Aconcagua. Start
Aconcagua. Puento del Lenas
Aconcagua. Casa de Piedra
Aconcagua. Base camp. Plaza Argentina
Aconcagua. Camp One. Cargo drop
December 24
The morning is clear and sunny. It is -2C in the shade, but under the sun I feel comfortable in the sandals and light sweater. Without wind, it would be warm even in a naked outfit. The sun here gives a dramatic temperature contrast.
It is time to leave the Plaza Argentine and finally move to Campe One. Good-buy meat pies, tasty pizzas, and tender chickens. Good-buy beer “Aconcagua” (interesting beer, by the way, very saturated and bready) and malbec “Santa Julia”. Well, the glass of Malbec I had up in my sleeve.
We finished packing, said good-bye to comrades, and at 11 am started to move along already known trail. Today is sunny and less windy than yesterday, and, as a result, warmer.
Plaza Argentina left below us.
Here you can see the author under the backpack with base camp as a background:
We going up.
This flower is called Nassauvia lagascae, and it doesn’t care that altitude here is 4300 metres, and nothing grows around. It wants to bloom, and it blooms.
Here you can find the sound produced by the person, who carries heavy bakckback on up to steep slope on such altitude:
The summit appeared.
Somewhere in the middle of our way, the glacier, covered with a thick layer of rocky debris becomes flattered and little ponds appeared on its surface. They are small, from the metre to several metres in diameter, and covered with ice. However, in the middle of the day, some of them throw out.
In one moment I realized, that I didn’t bath since arriving in Plaza Argentina and how pity it is. There is a popular belief among mountaineers that having a bath when you are on the mountain is a bad habit because the layer of dirt on your body protects you from disease hypothermia, altitude sickness and black alpinist. As soon as you wash it away, you are unprotected form anything. Some of my comrades strongly abide by this tradition. I am not so integrous and go into the water at the first possibility. So, I found a little pond with a thin layer of ice and washed my feet.
But one claw snagged, the bird is bagged. The half-hour late we found the pond appropriate for a swim (let’s name it swimming anyway). Aconcagua reflected in the water. I didn’t have a choice. It was my first swim in the glacier on the altitude 4666 metres. It was refreshing, I should say.
We continued ascent along this dirty glacier.
Penitentes fields.
Here we somehow lost the trail and found ourself in the middle of the huge penitentes field. It took some time to find the way out, but finally, we did it and shortly reached Camp One.
Frozen creek.
Ancient-style anemometer near the helicopter landing. Helicopters come here only for emergency evacuation.
The camp is almost empty, only one company based far from us, and some tents and plenty of luggage after yesterday’s cargo drop of commercial groups. They make one rest day in base camp after cargo drop, so they will be here only tomorrow.
We reunited with our luggage and set the tent.
Dinner with the rest of Malbec and rest.
