Quick Update: Holding Pattern at Camp One

Just a very quick update and I'll fill in more later:
Randy and team successfully carried up to Camp Two on a very cold and windy day yesterday, left some of their gear and descended to sleep at Camp One.
It is still extremely gusty, so they are unable to move up to Camp Two today as planned.  Right now they are holed up in their tents, hoping the winds calm down a bit for a climb to Camp Two tomorrow.  They are keeping busy, playing lots of backgammon, reading etc.
I'll provide more details later on!

Blustery, gusty, brutal winds and unwelcome ice

Freight train wind conditions prevail at Camp One today, making last night and today "freakishly" cold according to Randy.   With sustained winds of 35mph and gusts up to 50 or 60mph, the team is now hunkered down in their tents, trying to stay warm.

Last night was a pretty eventful night, the kind that makes me want Randy to call it a day and head back down the mountain.  His team slept at a slightly higher Camp One (at 16.6) which is just about 1/4 mile up the mountain from the regular Camp One (at 16K) where some other teams are encamped.  Around 3 AM, Randy said there was just a deafening noise which woke him, even with ear plugs.  No one knew quite what was going on.  They heard loud crashing noises and the wind battering their tent, but being pitch black and bitterly cold, he and Bissel just stayed in their tent.  Everything settled down after a while, and they rested on an off.  Early this morning, they woke to many hundreds of pieces of ice all over the camp.  One giant piece, around 50 lbs, had actually torn into the vestibule of their teammates tent (the two sisters and brother), but miraculously hadn't touched any of them.   Randy's tent was torn at the apex, as was a third tent.  As we spoke, two guides were repairing those two tents, and one had descended back to base camp to get a new tent for the siblings.  Thank God no one was hurt at all, but they basically had one of those extremely rare ice falls assault their campsite.   Evidently, higher up in the mountains, a huge chunk of ice had broken loose, shattering into pieces as it crashed down the slopes.  

After much discussion about the ice and wind, the guides decided the team should still try to carry to Camp 2 at 18,000.  So they packed everything up and set up onto the frigid slope.  For the first half hour, they were slipping so much, that they had to stop to put their crampons on.  This was a tough task as they had to sit down on a pretty exposed side wall, secure their packs, not let anything drop, and attach their crampons.   They managed this with gloves since it was too cold for exposed hands and  persevered on.  But even with crampons, the wind was literally knocking them off their feet. They had climbed about 700 ft vertical of the 1500 ft vertical to Camp Two, but the guides had them head back down to Camp One.  Once back down, head guide JJ at first said it was okay to camp in the same higher spot, that the ice fall had been a freak occurrence, and they would be fine.  So with the wind battering them, they set their tents back up, got organized and crawled inside to get warm.  Unfortunately, after a while, JJ noticed some more ice falling in the distance and decided it wasn't prudent to remain there.  So, he had the team get back up, pack everything up again and haul everything down closer to the "normal" Camp One.  Randy said you just can't imagine what goes into moving camp even that 1/4 mile.  Unlike when they carry up to a higher camp, lugging half the stuff up one day, and then the rest the next day, today they had to transport all the tents, equipments, stoves, clothes, food, etc.  So Randy had a full pack plus two full bags in each hand, stumbling down a trail pummeled by the frigid wind.  Once again, they had to set up all their tents and stow their gear.  Randy called me after they finally were settled, wedged between two big boulders so he could talk above the howling wind.   Is someone secretly paying him to do this, or is this really something fun?

So, what does this all mean?  With no forecasted abatement of the wind, Randy thinks their summit chances are going down.  They will probably have to wait at Camp One at least a couple days before trying to climb again.  And they can't stay up there forever, so they need a break in the weather to move forward safely up to Camp Two (18k), then Camp Three (19.5K), from which they would be poised for a summit attempt of this 22.8K beast.  He's still doing well though, feels very strong and very physically prepared to keep moving ahead if they get the chance.  He has a little shortness of breath, but that's expected as they acclimate to the higher altitudes. He's not worried about the cold as he says he has the warmest boots and clothing of the whole gang. This is when I am thankful he is such a gear guy and definitely biased towards high end equipment!   

