A much better day than yesterday

After what Randy looks back on as a rough day yesterday with the dehydration and unexpected rain, today was "like night and day".  He slept well and felt much better after super-hydrating with 4 litres between end of yesterday's trek and this morning.  The 12 team members rose at 7am and were off by 9 to beat some of the intense sun.   The weather was cooler and at the halfway point it was only up to 71.  By the time they arrived at their destination, Casa de Piedra at 10,600, it had climbed to a pretty steamy 82 but never got as hot as yesterday.  They had covered about 9.3 miles with an elevation gain of 1000 ft.  Randy focused on staying hydrated and keeping cool as possible.  He drank 4 liters on the way today instead of 3 yesterday.  And to help get his body temperature down after arriving the climb, he decided to take a dip in the Vacca River.   He walked about a 1/4 mile from  camp, stripped off his clothes and dunked in.  The Vacca, a glacial runoff, is their source of drinking water, which they purify.  Randy isn't exactly sure what might be in the water, so he kept his head out and just dipped in, but was enough to quickly cool his temperature and he felt great.  After walking back to camp and telling a few of his teammates about his "bath", a few were planning to head off and follow suit (birthday suit that is).

They are surrounded by the natural beauty of the Valle de Vacas, and head guide JJ reported in the RMI blog that they were lucky to have a condor sighting which is rare in the towering mountains.

Here are some pictures of the climb to Approach Camp 2.

Below are some pictures of Camp 2, Case de Peidra (House of Stone).  This Camp is named for the small house, constructed with rocks, that is used by the muleteers as a refuge on the way up to base camp and/or down to the trailhead.  As you can see there is not much at this camp besides that little house of stone and flat terrain to tie up mules and pitch their tents.

In the background is the old Stone Casa.

Looking back on yesterday, Randy thought the pace was quite fast, an hour faster than the 6 hours it had taken last year to climb the same route in much cooler weather.  Today the pace was a bit more measured, only 25 minutes faster than he and Anders did the same route last year.   Leave it to Randy to actually remember this stuff!

Another stat?  Guess whose oxygen saturation was the highest on his team after the hike today?  Yup, you got it, Randy with a O2 of 95%.  For those of you that read the blog last year, you know that by the higher altitudes his O2 sat had dropped precariously low, so this is really good news.  His back is feeling strong.  Today he carried about 12 kilos on his back (about 26.5 lbs); his other 26 kilos were carried by mule.  So far, so good.

Tomorrow is the last approach push up to Plaza Argentina (13,780 ft), where they will get set up for the High Camps and have a welcome rest day.

First Approach Trek to Pampa de Las Lenas

After handing over their gear bags to the muleteers and mules and loading up their own backpacks with water and essentials, the team set off around 10am on a very hot and sweltering day for their first approach trek.  This was the first of their 3 day approach to base camp at 13,780.  Today their goal was Pampa de Las Lenas, at 9,678 ft about a 2000 elevation gain for the day.   Below you can see the terrain while hiking up the Vaca valley to Approach Camp 1.

Randy said it was a scorcher, about 88 degrees, with no shade on the route.   He was definitely dehydrated at the end of the 5 hour climb today, having gone through all 3 liters in his pack and run out of water while hiking.   When I spoke to him,  he had already downed 2 more liters of water at Las Lenas and was planning to keep hydrating all evening.  He was still feeling a bit weak but was sure he would feel better by the morning.   Besides being dehydrated though, Randy said he had felt strong climbing, his oxygen was really good at 95%, and his back was holding up fine. 

They were all getting ready to have a steak BBQ with the "cowboys" (muleteers).    When I first talked to Randy the plan was to have dinner, then sleep under the stars.  Well not exactly the stars since it was overcast, but under the clouds. Randy was looking forward to sleeping outside. There was thunder and lightening in the distance, but the guides didn't think it would rain on them.  

Wrong!  When I spoke to Randy a few hours later, around 11pm his time, he said it had suddenly started pouring, thundering, and lightening, and they had to scramble and get their tents up.  The weather was getting colder and the wind was picking up, which was a good thing because everything had gotten wet and had to dry out.  Also, tomorrow should be cooler for their next climb.  

Randy is sharing a tent with Bissel (whom I guess I had previously called Faisal) and he thought it was cool they are camping in exactly the same protected spot that he and Anders had chosen last year.  

More tomorrow as they head another thousand feet up to Approach Camp Two (10,663 ft).  

Hey, I'm plugged in again!

Hey gang, RC here in Los Penitentes....a new feature here is WiFi!  Anyways I thought I'd take advantage of it and save Judy blogging for the day.

The 5 of us here plus JJ had a leisurely morning and then drove up to the Horcones River valley...this is the valley that leads to Las Mulas....the base camp we will not see on this trip.  We had a very pleasant acclimatization hike of just over 3 hours.  We climbed 725 vertical over about 4-5 miles round trip.  We hit a max altitude of 10,300 feet or so.  It was brilliantly sunny and quite warm...my computer had it at 84 degrees.  We had very impressive views of the South Face of Acconcagua on the way up the valley.  I felt good, although pace was quite modest.  My back was a bit stiff but improved with stretching and it felt stable.  I think a major focus for me on this trip will be carefully monitoring and managing my back.  I'm Optimistic it will hold up.

