Trip Reports

Aconcagua - 24 November to 16 December 2018

Written by Leader Mara Larson, January 2019

This trip, friends, was one for the records.

Our first week nearly followed the classic Aconcagua script- blue skies, swirling precip, even a condor soaring within our first half hour in the park. Our second week – snowstorms of a category not seen in two decades! And then a brief intermission – an interlude for a day of calm before the finale -- a wall of the famed ‘viento blanco’ tearing across this slice of the Andes. 110+ km/hr unrelenting for day, after day, after day. Mother nature at her most vicious!

Our base camp days at the start of December had a familiar pattern. They began with Steve’s french press coffee, steeped with military grade precision. Kate, Catriona, and Michael bundled up in summit jackets waiting for the sun to hit our dining tent. Kate giggling beneath layers of wooly hats and loads of insulation. Catriona and Michael wondering what all the fuss was about, it’s just about on par with a weekend back home in Scotland? James stoking the fires of the morning debates on altitude and distance across the various team devices. And myself and Lucas preoccupied with the literal fire of our gas heater.

And once properly thawed we’d don our warmest double boots and start chipping away on the flanks of this now white-plastered peak. Our first acclimatization and carry up the mountain couldn’t have been farther away from the classic images of windblown scree. Crunchy neve and boot-tracked zigzags saw us from trailhead all the way to 4810m, the height of Mont Blanc’s summit. And from there a mix of rock and snow ribs more steeply up to 5000m and our Jagged Globe dome at Camp 1. A mixture of euphoria, relief, and exhaustion won over when ditching our food loads and various summit gear and crashing out on our wood-floored high elevation home. What shelter from the storm! It might not be it’s usual condition, but it certainly made the climb spectacular.

A return to base camp and a bit of rest and recovery and the hope that half a week of steady snows would subside and we’d see a return of the peak to her usual red-brown luster. No such luck. The opposite in fact as impressively the forecasted snow turned into proper snow showers. For the first time in my years out here, movement even below base camp came to a grinding halt! Snow 28km down the valley at Confluencia camp. The mules and teams in the lower valley now snowed in too! (And quite a bit of drama farther south at the pole as we later found out too).

But don’t think this meant broken morale and endless suffering. Alongside our team happened to be two famed Argentine jazz and blues musicians. One on his third climb of the mountain, the other his first run at swapping all-hours rock star life for pre-dawn alpine starts. Our afternoons meant lazing over extended South American lunches with impromptu saxophone and guitar jam sessions just beyond the tent. For all but Catriona it was a welcome backdrop to the afternoon R&R J!

The unexpected weather conditions though meant frequent changes of itinerary as we continued adapting the program to new conditions. Our final iteration was simply to attack the mountain in small and manageable pieces. No massive 10 hour days climbing and descending 1000 meters as per usual. Instead of major climbs and descents back to base camp, the team made the call to extend our time on the summit push, taking all our spare days to push our way up slow and steady.

We knew the chances were slim, and to add yet more challenge, the summit winds on our extended forecast certainly didn’t look promising. But we were here to challenge ourselves and learn along the way, so the aim was to go as far up as was safe and possible and see where this put us in a few days time.

But two days into the push - the mountain gave us a definitive answer. The wall of wind knocked us out and slammed shut the higher reaches of the mountain. Two nights with winds bashing tents this hardy bunch held on. A push from Camp Canada up towards Nido de Condores at 5500m was the final massive effort. Even the porters ahead on the mountain were abandoning loads below 5500 and descending all the way down to base. Snow just too significant to push through at these elevations. Back at Camp Canada the news came across the radio that the summit winds in 48 hours were now +110km/hr and increasing. Incredible. Our summit window was just no window at all.

So packing up all that we could, it was a swift descent off the peak and regrouping now for Plan C. We knew 6000m was out of the question, but thought we’d try one last summit of a neighboring 5000 meter peak the following day, getting a final big view across the Andes, and then escape out of these mountains just as these jet stream strength winds blew in. And that’s exactly what we did! A summit of Bonete on an unforgettable day, bidding farewell to Aconcagua and getting one proper scree ski descent in, a lunch tucked away in the sunshine beneath the jagged peaks, and then it was toasting over some well-earned beers and packing for an escape from the beast.

As you might have noted though, we were a good 24 hours into this new weather system before we properly made our exit. So, the final couple mornings even at Plaza de Mulas base camp still above 4300m were “notable” for the now gusting winds. How strong you ask? Strong enough that we watched a metal toilet tent blow over at the camp next door. Over breakfast we watched as an unsecured base camp tent or two took flight and launched all the way to the penitents gulley 200 meters away. And the doors to nearly all the dining domes blowing off hinges and impressively askew. Eggs and toast were had windsurfing style with shifts taken roping the doors closed, and falling over in hysterics as an unexpected gust hauled two of our local guides simultaneously off their feet as they attempted to secure the door for the 25th time. You’ll be unsurprised to hear their were only 3 summits in total on the mountain this November/early December. And all were previous to these double storm systems.

So in some true awe we finally bid Aconcagua farewell for this expedition. As the saying goes, ‘a smooth sea never made a skillful sailor’. In the rough seas of Aconcagua this trip, we learned far more than on her smooth and mellow days. Both about the mountains and about ourselves. And the biggest joy to me was the spirit and the energy this team built throughout this wild ride.

And it also meant that this clearly wasn’t a team willing to wallow back down in civilization. Ha. No rest at all actually. After a clean up and laundry it was straight off to the Andean foothills and the famed countryside. First for horseback riding and wine tasting, thankfully in that order. Then fly-fishing and barbecues for our Scots. Sight seeing in the Uco Valley. And then a two-day escape out to the famed Iguaçu falls for James. And finally recovery with the always classic wine tasting and steaks to round out the trip.

A side note that Kate did leave us a few days early. And I refrain from telling the adventure of her return to civilization as it’ll likely appear in her published writing one day soon!

So from all of us on Team Aconcagua, what a wild ride it’s been! Thank you to the whole team for turning these wild conditions into an epic adventure together. Steve, James, Kate, Catriona, and Michael this will be a tale for the ages. And thank you to Jagged Globe for the support throughout.

-Mara, Aconcagua Expedition Leader

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