I probably won't hear from him again tonight as it's too cold as the sun sets to venture out and find a protected spot to talk, so let's just hope that ridiculous ice assault was in fact a freak thing, and that they all stay safe and as warm as possible while they wait out the wind.

Views of the mountains above Camp One

Camp One

"Best Day Ever"

Randy had another great day, calling in to say they had ascended back up to High Camp One and set up camp for the night.  So this will be the first night the group is sleeping up at 16,650.  To put that in perspective, that is higher than any mountains in the US except for a few in Alaska, including of course, McKinley. It's a bit daunting that they still have about 6000 feet to climb!

The good news is Randy continues to feel strong, in fact, he said he feels better every day.  So he seems to be acclimating really well and not having any stomach or lung issues.  So keep your fingers crossed that this continues!

As forecasted, the winds had significantly picked up, and Randy was basically wearing all of his clothes, 4 layers on top, 3 layers on the bottom, including his huge puffy jacket and puffy pants.  They must all look like they are walking on the moon.   The wind is expected to intensify over the next few days, making some of their ascents a bit tricky.  So they will have to see how things are and figure which days to rest and which to climb.   Right now the summit is basically shut down due to high winds, but their hope is they take the next 5 or so days to move up to the Highest Camp (Camp Three), and then hopefully the winds will not be whipping around as much.   Here's a look at the forecast at the summit for the next 5 days.  (You can click on it to zoom in).   Clearly, no one would want to be trying to summit with these 60 - 75 MPH winds, and wind chills around 25  below!  They are hopeful come Saturday, Sunday, although still windy, things might calm down enough to allow a summit attempt.  As these things go, you just never know.  As I reported, the team before them had to head back down due to weather and give up their summit chance, so it's out of their control, and Randy's team will just keep moving up the mountain hoping they get their chance.

Speaking of weather, and however insignificant this may sound to you all, I had planned a little girls trip to Florida while Randy is away.  Since Delaware, like Aconcagua, is bracing for a HUGE weather event (accumulation of a formidable 4 - 6 inches of snow) our flight from Philadelphia was preemptively cancelled 36 hours in advance.  So, consequently, I've spent the last 2 hours frantically trying to rebook 11 flights.  Fortunately, you can all breath a huge sigh of relief that we worked it out.  So while Randy braves arctic temperatures, chilling winds,  and grueling ascents, I will be blogging poolside, with margarita in hand, from Delray Beach. 

Back to Randy (I guess this blog is really about him), the plan is to carry to High Camp Two tomorrow (18,045 feet), and then descend to sleep at Camp One.  Of course, this is all dependent on the wind, so we'll see what happens.  Wish him luck and send positive thoughts up to the weather gods! 

Glorious Rest Day at Camp One

Nothing better than a brilliantly clear day and a much-needed 10 hours of sleep to make Randy feel "fantastic" on this 9th day of his adventure!

Here's looking up at the majestic and imposing Aconcagua peak from Base Camp on a sunny day.

Looking out over Base Camp:

After a couple of restless nights and a strenuous climb yesterday, Randy was determined to get a good night's sleep.  He put in ear plugs, pulled his wool hat down over his eyes and ears and crawled into his sleeping bag around 9:45pm.  Next thing he knew it was 3:30 in the morning.  He got up to go to the bathroom, went back in the tent and before he knew it, Bissel was nudging him to get up at 8am. He feels like an new person. Evidently, he missed quite the drama during the night.  Quite a few locals live for long periods of time at Base Camp to market their services to the climbers, such as porters or vendors in tents selling food, showers, even internet.  So they occasionally have somewhat raucous parties, which they did last night, dancing and singing till 2am.  One of the porters perhaps had a bit too much Argentinian Malbec and started throwing rocks at the ranger station, breaking windows and starting a big fight.   The guides and the other team members were complaining about all the noise, but Randy slept through the whole thing.

