9th – Back to civilization

Not having to mess around with any tents when getting up we had a gentle morning. After packing the rest of the bags and readying them for the mules, we departed BC at around 1030. The plan for the day was simple; to get all the way down, past Camp Confluencia and down to the bus that hopefully would be waiting for us. It would be a walk of almost 25km, but fortunately having mules at our disposal meant that we would only be carrying daypacks, and the route would either be going downwards or just be flat.

The walk was rather uneventful as we just wanted to get down as fast as possible. The only thing out of the ordinary and worth mentioning was the high winds, winds we luckily had in our backs. Quite fortunate, as the dry conditions enabled the wind to raise quite a lot of dust in the air. I did feel a bit bad for those going upwards, though, as they were having quite a struggle against the wind and dust. We just ended up having different colors on the front and backs.

A group of mules coming up with equipment to BC.

At the end of the walk that only took us 6:40 we arrived at the parking lot, and as if it had been planned the bus came around the corner just at the same time. The good timing didn’t last much longer, though, as the mules didn’t arrive for another 2-3 hours. We spent the time partially at a non-wind proof café having a drink and partially in the bus sleeping.

When we finally received our bags we were off and on the almost 3 hour drive back to the hotel we had dinner at the same place as when we were outbound; large steaks should never be missed should the opportunity rise!

The wine storage area at the restaurant.

8th – Back to Base Camp

We had originally planned to summit the 6^th or the 7^th due to the calm window in the otherwise windy weather. This was felt early last night where the wind started picking up again. Throughout the night it was hard to get some decent sleep due to the noise of the wind and it hammering the tents.

In the morning it was blowing relentlessly making it colder than yesterday, so when we with only few packed the tents and the rest of the camp we started the descent all the way back down to Base Camp. Only having a slight headache now after waking up it was relatively easy going. The painkillers from last night and early morning probably didn’t hurt, either.

The descent was swift and app. 2:40 after departure we arrived back at our slightly larger than necessary dining tent. Soon after lunch was served (I have rarely seen chicken burgers be devoured at such a speed) and the rest of the day we did as little as possible but also repacked our bags, readying for the long walk back down to the busses tomorrow.

In the afternoon a guide from a different Danish tour group came by to say hi to Bo. They have common interests and goals so they were equals in the climbing business. This resulted in nearly an hour of entertaining anecdotes between the two.

Dinner was super; the usual soup, a nice piece of beef with fancy potatoes and for dessert an amazing piece of chocolate cake. Three bottles of wine was drunk and to our joy we were presented with 3 bottles of champagne for dessert. No complaints were heard.

A helicopter crossed over us at one point. The other Danish group (of only 7 members, too) had not had an acclimatization like we had had in Vallecitos, instead they had gone directly up to BC with only a small detour. That had apparently been too much for one of the tourists so he had to be evacuated back down. Pulmonary edema is not a fun thing – but he got to fly in a helicopter!

Fun was had, and we were allowed to sleep in the dining tent so we didn’t have to worry about pitching our own tents and taking them down tomorrow. Happy about that decision, we were all pretty worn out and the winds wouldn’t have made it any easier.

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.

6th – Camp Berlin (5900m)

Waking up I didn’t feel near as bad as yesterday though there was still some issues related to (lack of) energy and sleep. Slowly we all came out of our tents and at around 1030 everything was packed and we were ready to go.

The pace was fortunately slow but with the 20kg pack it did feel very heavy moving forward. Towards the end when nearing Camp Berlin at app. 5900m I had fallen quite far behind from the rest of the group, but finally made it to camp to some well-needed rest. Approaching the camp Jesper and Dina came down to greet me which gave me some much needed and very appreciated mental support , I don’t think they were aware of how grateful I was of such an otherwise simple gesture. On arrival I sat down (which probably was more like a controlled fall) and didn’t move for an entire hour.

The 600m ascent was done in app. 3:45.

It’s a great view from up here, I can only imagine how it will change the higher we get.

Now it’s just a matter of relaxing, gathering strength and mentally preparing for tonight/early morning. I’m still not eating much, exhausted after today’s climb. The next 24 hours will be interesting.

The view from Camp Berlin.

5th – Where Condors Dare

This morning there wasn’t so much waking up as there was realizing it was time to wake up. I hadn’t had much sleep and a lack of drinking when needed throughout the night (my water bottle in the tent had completely frozen during the night) and no real appetite resulted in me being absolutely mentally and physically exhausted in the morning. When the guides did their round when getting up and inquiring statuses of each of us I flat out told them that unless we were to stay an extra night at this location I would likely not be able to continue upwards. Staying an extra night would let me adjust to the altitude and rebuild strength, hopefully making it possible for me to continue in the right direction (that would be upwards, if there was any doubt).

It was soon decided that we would stay an extra night at Cambio as I was far from the only one with problems. Instead of relocating we had a short walk to Nido de Condores app. 200m above us for a gentle acclimatization. For those who were interested the guides added 30-40 minutes when arriving at the camp to gain a bit of extra altitude which in the end brought us up to 5670m, a small success in itself as we thereby had just passed the summit of Elbrus at 5642m.

