7th – Summit day

Of the 7 people in the group, 5 made it to the summit. I was not one of the 5. As the only one in the group I unfortunately didn’t even manage to leave the tent in the morning. As I see it there were a couple of reasons for that.

Firstly, and most important, I had a thunderous headache with a side of slight nausea. “Every single movement shoots more daggers through my head”-headache. I hadn’t been good at drinking enough yesterday; they recommend 3 liters a day and one extra if you end the day higher than in the morning to ease acclimatization. Of course these are only general rules of thumbs, but still good to be mindful of during a day of climbing. I had, at most, drunk 1,5 liters during the day. Not because I didn’t want to, but exhaustion made it hard for me to keep up (and the horrible taste of the water from Cambio didn’t help). The lack of fluids resulted in a decent dehydration in the morning and combining that with an altitude of 5900m you’re in for a rough time.

Secondly, it didn’t help I have been focusing on how much I have been struggling the last couple of days, it doesn’t really strengthen your confidence when it is needed the most. Knowing that the previous days only have been a warm up to what laid ahead this morning did not improve my outlook on things. I realized, especially with a headache, that I would be lacking the strength and endurance to reach very far above the camp.

Lastly, when planning the trip I looked at the first two weeks as warm-up for Aconcagua, the main reason for coming here. When actually leaving Base Camp I realized that I felt like we already had had our trip and why are we still walking what is going on? No matter how hard I tried, it was difficult for me to keep up the enthusiasm similar to what it was just a couple of days before. This meant that I from Base Camp to Camp Berlin went from “Awesome – let’s climb one of the seven summits” to “Meh, I don’t mind if I don’t reach the summit as it is not of high importance for me even if it could be great”.

If it hadn’t been for the headache I would still have gone for it, but in my current condition I felt no need to try. Having the headache the extra issues just exacerbated my poor condition. I knew I would miss out on my only chance to summit Aconcagua but looking at the trip as a whole I did not feel I was missing out on much by not doing it.

I am very happy for the 5 who made it to the summit (congratulations to Jesper, Preben, Bo, Dina, Ole & Jakup) and while I do feel a tinge of jealousy for them doing it and not I, I still feel comfortable with my decision. Instead I spent the day in the tent trying to get some sleep and taking care of my head and stomach. While it doesn’t sound like quite a similar achievement my head still thanks me for doing so (but I’ll still pop an extra pain killer before going to sleep tonight).

I got kicked in the head by the mountain and I accept my defeat.

My view when going to the toilet. Yes, I did finish (and step away) before taking the photo.