He had talked to Anders yesterday and determined since he felt so good, he shouldn't keep worrying so much about his O2 saturation.  He would just go by how he feels and not obsess about the percentage.  Well that lasted for a few hours until Randy happened to see his pulse oximiter as he was sorting his luggage.  Being the stat man that he is, he couldn't resist.  The answer: a whopping 96%!  So that did make him happy, and he really does feel completely acclimated, at least at this level.

They spent an easy day lounging around, organizing their stuff for tomorrow, and of course eating.  He and Bissel paid $35 for a pizza from one of those locals.  As Randy said, it's a seller's market!  During the day, the other RMI team (Team 3) which had to turn back on their summit attempt yesterday came down to Base Camp.  Today would have been perfect clear weather for their summit attempt, but they were literally too wiped out from the day before and decided to call it a day.  Randy's team welcomed them and they all hung out a while.  They were pretty physically depleted, but had amazingly good attitudes about not summiting.  Randy said it was good for him to hear their positive perspectives -- "Hey we tried our best, but sometimes the weather doesn't cooperate, and sometimes your body doesn't react well, and there isn't much you can do. "

The team spent a lot of time talking, strategizing about the challenging climbs ahead of them.  They have their work cut out from them as you can see by the elevation profile below.   From Plaza Argentina on, they are climbing, climbing, and climbing.  Added to that, the winds are supposed to get incredibly strong the next few days.  Thank God they were not trying to summit anytime over the next few days because winds at the top are expected to be up to 75mph.  Tomorrow around 8am, they will head back up to Camp 1 and will sleep at that higher elevation (16, 600ft) for the first time. Randy decided to use a porter again, so he'll have about 20 lbs on his back.  One of the guides, Steve, had helped Randy yesterday to optimize what he calls his "rest-step", which is a walking gait used in ascending steep slopes.  It is a pause of motion with the rear leg vertical and fully extended, while the front leg is more relaxed, so that for a moment his weight rests on his skeleton and not his muscles.  He said this significantly helped increase his balance and minimize his muscle fatigue.

Randy said he misses everyone, as we do him, but is hanging in there to get through these next 12 days and try to achieve his goal.   He knows he has some very tough climbing ahead of him and has to stay focused, positive, and strong.  He appreciates all the messages I've passed on to him.  Feel free to comment on this blog; he'll love reading that when he returns.   Thanks for all your support!

Successful Carry to High Camp One

Today the team successfully carried up to High Camp One at 16,600, dropped off some gear, and then descended back to Base Camp.

Here's the spectacular view from High Camp, where they will camp in a couple nights after a Base Camp rest day tomorrow.

After another restless night with little sleep again for Randy, they woke early and set off by 7:30 am.  It snowed all day, which was a bonus in that it's much easier to get traction when the scree (dry, loose rock) is covered with snow.  It took about 5 hours to climb up the 2800 ft of vertical, and only 90 minutes to descend, the joys of gravity.   Randy was tired, but said it was "no problem and went great."  Since he had hired a porter, he was only carrying about 22 lbs, basically water, food, and some extra clothing. Randy had packed really carefully for this trip, about 20 lbs less than he brought last year.  The porter was a set fee ($185) for taking 35 pounds, and Randy didn't even have that much to give him so was able to let a few of his teammates (the two sisters and brother) offload some of their gear as well.  They were very grateful and rewarded Randy with some chicken salad and crackers after the climb.

Randy was very pleased that he felt so good since this is the most challenging climbing day besides summit day.  The difference between climbing this year and last year is significant.  First of all last year the terrain was pure scree so the footing was poor.  And, Randy had a horrible, hacking cough, a very sick stomach, and had described himself feeling "whipped, pushed to his limit, frequently going anaerobic with a rapid heartbeat and feeling like he was doing intervals".  This time he has no cough or stomach issues and said he never went anaerobic the whole day.  So while the steep terrain with its sometimes awkward scrambling and intimidating exposure was taxing, he felt in control and strong.  Go Randy!

Three of the team members are struggling with coughs and/or stomach issues, but they all still got up and down today, and I'm sure are looking forward to their rest day tomorrow.  When they returned to Base Camp today, they had a quick snack and a nap.  When I just talked to Randy, about 6pm his time, they were getting ready for a 7:30pm steak and lasagna dinner.   He wanted me to tell Anders that he had just run into Pete, their IMG guide from last year and had a long chat.  It turns out that Pete's group will probably be making their summit attempt the same day as Randy's team.