Our other four teammates showed up this afternoon.  They all seem quite nice and I'm really pleased with the team.  A couple of updates to the intro that Judy provided yesterday:

- Bissel is 52, lives in Texas and works at Northrup.  He is much more experienced at this than I am.

- Lou is 58 and was a biology teacher in St. Louis and as a result I'm not the old guy for once.

- Bo is Danish but works in Silicon Valley.  I thought he was in his 30s but it turns out he is 48!  He looks awesome for 48 and is a big strapping guy at 230 pounds.

- Denise is a chem eng consultant from Texas and is 52.  Her sister Diane just arrived and she is 53 and her brother Randy (of all names) is 55.

- Todd and Tom are the guys from Miami who just arrived.  They are in their mid 30s and all tatted up and have nose rings and such.  They should add an element of fun to us old folks.

Tomorrow we'll leave around 10 or 10:30 and I'm guessing we'll be trekking for 5-6 hours up to Las Lenas...the adventure begins in earnest!

I now return you to our star guest blogger!

Settled in at Penitentes -- WITH luggage!

This is Judy blogging for Randy while he's unplugged for the next couple weeks.....   One technical note: when Randy calls on his satellite phone, we get disconnected every couple minutes and the reception is not great, so I might not always have everything exactly right!

So, nothing like starting the trip off with a little lost luggage drama.  Those of you who know Randy, know he is a total "gear" guy, and he had put meticulous planning into choosing and packing his equipment. His guide had raised the option of renting gear if his bags didn't show, but you might imagine the idea of hiking for 20 days in rented boots was not exactly appealing to Randy.

Thankfully his two bags actually did arrive at the airport this morning, and Randy and the whole crew made a pitstop on the way from Mendoza to Penitentes to get them.  The team then drove 3.5 hours to the rustic ski town of Los Penitentes, stopping on the way for lunch, and arriving to their hotel around 6pm.  He then had a few hours off to go through his stuff and change out of his 2 day old clothes, and then meet the team for a typically late Argentinian dinner.   When I talked to him it was 75 and beautiful out, but forecast for rain for the next few days which could make for some wet climbing.

Randy really likes his teammates and is enjoying getting to know them all.  For those of you interested in the people side of things:

He's in a group of 3 guides and 9 climbers.  It's a bit of an older group than when he and Anders went last year; in fact everyone is married with children.  There's three other guys who are on their own, so Randy will probably have one of these guys as a tent mate.
Drew: a retired biology teacher, a few years older than Randy
Bo: a software guy from Denmark, mid 30's
Faisal: early 50's, from Ft. Worth, works at Northrop Grumman

Besides that there's a woman named Denise who owns a consulting firm and has children and even a grandchild, climbing with her sister and brother who had yet to arrive.  They were also waiting for two guys from Miami.

Now for the RMI guides; Randy said they are great.  The head guide, JJ, sounds like a character.  He is in his 40's, shaved head, totally tattooed up -- according to Randy looks like Mr. Clean.  He's attempted 19 climbs of Aconcagua and summited 15, so quite accomplished.  The 2 other guides are in their 20's, Mike and Steve.  A nice coincidence is that Mike was actually Anders' guide when he climbed Denali this summer, so Randy had fun chatting with him about that.   Evidently the three guides like their adult beverages and enjoyed a few cervezas at lunch.  I guess they are all savoring the last few days of real food and drink before their long climb.

Here's a few pictures of Los Penitentes, a sleepy off-season ski resort.  They will hang out here tomorrow and wait for the other 3 team members to arrive, and start their climb on Tuesday.

Good News!

Good news from Argentina!  Judy tracked down my luggage for me ( which is very helpful because the website they gave me still says they haven't located it!). Anyways, we hear its at the airport and we plan to pick it up on the way to Los Penitentes this afternoon.

It looks like we'll be delayed by one day as a couple of our team members are still in transit....

With any luck we'll be on our way Tuesday morning!

It's complicated

All of my mountaineering stuff is now officially AWOL.   That said, my assumption is I'll awake tomorrow and at some point hear of its immediate arrival....

However, maybe I'm not meant to climb this mountain...it would be a shame because  I love my team and would love to at least get a chance to try.....

Twists and turns

One of the keys to success in mountaineering is to be able to deal with the unexpected when it happens, because one thing for sure is that it will!

Leaving Philly, I got caught up in a 2+ hour delay last night but eventually made it to Toronto and my connections to both Santiago and Mendoza.  Unfortunately, the same can't be said of my luggage.  Its whereabouts remains unknown on this Saturday evening.  There is a flight from Santiago coming in this evening and I'm hopeful my bags will be on it.  Failing that there is another one tomorrow morning that arrives around 10 or so.  The next one after that is the same flight that I took today arriving around 5ish.

To complicate things, were supposed to leave for Los Penitentes  around 2 tomorrow afternoon.  If my bags come in tonight or tomorrow morn, then just a minor inconvenience.  If they come in tomorrow evening or later then things will start getting complicated.  Potentially, I could get them driven out to Los Penitentes tomorrow night or maybe stay behind in Mendoza when my team leaves and arrange to meet them at Penitentes tomorrow night or Monday morning.

If we can't find them by then, I'll have to get creative....perhaps a tour of Malbec country!