And now it begins

We are off within the hour for our drive to Los Pentitenties--the beginning time is nigh!

We feel good and are in good spirits.  We like our team...both fellow climbers and guides.

We will be climbing without porters, after much discussion with the guides....theybelieve we are more than fit enough....70 pounds at altitude does make one wonder...we will see.

Anders and I are reading a book called Shantaram--which is very good--Anders turned me on to it.  One of the themes of the book is that to win sometimes you first have to surrender.  And so we are surrendering to the experience....whatever that may bring.

We are excited and focussed ultimately on:

1. being safe
2. having fun and enjoying the experience
3. doing the best we can and hopefully summitting

This is probably it for my blogging for a while.  The next voice you hear here will be Judyś....beam us love and energy...we will gladly receive it!

rc

Happy New Year from Mendoza!

Had our team meal tonight--some nice Argentenian beef and a Malbec!  I really like our team.  We all talked ages today and confirmed I am the oldest although the Spices are 51 and 53 so close together.  anders is the youngest climber with the other four between 27 and 29--a young group on average despite my participation.

We went out into the streets and toasted New Yearś Argentina style--this seems to involve the locals dreinking a lot and shootin off very loud fireworks....

A very pleasant night--I say around 78 degrees or so.  tomorrow we drive to Los Pentientes at 11 and weĺl stay at the hotel there overnight before out climb begins in earnest on the 2nd.

Iĺl try to post one last time tomorrow before turning the blog back over to Judy.

Happy New Year and beam us energy!

Final preparations

We met our full team today.  The Spices arrived--a husband and wife team in their late 40s to provide a bit of contrast to the decidedly under  30 composition of our team.  We had a team meeting and went over and went through the process of securing our climbing permits.  It is quite a process but our guides did a great job of smoothing the way for us.  Looking at the permit I can see that I will receive 2-3 medical examinations along the way to see if my body is deemed fit enough to climb--we'll see how it goes (although I know I am fit enough).

We've spent the afternoon getting our bags in order--there is quite a bit of logistical overhead in a trip like this....we are looking forward to getting out and climbing and enjoying the mountains.  Tonight we have a team dinner and tomorrow it{s off to the hotel at Los Pentitentes....

Argentina

So we find ourselves safely in Mendoza this evening.  A new continent and two new countries for me today!

All of our equipment and most of our team made it today.  We met our three guides who are all very cool--and very young!  The other four team members we met, two brothers and a friend and a single guy, are also all very cool.  and very young.  Im going to be the old guy it appears....not that this will be a new phenonmenom...

Mendoza seems pretty laid back--although it is a Sunday night so who knows for sure.  It is very hot here.  Anders and I went out for dinner tonight (pizza and Andes beer) and it was over 90 degrees after 8 pm.  It also stays light past 9pm, which is a switch from the Northern Hemisphere.

Prior to that two of our guides came by to check out our equipment.  Not surprisingly we had the right stuff and we had too much of the right stuff.  We also got the lowdown on how to pack for all the various phases of the trip.  Being who I am, I spent the time after dinner trying to execute on my repack while Anders read.  I bothered him with all sorts of questions and in the end we arrived at a place in the middle--I accomplished enough to feel comfortable enough to go to bed and was only a minor irritant to him.  Tomorrow, we have more work to do.

We are staying at a modest hotel right in the middle of Mendoza.  We have three tiny beds in a tinier room.  Anders is in one bed, Iḿ in another and anders´ stuff is in the third--my is stuffed around the perimeter.  We have the AC blasting, which has probably managed to lower it to a reasonable 82-84 degrees....Of course, this is the luxurious part of the trip!

Anders feels a bit tired from our 33-hour trip to get here.  I, at least at this point, feel great!  I´m well rested and feeling good about our about our chances--we are taking it one day at a time.

IMG Team 2 summited today--putting 4 out of 5 on the summit (thatś 4 of 13 so far this year), so good news....as far as I know, the weather continues to look good....

Iĺl be able to blog a little more as I do have internet access here in Mendoza--then itś a handoff to Judy.

time for some sleep.....

ON the ground in Santiago

Randy here at the American Airlines Club Lounge in Santiago with Anders.  I thought I would take the opportunity that internet access presents to jump back in and post--I hope the current blogmaster, Judy, is cool with that!

As Judy mentioned, our flight was cancelled out of Miami but we were successful in jumping on the next one at 11:15 last night.  Sleepy pills made for an uneventful trip down.  the view out the window as we hugged the western coast of South American was impressive--those Andes appear to be quite the mountain range!

The weather is beautiful here in Santiago--70s, sunny and mountains all around.  We won't be able to do much more than look out windows as we are in transit to Mendoza--we have a five hour layover here.  We couldn't be happier though (well a shower might be nice) as we have internet access and coffee and light food things to revive us.  My Priority Pass card allows us access to airport VIP clubs all over the world and we're in one now.  We're both well into our third expressos and the world is a very happy place now!

The near and longer-term ensemble forecast for our time on the mountain looks very promising.  (Of-course, these are nototiously inaccurate at the 14-day time frame, but hey, we'll take it!)  The IMG Team Two group slept at C3 (high camp) last night and the weather looks perfect for a summit attempt today--my guess is that they'll go for it and get some folks up there--we wish them well!  Our summit window (13th-15th) looks like lighter (10-20 mph) winds and moderating (minus 5 to 10 degrees F) temps.  If we could lock it in somehow we would!

After arriving in Mendoza this evening we'll meet our 11-person team that will be our temporary family for the next three weeks.....We start the actual march in on 1/2....onward and upward!

Well, the boys are off!  This is Judy (Mrs. RC) taking over the blog for the next few weeks. I dropped them off at Philly airport yesterday and they made it out before the snow.  I was a little choked up to send them off for 3 weeks on this adventurous (to them) but scary (to me) endeavor.  I am comforted by my faith in their remarkable capacity to endure Herculean hardships and, most importantly, their ability to make smart decisions in challenging situations.

Their 5 hour layover in Miami turned into 8, but they finally left for Santiago, Chili around midnight.   They'll have another long layover before they fly to Mendoza this afternoon.  Quite the effort to get there!  However, given the assorted piles of climbing gear, backpacks, sunglasses, food, technical clothes, boots, etc all over our house these past weeks, sitting in an airport for 8 hours pales in comparison to the effort they put into getting ready!  I've seen Randy and Anders get ready for many triathlons and other adventures over the years, but the amount of planning and preparation that went into this was unprecedented.

While they've been flying south to embark on their adventure, the rest of us enjoyed our first snow in Delaware, drank wine, played "Apples to Apples", and ate the rest of their mountain energy food they left behind (peanut M + M's and oreos).   Thanks Guys!

I have a huge topographical map of Aconcagua on my wall, lots of weather and climbing sites bookmarked on my computer, and their promise to check in by satellite phone daily.  I will do my best to keep you updated on their progress.  I am not quite the "stat" guru that Randy is, so you might not have as many numbers, charts, and graphs as usual, but maybe, like me, you skip over those anyway!  Feel free to email me with any questions:  judychristofferson@yahoo.com  

On our way!

We are all packed up--each with two 150L expedition bags.  We both have around 75-80 pounds of mountain stuff and about 10 pounds of civilian stuff.  We'll leave later behind us at the hotel.  Some of the mountain stuff will never get higher than base camp so the mules will haul it around.  Probably looking at 50 pounds coming up with us in the end.  About 10 of that is food, which will diminish of course as the days pass.

We leave around noon today and fly to Miami.  After the layover, we have about an 8.5 hour flight to Santiago and from there connect to Mendoza.  We should be in Mendoza around noon tomorrow and we'll meet our team and get ready for the expedition on the 31st.  New Year's Day will find us moving to Los Pentitentes, where we'll hang for a day and get things sorted out for the mules.  Then the approach march begins on the 2nd.

The very long-range forecast (for what it's worth--which isn't much) for our summit window of 1/13-15 is for 10 degrees below zero F and 30 mph winds, which is probably doable, although, obviously would present some challenges.

The IMG Team Two carried to C3 yesterday and is in position to attempt the summit either tomorrow or the 31st--we wish them well!  The RMI Team Two is at C1 and will carry to C2 today if all goes well.

We've been interacting with our teammates via e-mail...even bringing some spare crampons to help out one of new team members....

I'm nervous but excited.  The new and unknown is always a bit unsettling--which of-course is part of the point of it!

In any event, I'm signing off now.  My thoughts will be recorded in a simple paper diary.  However, we'll be calling in each day to Judy wno will now take over blogging duties for the next three weeks.

Here we go!