three English, four Scots, one American and another Australian; two are female; five are over 50.
Of our guides, three are locally based and the fourth, Tendi, is a genuine Sherpa. Tendi is working here during the Himalayan winter and has summited Everest 10 times, though this is his first season at Aconcagua.
Unsurprisingly, he handles it with ease.
We travel from Mendoza by minibus through areas where Brad Pitt filmed Seven Years in Tibet to a comfortable hotel in Penitentes, and the next morning hike to Confluencia, a temporary camp comprising of dining tents and kitchens for the various trekking companies, a helipad, doctor’s surgery and even a volleyball court. We stay here at 3400m for three nights, undertaking acclimatisation walks to magnificent viewpoints and cold mountain streams.
The doctors examine us before we are allowed to proceed to Base Camp at Plaza de Mulas. One of our 13 is not allowed to go due to a fever, so we abandon him at Confluencia. I feel a little guilty leaving him behind – he is my nephew, after all (what will I tell his mum?) – but I quickly get over it and move on. Fortunately, he follows a day later with Mauricio, so his mum will never know.
The long walk to Base Camp takes more than eight hours and traverses grassland, desert, fast-flowing creeks, ankle-deep mud and rocky hills. It’s a relief to traipse into Plaza de Mulas with our heavy packs. This is our home for four days of altitude acclimatisation before attempting the staged summit of Aconcagua.
And what a home it is. It’s been helicoptered in and, along with each group’s kitchen and dining tent, it has three pubs, a shop, internet, the highest art gallery in the world (4370m) and even a plastic palm tree.
After a few acclimatisation hikes, including one to 5050m Mt Bonete from which we can see into Chile, and another medical check-up, we are ready to tackle Aconcagua. But by that chilly morning in Camp 2, our numbers have dwindled – three have already descended.
Ilan returns to our tent with news. “You four Aussies are the only ones who voted to stay. The rest want to go back down,” he informs us. So back down to Base Camp we trudge. We’re very philosophical about it – summiting isn’t worth frostbitten bits.
Ilan tells us he loves the Australian laid-back approach, instead of whinging about it, we continue to joke and have a good time. Ilan has seen heated arguments where climbers insist that guides take them to the top despite the danger.
Guide Tomas leads the rest of the group to Penitentes a day early. They are eager for hot showers, real beds and glasses of malbec.
But we four Aussies are made of tougher stuff, and spend our last day trekking to a glacial lake, having adjusted our focus from climbing Aconcagua to simply hiking in the high Andes. We end up cajoling Ilan and Mauricio into posing for photos with the Australian flags we had hoped to plant at the peak of Aconcagua. Maybe next time.
ESCAPE ROUTE
THE ANDES
GETTING THERE
The writer flew Qantas to Santiago (via Auckland), and then on to Mendoza, from where the trek began.
BackTrack Adventures in Brisbane organised the trip from the Australian end, with Fernando Grajales Expeditions providing on-the-ground services in Argentina, Mendoza to Mendoza.
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