American high
I had been squirreling away my miniscule daily allowance of chocolate bars for this moment. Ever since our supply of sweets had become contaminated by a burst can of kerosene on the walk-in to base camp (lesson: don’t put stove fuel and rations on the same recalcitrant mule), edible energy bars had been in short supply. On a week-long trip, this mishap would have been a minor inconvenience. On a five-week expedition, it was a major issue.
The solution had been to cannibalise our base camp stores and press jars of dulce de leche and crackers into service as on-the-go food. But I knew that on summit day, I would want the familiar taste of British chocolate. Which is why the four untainted Mars Bars that I had been allocated had remained untouched in the base of my pack. Until now.
We were two hours into what would become a 16-hour round trip to the roof of the Americas and I was hungry as hell. It was time for a shot of the sweet stuff. Feeling like a sub-zero Charlie Bucket, I slid the calorie-rich stick from the folds of my duvet jacket, where it had been thawing for the previous half hour, and tore open the black-and-red wrapper with my gloved hand.
Then, my climber partner, Darren, made a strange remark: ‘There’s a dog over there.’
If we had been at sea level, or in an urban or rural environment, such a comment would have elicited no more than a grunt of acknowledgment. But we were six-and-a-half kilometres above sea level. At this altitude, nothing and no-one survives for long. There could be no dog. Which meant that Darren was hallucinating. Which meant that he was possibly suffering from acute mountain sickness. I silently berated myself for not noticing the signs earlier in the day and decided to play along with Darren. By reassuring him that I had also seen the dog, perhaps I would be able to cajole him towards the temporary safety of our top camp before he lost the ability to walk.
‘Yeah, I see the dog,’ I said, stuffing the half-opened chocolate bar in a pocket. I kept my eyes glued on Darren and didn’t waste time by looking around.
‘Here boy,’ said Darren. He was in a worse state than I had imagined.I finally glanced up to see a mutt bounding towards Darren. Seconds later, they collided.
‘He looks hungry,’ said Darren. ‘Give him one of your Mars Bars.’
Which is how I ended up losing my precious chocolate bar to Scooby Doo near the summit of Cerro Aconcagua on my second attempt in three years to climb South America’s highest mountain.
Minutes later, we were on our way again. We looked around for our new companion, but Scooby had vanished.
Energy-sapping slog
As we had discovered to our cost at the start of the expedition, you can have the right kit but it counts for nowt if it’s packed incorrectly. Before strapping all of our chocolate and fuel to the flanks of one pack animal, we gave ourselves a scare after freighting our gear to Chile as airline-sponsored excess luggage in blue expedition barrels. Unbeknown to us, the containers were promptly carted off by Santiago airport’s baggage handlers.
After we had spent several hours waiting fruitlessly for our belongings, an official took pity on us and suggested that we check the cargo terminal. After that, squeezing barrels and bodies into taxis for a day-long drive along the Pan-Andean highway to the border with Argentina and the start of the walk-in to Aconcagua was easy.
When you think about a mountaineering expedition, it’s easy to become consumed with thoughts about gear that keeps you warm. But heat retention is sometimes the last thing you want. Take the trek to Aconcagua. It’s a hike of several days that involves a significant gain in altitude. Unless it’s cloudy, the trek quickly deteriorates into an energy-sapping slog through a desert landscape that wouldn’t look out of place in Lawrence of Arabia. I didn’t give a thought to sun protection on my first expedition to the mountain and ended up sewing a blue J Cloth to the back of a wool Kangol cap to prevent the skin on my neck from blistering.
On most climbing expeditions, your fabric or leather trekking boots are kicked into touch on arrival at the foot of the mountain and thereafter used only on rest days at base camp. On Aconcagua, however, it’s usually warm enough for trekking boots to be worn as high as Camp 1. Your insulated boots needn’t come into play until this camp has been established and you’re starting to haul loads up to Camp 2.
Whirling winds
Aconcagua was my first experience of a cold and dry environment. I discovered that above base camp, waterproof clothing, however breathable, was unnecessary. The added weight of a waterproof and breathable laminate could be discarded in favour of a lighter, snow-shedding, windproof nylon. And that was important because, boy, did the wind blow. Aconcagua, otherwise known as the Stone Sentinel, is infamous for the tent-shredding gales that whirl around its upper ramparts.
