28th – Visiting El Salto

With the same morning schedule as yesterday we left at 0830 with some low hanging clouds and mist. We had two guides with us and one of them was planned to stay at El Salto for tomorrow to keep an eye on the stuff we chose to bring with us. This is the camp from where we will be climbing Cerro Vallecitos in a couple of days. Bringing equipment to the camp before we actually move camps will make the move easier as we won’t be carrying the entire load at once – but coming down we will still have everything at once. Everyone seems to have brought their big boots and crampons with them, and some have brought some extra things like their down jackets and the like.

The walk up went fine; a gentle ascent until the last part which steepened quite horrifically. Arriving at the camp we managed to get a clear view of the summit for a couple of minutes before the clouds obscured the view for the remaining of our stay at the camp.

On the way back to camp the clouds got denser and dropped though they never gave us any rain. This meant that when returning to camp we had a visibility of less than 50 meters and we almost ended up standing in the camp before realizing we had arrived.

The rest of the day was spent like the rest with relaxation. The mist never really disappeared so the remainder of the day we had visibility of around 50m – sometimes less, sometimes more. The “more” part was limited, though, and when it happened it didn’t last long.

Tomorrow we will move camp to El Salto where we will be spending the next two nights. We will arrive there noon/early afternoon, and the following night at around 0500-0600 we will start our summit attempt of Cerro Vallecitos of 5461m.

On the way up to El Salto, looking back down you could see a thick layer of clouds.

El Salto - a slightly different kind of camp. The flat part straight ahead is the ridge we have to reach on the way to Calle Vallecitos.

Coming back down to the camp... It was a bit misty.

Spot the horse.