Back down at Cambio we had snacks and otherwise relaxed with focus on drinking plenty of water, improving acclimatization and trying to avoid potential headache, and worse – serious AMS.

Reports are coming out of Nido de Condores; their water supply is a small lake, still water, only supplied by melted ice from further up (so these days not much). Apparently the water has been contaminated so diarrhea is a frequent occurrence in the camp. I am suddenly a bit happier about only having two camps until the summit and not the three as originally planned.

A helicopter passed us flying down from Nido de Condores – they had apparently picked someone up who had deceased there. I can’t say for sure what had happened, but a mix of not drinking enough, altitude sickness and diarrhea can’t have been good for you. This is not a mountain to underestimate.

Now it’s all about drinking enough water which here tastes horrible and waiting for dinner where I will try to wake up my usually very active appetite. While the rest of the walk up the mountain is nothing but a simple mental game where you ignore any problems you can’t do anything about anyway, I have to admit that I right now feel like I am on the losing side.

And being this close, it’s horribly frustrating.

Another view from Cambio. The plateau down to the left is where camp Canada is located.

Doing nothing and relaxing, and yet this is the view you get.

Sunset.

4th – Camp Cambio (5350m)

We departed BC at around 1030 as planned after having taken down our tents, had breakfast and packing the last small things into our bags. Apart from our own equipment we were also asked to take 3kg each of food necessary for the days we are above BC.

There isn’t much to say about today’s ascent; it was fairly long and steep (and it like felt longer and steeper than it actually was). At camp Canada we had our lunch break at it was easy to see why we decided to not stay here – no water to be seen anywhere. Departing Juan Carlos took hold of me and put me into the slower group together with one other which I didn’t mind at all, and app 5:15 after departing BC we arrived at Cambio.

Looking down on Base Camp after an hour into the walk. Our tent is easily spotted.

A couple of porters had been hired to bring up our tents to the camp which they had done at an experienced speed which meant that at our arrival they were mostly already set up for us.

It is getting windier after departing the secure conditions that is BC. Without the wind it is quite warm (relatively, of course, but there are no clouds and plenty of sun) but the wind is cold which puts a damper on it. Lying in the tent is comfortable when ignoring the noise from the wind and the wind’s effect on the tents’ fabric. But there is no wind in the tent which easily compensates.

I was surprised by realizing how much I was struggling today. We have been acclimatized to 5400m though we are now carrying 20+ kg each – but still; today’s walk felt really difficult, much more than expected even though I did expect it not to be an easy day. On top of that I realize that the next couple of days will only get much, much harder. I am mentally stressing myself with these thoughts and that is obviously not helping matters at all, it’s quite exhausting. Bo has said, though, that compared to the group he brought up back in 2008 we are almost racing up the mountain. Despite it feels good being told that, it doesn’t really help my current condition.

As a difference from the other camps dinner was today served in our tents instead of having to come out and gather around having our meal. The guides are aware of the pressure we are under, this is amazing service!

View from Camp Cambio.

Our camp. Not as impressive as BC.

One could almost forget the struggle to get here by just enjoying the view.

3rd – Up, up and away

Today being a day off we didn’t do much else than relax and… more relaxing. We had a relatively late breakfast at 0900 and 1030 we went to have our final medical checkup. 115/65, saturation 86 and a pulse in the 90’s, so nothing to worry about. I had expected my saturation to be higher, but it was still within the required limits so I didn’t worry too much. Also, the pulse was checked first and the medics said that just walking the 20m from outside and indoor which included climbing 3 steps to the door would be enough at this altitude to raise the pulse significantly more than one would otherwise expect, so the otherwise high resting pulse was nothing to worry about.

Lunch was had at 1400 and it was on par with the dinner last night. When finished we were briefed on the next couple of days. The summit is these days plagued by high winds but the forecasts indicate that in a couple of days there will be a window of 2 days where the winds will die down and stay at around 30-50km/h. The original plan was to spend the night at 3 different camps before initiating the summit push (Canadian Place, Nido de Condores and Camp Colera), but due to the timing to have the summit push during the weather window and Canadian Place has dried out the plan has been changed to only two camps. These two camps will be Cambio de Pendiente at app. 5300m and Camp Berlin at 5929m. From there we will push towards the summit, spending estimated 8-ish hours going up and half that coming back to Berlin. But the weather can change and all the way up our guides will be in radio contact with BC for updated forecasts.

The afternoon, apart from more relaxing, was spent on packing our bags and sorting our stuff into what to bring with us up and what to leave behind at BC. As the plans are right now we won’t be leaving until 1030 tomorrow so we won’t be suffering under a late departure.

After having been relaxing for more than 24 hours at BC and previously having walked some technically easy days, being told that we will be going for the summit in less than 3 days feels very overwhelming. Even if we’re just trotting around here at BC in our luxurious conditions it suddenly feels very real and it feels like it’s going very fast.

But let’s see how it goes.

Our guides have at least promised us a much slower pace than the last couple of days.

If you needed to go somewhere there's a sign to show you the way.

Yup, a gallery.

Highest in the world!