On my three expeditions to Aconcagua I took plenty of tents so that base camp and at least one camp on the mountain could co-exist. This saved everyone from relaying heavy tents up and down the mountain on a daily basis. On one occasion, two team members fell ill and needed to descend for a rest. They were able to do so safe in the knowledge that a comfortable and spacious tent was waiting for them. In the event that the mountain camp had been destroyed by a blizzard, kit at base camp would have been used to help re-establish the team’s presence on the peak.
Adventurous trekkers who want to experience many of the facets of a big-mountain expedition without getting bogged down with technical equipment are often attracted to Aconcagua – by its most straightforward routes, the peak is really just one of the world’s most strenuous high-altitude hikes. But although a plethora of climbing gear isn’t necessary, if you’re planning to ascend the mountain by one of its easier lines of ascent (the monstrous South Face is an altogether different proposition), it’s best to arm yourself with at least a walking ice axe and a pair of crampons. These should be carried to ensure that you don’t find yourself being defeated by unseasonable snowfall or a penitentes field.
The rest of the time, you’ll be wedded to your trekking poles, because Aconcagua can feel like the world’s highest scree slope. The downside to the mountain’s popularity is that during the peak season, it can become saturated with individuals who have little or no experience of establishing camps, load carrying or acclimatisation schedules.
Summit day
Aconcagua is all about summit day. That said, keeping yourself in the best possible physical condition during the weeks prior to topping out will largely determine whether you’re successful on the big push from the top camp. Drinking water plays a huge part in your wellbeing. Acquiring sufficient liquid to remain hydrated at all times is one battle. Swallowing up to four litres a day to stave off dehydration is a second war that must be fought every day.
I quickly gave up using bladder-and-hose combinations above base camp. No matter how well insulated these contraptions are, sooner or later they will clog up with ice. The rule for me is flexible bottles and tubes below base camp and easily accessible hard bottles (housed within commercially bought or home-made closed-foam sheaths) on the mountain. Flavourings such as Tang are popular in some South American supermarkets. They add little to the weight or bulk of your backpack but do much to cheer up the flavour of drinking water after purification aids have been given a sufficient amount of time to take effect.
Chocolate bars and water bottles aside, you’ll want your rucksack to be almost empty on summit day. You’ll probably set out and finish this pre-dawn-to-dusk day wearing a duvet jacket, and you could find yourself wearing it the rest of the time, too.
The decision about precisely what to carry to the top is a personal one. I eschew otherwise standard gear such as medical kits (apart from potentially life-saving high-altitude drugs) in favour of a handful of items that will definitely get used. A headtorch is mandatory – not only will you set out in the dark, you may finish in the dark, too.
Rover’s return?
A year after my ascent of Aconcagua, I was working in an outdoor store in London when a colleague wandered over to me one lunchtime. ‘Didn’t you summit Aconcagua last year?’ he asked. I said I had. ‘Read this,’ he said, pointing at a news article in a well-thumbed magazine.
The story revolved around a team of mountaineers who had recently approached Aconcagua’s summit. Suddenly, they were accosted by a mongrel dog that repeatedly barked, walked away, returned and barked again. Feeling like extras in a Lassie film, the mountaineers reluctantly abandoned their ascent to follow the dog from the summit block and over to a scarp that lay away from the popular routes of ascent. There they found two incapacitated climbers. The able mountaineers organised a makeshift rescue team that succeeded in ferrying the injured climbers to base camp.
When reporters asked the rescuers what happened to the dog, they explained that after they found the injured climbers and began treating their injuries, the dog vanished, seemingly into thin air.
Get out the money hose
My second expedition coincided with a visit to the mountain by the mayor of Mendoza, the capital of the Argentine province in which Aconcagua falls. Outbidding the mayor for the few available mules at the roadhead wasn’t easy, but I was determined not to repeat the mistakes of the first expedition. (On that trip, our Lilliputian budget turned me into a human mule on the walk-in. Staggering under a monstrous load while simultaneously attempting to acclimatise scuppered any chance of reaching the summit.) I got the money hose out and directed most of the expedition’s contingency fund at the muleteer until the mayoral problem was flushed away. We headed for base camp on schedule.
Paul Deegan has taken part in three expeditions to Cerro Aconcagua and enjoyed one summit success. He now carries a dog chew in his pack to safeguard his precious chocolate bars. www.pauldeegan.com
Ten of the best
Reaching the summit of the highest mountain in the Americas may not require much in the way of technical climbing, but it’s still no walk in the park. Paul’s three expeditions to Aconcagua have given him the opportunity to hone his kit list, and here he gives readers the benefit of his hard-won knowledge with a selection of must-have items
Don’t forget…
…a pair of sandals or fast-draining mesh shoes that strap securely to your feet for the regular and often substantial river crossings during the walk-in
September 2011
The solution had been to cannibalise our base camp stores and press jars of dulce de leche and crackers into service as on-the-go food. But I knew that on summit day, I would want the familiar taste of British chocolate. Which is why the four untainted Mars Bars that I had been allocated had remained untouched in the base of my pack. Until now.
