Trip Reports

Aconcagua - 22 Dec to 13 Jan '19

Written by Leader John Armstrong, January 2019

Every expedition needs a communications and entertainments officer and on this occasion, team member Desi did a fantastic job on both accounts!! It quickly became obvious to me that those who had attended the pre-expedition weekend had formed a strong bond and a useful Messenger conversation thread had been established, thanks to Desi. Consequently, when we all met up in Mendoza it felt as though we all already knew each other and had found the exchange of questions and ideas really useful.

Christmas Eve saw us enjoying dinner in the hotel in Penitentes with several other expeditions from around the world, bound for various routes on the mountain. We enjoyed fine weather on our Christmas day walk to Confluencia where we spent the next three nights acclimatizing there and walking up to Plaza Francia.

The 8hr walk up to base camp at Plaza de Mulas came as an abrupt reminder of what lay ahead but the team soon fell into the regular routine of a ten minute break every hour walked, a strategy which served us well throughout the following days. Thankfully the day was not too hot or dusty and we reached the welcome hospitality of the mess tent and camp by mid afternoon.

After a days rest we enjoyed a lovely day climbing the nearby Bonete peak 5000m and planned our next foray to C1-Canada camp and C2-Nido de Condores.

In a deliberate attempt to avoid New Years eve festivities in basecamp we elected to stay over in C1 on 31st Dec, with a good nights sleep and clear heads we all managed to reach C2 in good weather on New Years day before returning to base camp.

Aconcagua is a tricky mountain to summit, not least because of all the many variables presented when on expedition and of course, the weather. It had become obvious that this season the weather pattern had been such that the windows of opportunity to summit, mostly due to the wind, had been limited to one or two days at a time followed by storm force winds for several days. Myself, Lucas and Augustine, our Argentinian guides, and the team had been watching the weather forecast carefully and concluded that there was only likely to be one small window of opportunity for us on Monday 7th Jan before the winds increased again for several days. So, after a rest day in base camp, we were off up to C1 and onwards to C2 where we had two nights to aid acclimatisation, the weather was fine and we could see summit teams negotiating the traverse and the Canaleta away above us. Sunday 6th Jan - a couple of the team returned to base camp due to acclimatisation challenges whilst the remaining four made their way to C3- Colera, ready for a summit bid next day, all looked good, forecast was for light winds and maybe up to 6cm fresh snow on the summit. As we ascended it did seem a bit windier than expected and then it started to snow and snow and snow….We were relieved to be dining in the group dome tent, of which there is one in each camp, before retiring to bed in preparation for our 0430 wake up and 0600 departure. Just before midnight a group of three returned from the summit to find their nearby tent completely buried in the snow which was now more like 60cm rather than 6cm!

Next morning the wind was still whipping the snow around the camp as we departed. Lucas led off at his usual steady pace with the team following behind dressed in every piece of warm gear they had. After a few hours and just before Independencia 6400m the wind increased again and sadly it became clear there would be no summit today or in fact over the next few days. The team returned to C3 and onwards to base camp later that day. Whilst all were disappointed not to have reached the summit, the over whelming view was that they had given it the very best go in conditions which had exceeded those forecast, and appeared to be in keeping with a very difficult season to summit.

The lure of warm showers and soft beds was strong so the team headed out next day to Confluencia, where we meet Alex Langdon coming in with her Jagged Globe team, and onwards to Penitentes and Mendoza.

Finally, I should like to thank the team for being such good company throughout the trip and wish them many happy days in the mountains in the future.

John Armstrong

16 January 2019

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