Speaking of summiting, about 5500 people try to summit Aconcagua each year, 5000 from the other side, known as the Normal Route, and 500 from the side Randy's RMI team is climbing, known as the Polish Traverse.  I'm not exactly sure why he chose a route only 10% of people attempt, but perhaps I don't really want to know that answer! The overall success rate for summiting is about 30%.  With guided attempts like Randy's, the success rate is about twice that.  So far this season, 2 RMI teams have made the summit, each time 5 out of the 9 teammates were able to summit.  Right now a 3rd RMI team is high in the mountains and tried to make a summit attempt today but was forced to turn back.  In case you are interested to read about what can happen up at those volatile frigid altitudes, here's the hot-off-the-press blog from their head guide. Let's hope Randy's team has better weather on their summit attempt!

"It's a cold, cold world.  We woke up and fired the stoves at about 3:30 this morning and things were looking good: clear skies, bright moon, and calm winds. We scarfed a quick breakfast, had a quick cup of coffee, packed up, and hit the not so dusty trail. The consistent snowfall of the past week has blanketed the mountain so what is normally a gravelly trail out of Cólera was a very snowy sendero. Our team moved well, per the norm, despite the large number of other climbers clogging the route and before too long we had climbed past the Indepencia Hut (ruins) and hit the traverse into the Canaleta. At some point along the way we found ourselves no longer enjoying the clear skies but instead traveling under consistent snowfall. In fact it was snowing heavily and visibility was poor. Despite the worsening weather the snowpack seemed ok until we reached the center of the traverse. Walt and myself headed out further without the group and found the normally gravelly trail under several feet of snow. In fact the whole Canaleta was smoothed over with the storm snow. Every other team on the mountain had already turned around due to avalanche hazard but we hadn’t seen anything worth turning around until the deep storm layer that we encountered in the lower Canaleta. While the snow didn’t seem super reactive the steeper part of the Canaleta was surely more dangerous and there was no way to see without exposing ourselves to the hazard. With worsening weather and continued snowfall we decided that the dire consequences of an incident were too much for us to shoulder. We weren’t willing to bet our lives on it so we did the smart thing and turned around at 21,500’. Now we are back at high camp and the weather is still crappy. So much for the forecasted sunny day…"

Rest day tomorrow so I'm sure we'll have more news and "stats" from the slopes.

A Day in the Life at Base Camp

I spoke to Randy a couple times today; all good at Base Camp and ready to head up to High Camp One tomorrow.

Last night Randy's tent mate Bissel slept all through the night, but Randy tossed and turned, got up a couple times to go to the bathroom and clear the 6+ inches of new snow off the tent. He slept about 2 hours.  His heart was pounding a lot which happens as they adjust to altitude, so he just rested, taking a lot of deep breaths to speed along the acclimatization process.  One advantage of his restless night was the unexpected gift of a stunningly clear sky at 3AM, with a full moon, tons of stars, the northern lights and Orion in full view.  He wished he had thought to take a picture but it'll have to be one of those spectacular snapshots in his mind.

This morning his oxygen saturation was 93%, later today they had a medical checkup to ascertain their fitness to continue up the mountain and his O2 sat was 85%, still within acceptable range to continue his ascent.  Unlike at this point last year, Randy has no cough, no fluid in his lungs, no stomach distress, no headache.  So he is feeling really strong and ready to take on the mountain.  The whole team passed their physicals, so all gearing up for the big push tomorrow.  A couple of them have various issues like stomach upset and a hacking cough, but no real issues at this point.

Plaza Argentina (Base Camp) is basically an amphitheater with steep towering slopes all around.  After all the snow yesterday, there was a foot or two of snow in the mountains above them, causing lots of avalanches all day today (not in areas where anyone would hike).  Randy said it was really awesome to hear the powerful rumble of the approaching avalanches and see the snow cascading down the steep slopes in the distance.   Today was in the 40's so most of the snow in their immediate area had melted, which helped them to all get organized and sort their gear.