We were two hours into what would become a 16-hour round trip to the roof of the Americas and I was hungry as hell. It was time for a shot of the sweet stuff. Feeling like a sub-zero Charlie Bucket, I slid the calorie-rich stick from the folds of my duvet jacket, where it had been thawing for the previous half hour, and tore open the black-and-red wrapper with my gloved hand.
Then, my climber partner, Darren, made a strange remark: ‘There’s a dog over there.’
If we had been at sea level, or in an urban or rural environment, such a comment would have elicited no more than a grunt of acknowledgment. But we were six-and-a-half kilometres above sea level. At this altitude, nothing and no-one survives for long. There could be no dog. Which meant that Darren was hallucinating. Which meant that he was possibly suffering from acute mountain sickness. I silently berated myself for not noticing the signs earlier in the day and decided to play along with Darren. By reassuring him that I had also seen the dog, perhaps I would be able to cajole him towards the temporary safety of our top camp before he lost the ability to walk.
‘Yeah, I see the dog,’ I said, stuffing the half-opened chocolate bar in a pocket. I kept my eyes glued on Darren and didn’t waste time by looking around.
‘Here boy,’ said Darren. He was in a worse state than I had imagined.I finally glanced up to see a mutt bounding towards Darren. Seconds later, they collided.
‘He looks hungry,’ said Darren. ‘Give him one of your Mars Bars.’
Which is how I ended up losing my precious chocolate bar to Scooby Doo near the summit of Cerro Aconcagua on my second attempt in three years to climb South America’s highest mountain.
Minutes later, we were on our way again. We looked around for our new companion, but Scooby had vanished.
Energy-sapping slog
As we had discovered to our cost at the start of the expedition, you can have the right kit but it counts for nowt if it’s packed incorrectly. Before strapping all of our chocolate and fuel to the flanks of one pack animal, we gave ourselves a scare after freighting our gear to Chile as airline-sponsored excess luggage in blue expedition barrels. Unbeknown to us, the containers were promptly carted off by Santiago airport’s baggage handlers.
After we had spent several hours waiting fruitlessly for our belongings, an official took pity on us and suggested that we check the cargo terminal. After that, squeezing barrels and bodies into taxis for a day-long drive along the Pan-Andean highway to the border with Argentina and the start of the walk-in to Aconcagua was easy.
When you think about a mountaineering expedition, it’s easy to become consumed with thoughts about gear that keeps you warm. But heat retention is sometimes the last thing you want. Take the trek to Aconcagua. It’s a hike of several days that involves a significant gain in altitude. Unless it’s cloudy, the trek quickly deteriorates into an energy-sapping slog through a desert landscape that wouldn’t look out of place in Lawrence of Arabia. I didn’t give a thought to sun protection on my first expedition to the mountain and ended up sewing a blue J Cloth to the back of a wool Kangol cap to prevent the skin on my neck from blistering.
On most climbing expeditions, your fabric or leather trekking boots are kicked into touch on arrival at the foot of the mountain and thereafter used only on rest days at base camp. On Aconcagua, however, it’s usually warm enough for trekking boots to be worn as high as Camp 1. Your insulated boots needn’t come into play until this camp has been established and you’re starting to haul loads up to Camp 2.
Whirling winds
Aconcagua was my first experience of a cold and dry environment. I discovered that above base camp, waterproof clothing, however breathable, was unnecessary. The added weight of a waterproof and breathable laminate could be discarded in favour of a lighter, snow-shedding, windproof nylon. And that was important because, boy, did the wind blow. Aconcagua, otherwise known as the Stone Sentinel, is infamous for the tent-shredding gales that whirl around its upper ramparts.
On my three expeditions to Aconcagua I took plenty of tents so that base camp and at least one camp on the mountain could co-exist. This saved everyone from relaying heavy tents up and down the mountain on a daily basis. On one occasion, two team members fell ill and needed to descend for a rest. They were able to do so safe in the knowledge that a comfortable and spacious tent was waiting for them. In the event that the mountain camp had been destroyed by a blizzard, kit at base camp would have been used to help re-establish the team’s presence on the peak.
Adventurous trekkers who want to experience many of the facets of a big-mountain expedition without getting bogged down with technical equipment are often attracted to Aconcagua – by its most straightforward routes, the peak is really just one of the world’s most strenuous high-altitude hikes. But although a plethora of climbing gear isn’t necessary, if you’re planning to ascend the mountain by one of its easier lines of ascent (the monstrous South Face is an altogether different proposition), it’s best to arm yourself with at least a walking ice axe and a pair of crampons. These should be carried to ensure that you don’t find yourself being defeated by unseasonable snowfall or a penitentes field.
The rest of the time, you’ll be wedded to your trekking poles, because Aconcagua can feel like the world’s highest scree slope. The downside to the mountain’s popularity is that during the peak season, it can become saturated with individuals who have little or no experience of establishing camps, load carrying or acclimatisation schedules.
Summit day
Aconcagua is all about summit day. That said, keeping yourself in the best possible physical condition during the weeks prior to topping out will largely determine whether you’re successful on the big push from the top camp. Drinking water plays a huge part in your wellbeing. Acquiring sufficient liquid to remain hydrated at all times is one battle. Swallowing up to four litres a day to stave off dehydration is a second war that must be fought every day.
I quickly gave up using bladder-and-hose combinations above base camp. No matter how well insulated these contraptions are, sooner or later they will clog up with ice. The rule for me is flexible bottles and tubes below base camp and easily accessible hard bottles (housed within commercially bought or home-made closed-foam sheaths) on the mountain. Flavourings such as Tang are popular in some South American supermarkets. They add little to the weight or bulk of your backpack but do much to cheer up the flavour of drinking water after purification aids have been given a sufficient amount of time to take effect.
Chocolate bars and water bottles aside, you’ll want your rucksack to be almost empty on summit day. You’ll probably set out and finish this pre-dawn-to-dusk day wearing a duvet jacket, and you could find yourself wearing it the rest of the time, too.
The decision about precisely what to carry to the top is a personal one. I eschew otherwise standard gear such as medical kits (apart from potentially life-saving high-altitude drugs) in favour of a handful of items that will definitely get used. A headtorch is mandatory – not only will you set out in the dark, you may finish in the dark, too.
Rover’s return?
A year after my ascent of Aconcagua, I was working in an outdoor store in London when a colleague wandered over to me one lunchtime. ‘Didn’t you summit Aconcagua last year?’ he asked. I said I had. ‘Read this,’ he said, pointing at a news article in a well-thumbed magazine.
The story revolved around a team of mountaineers who had recently approached Aconcagua’s summit. Suddenly, they were accosted by a mongrel dog that repeatedly barked, walked away, returned and barked again. Feeling like extras in a Lassie film, the mountaineers reluctantly abandoned their ascent to follow the dog from the summit block and over to a scarp that lay away from the popular routes of ascent. There they found two incapacitated climbers. The able mountaineers organised a makeshift rescue team that succeeded in ferrying the injured climbers to base camp.
When reporters asked the rescuers what happened to the dog, they explained that after they found the injured climbers and began treating their injuries, the dog vanished, seemingly into thin air.
Get out the money hose
My second expedition coincided with a visit to the mountain by the mayor of Mendoza, the capital of the Argentine province in which Aconcagua falls. Outbidding the mayor for the few available mules at the roadhead wasn’t easy, but I was determined not to repeat the mistakes of the first expedition. (On that trip, our Lilliputian budget turned me into a human mule on the walk-in. Staggering under a monstrous load while simultaneously attempting to acclimatise scuppered any chance of reaching the summit.) I got the money hose out and directed most of the expedition’s contingency fund at the muleteer until the mayoral problem was flushed away. We headed for base camp on schedule.
Paul Deegan has taken part in three expeditions to Cerro Aconcagua and enjoyed one summit success. He now carries a dog chew in his pack to safeguard his precious chocolate bars. www.pauldeegan.com
Ten of the best
Reaching the summit of the highest mountain in the Americas may not require much in the way of technical climbing, but it’s still no walk in the park. Paul’s three expeditions to Aconcagua have given him the opportunity to hone his kit list, and here he gives readers the benefit of his hard-won knowledge with a selection of must-have items
Start the slideshow (10 pictures)
Don’t forget…
…a pair of sandals or fast-draining mesh shoes that strap securely to your feet for the regular and often substantial river crossings during the walk-in
September 2011
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