Aconcagua (I)

I've put it off for too long now, so this is the second-last story about Aconcagua and how we, the first romanian all women's team, climbed it. I would like to say that from the start my focus was on getting everybody (that is Catalina, Lili and I) to the top, as a team if not as friends. Now if you remember, Catalina had tried three times before to climb it, had not trained and had serious knee problems. Lili was fresh out of the office, extremely stressed about having failed on tres cruces and parinacota. To top it up, C, always has a knack at being on somebody's back for whatever reason. So, if somebody would step on her toes, she would be on that poor critter's back for ever. Or, if nobody would step on her toes, she would still find somebody that might've and go from there. It was the case with Dan, then with lili on and off, and at last, with me.

So we finally arrived at Plaza de Mulas after having trekked for 25 km through the bloody desert, 1000 m elevation difference. I think from Confluencia we had maybe 10 minutes of green, and then - nothing! Just red, red, brown, red. At the beggining of the trek Aconcagua shows its majestic south face, but only for a while. This prompted some young Argentinians that we were passing on and off, to yell "ACONCAGUA!!!" at it every time it would show up around the corner. The trek is through the valley of the Horcones, a small creek that grows to river proportions in the afternoon - it gets its water from the glacier on top of which Plaza de Mulas resides.

In the afternoon, the Horcones water is chocolaty, from all that red dust. We saw a lot of climbers or tourists coming down. Our favorite game was guessing who had been to the top. A lot of mulas as well!! The 1000m elevation is not sudden, it starts lightly around half-way. However, just before you reach Plaza de Mulas, you have to climb a horrendous slope. We were out of water for about three hours (it took us 9 hours, but we were also carrying the tent) by this time, so at least for C. it was horrible to climb. So much, that when i got to the top, i came down, took her backpack (almost forced it from her) and helped her up. I sweetened it saying that I expect her to do the same for me if the going gets tough, and I meant it.

We set up camp. Our cameraman, Marius, had taken off at one point because he got so pissed of at C. that he couldn't take it anymore. M. and I had a row (romanian style - which means, with lots and lots of yelling) but in the end we cleared things up. I did say something that he will never forgive me for (or even let me forget): i told him that we had the same load (which we did) and thus he can't say that he was in a hurry. Ah ... young and foolish. When we arrived, Carlos and Vanessa, the couple that was taking care of the Lanko camp at Plaza de Mulas, greeted us with juice, tea, juice, juice, and soup! A blessing, as we were totally spent. We spent one day to recover in Plaza de Mulas. It is like a small town, with all the comforts of home, including internet (very very slow), telephone, and restaurants.

You HAVE to use the ecological toilets (pictured) provided by each company. Ours did not have a door, but a green flap. There's also a doctor there, and you are encouraged to have him/her check you out. We did that at Confluencia, and somehow we didn't have the time to go to this one as well. Other teams were camped at the Lanko camp. We had the OTHER romanians I told you about. A team of boisterous argentinians, including a female rock climber (she was sooooo fit!!), that had their own support team - members of their family that were just hanging out in Plaza de Mulas with radios etc, waiting for news. A 60 something french guy, Pierre, that barely spoke english, and was by himself. The other team from Explorer that had just summited and came down on our rest day. I was truly happy for those guys. I envied their guts, but that is my problem and my nemessis.

From Plaza de Mulas to Nido de Condores, our next camp, 1000m higher, you have to scale this absolutely huge slope ranging from 30 degrees to around 50 degrees. We called it our Golgota. To the end of the slope, where you still have 300m elevation until Nido de Condores (Eagle's crib) you could see people as very very small ants going up and down it. We spent the whole rest day sitting in base camp watching people going up and down the slope. Lili, who was showing signs of intense nervousness, sat with a bottle of water by her side and did not utter a SINGLE word the whole day. That huge slope and those small ants climbing it is not very encouraging mind you. On top of that, the weather is not very encouraging also. We could see white flat clouds on the direction of the summit, made by a very fierce wind they call "Viente blanco" (white wind). To say nothing of the cold! The sun gets to the camp around 10 am. Before that, it's so cold that you HAVE to wear your down jacket. The sun sets around 10:30 pm. At Nido de Condores and higher, it sets even later, and the sunsets are absolutely amazing!! [pictured]


We went from Plaza de Mulas to Nido de Condores two times to carry gear and re-acclimatize. Our last trip was also the hardest, because, even though we were not carrying crampons and that much food, we were carrying tents, sleeping bags, down jackets and the like. These are also very very heavy items, especially when you're deprived of oxygen and/or on the road for such a long time. Going up to Nido de Condores for the last time, we met up with Zsolt Torok, a new addition to our club by the way, who had just completed the Polish Route solo, after being with some other Explorer members to the summit two days before. That's right, he was on the summit two times in one week. He told us how on the polish route while he was walking by himself, he stumbled upon the mummified body of another climber. Apparently he was a Czech climber that had died on the Polish glacier and his family had decided to leave him there. How freaky is it to walk alone and find somebody dead in the middle of your path?! Looking at Zsolt, and the immensity of his backpack and at how fit he seemed while I was so dizzy from my smallish pack, I realized that it's going to be a loong time (if ever) before I can even dream to attempt this kind of routes.