In relative terms, Base Camp is full of amenities for the weary traveler. Instead of the guides cooking on their portable stoves, there are tents set up with cooks and even china and silverware.  So they dined like kings:  scrambled eggs, onions, and potatoes for breakfast and later quesadillas and homemade pizzas.  They even had showers courtesy of large trash bags of water warmed up in the sun.  Sounds a little crude, but I'm sure cleaning off felt good.  If anyone read this last year, you know that Randy got very sick at Base Camp, he thinks from taking a shower that some local vendor had set up and possibly getting some of the water in his mouth.  You can be sure he didn't get one drop of garbage-bag water in his mouth this time!

Good news is that Randy decided to hire a porter to help with the carry to High Camp One.   His view is that getting help when he can is a good thing.  They had already had help from the mules getting to Base Camp; they are all planning to use porters to help with the descent from the summit, so it's never been about having to carry everything the whole time.  Since porters were available tomorrow and Randy's back had been so bad a couple weeks ago, he decided to hire one.  That means he'll have about 15 - 20 lbs on his back instead of 50.   I know this steep climb up to High Camp One is really tough -- only 3 miles, but over 2000 elevation gain.  The terrain is mostly loose rock which is tougher to navigate than packed snow with crampons.  They will carry everything up, drop it off, then descend back to sleep at Base Camp.

Here's a couple of pictures of the route they will take tomorrow:

A big day ahead for Randy and crew!

They made it to Base Camp, and so did the weather!

Randy called in reporting that it wasn't an easy day, but it was "an awesome" day, and they had made it safely to Base Camp (Plaza Argentina) in 6 hours.  This third approach is a tough one, traveling along the north side of the Relincho on narrow ledges that at times climbed several hundred feet about the river. This is definitely a no fall zone! The terrain is mostly uphill along this route, but they sometimes have to descend to get to the next part of the trail, so they actually climbed 4100 ft. and descended 1000, to have net elevation gain of 3100ft.  They are now at 13,678 -- what most would consider a very high mountain in Colorado.  And yet they have about 9000 more feet to climb!

Randy felt great today, very strong.  During the climb the weather was high 70's to mid-80's; they were all in T-shirts.   By the time they arrived at Base Camp, winter weather was starting to set in.   When I heard from Randy, around 5pm Argentina time, he said it was freezing, snowing very hard, and thundering.   What a change from the summer conditions in the Vacas Valley.  As Randy said,  they are definitely "in the mountains now!"

At Base Camp, they have to make decisions about what to leave behind and what to bring into the higher altitudes.   Clearly, less weight is preferable since the mules can't climb above Base Camp, so they have to carry everything on their backs.  The guides had decided to put 3 guys in each of the tents above Base Camp so they wouldn't have to carry an extra tent.  Having a pretty strong opinion about being jammed in with two other big guys for the next 10 days, Randy had a little chat with his teammates and they all decided they would rather carry the extra tent.  Then Randy had a conversation with the 3 guides and, not surprisingly if you know Randy's persuasive powers, they will continue sleeping 2 to a tent.  Having seen pictures of Randy and Anders in their tent, it is very hard to imagine sharing that space with 2 large men, especially ones he met a few days ago!

The other consideration here is whether they will hire porters to help carry up to the first high camp.  There are a lot of porters hanging around Base Camp hoping to be hired to help in the higher altitudes.  Randy was going to ponder it a bit more, but when I just spoke to him tonight, he was leaning towards hiring a porter.  I remember from last year that this first climb to Camp One is one of the hardest -- very steep, some exposure meaning you can't misstep, and poor footing in areas due to loose rock -- all this while for the first time carrying 50+ lbs on their backs.   Somehow the porter sounds like a no-brainer to me, but we'll see what he decides. We didn't talk long as Randy said he was standing outside in a blizzard and wanted to get some sleep since they would have to get up during the night to shovel off their tents.  Next is a much welcome rest day for the team, so I'm sure we'll hear more mañana!

Some pictures of Base Camp, Plaza Argentina: