Aconcagua Photo Essay and Gear List

Lightweight at 7,000 Meters

After fine tuning our lightweight techniques for big mountains on two ascents of Denali (6,194 meters) in the Alaska Range, we thought it time to take our show on the road. Cerro Aconcagua has been on our ‘to do’ list for many years. At 6,962 meters, Aconcagua is the highest peak in the Andes, and thus South America. It is also a great mountain to test yourself camping at 6,000 meters. The mountain is an enormous stratovolcano at 32 degrees below the equator. We expected much milder conditions high in the central Andes than we are used to in our home sub-arctic ranges. During the peak climbing season of January/February, normal low temperatures are slightly below freezing and permanent snow on the route is rare. The mountain has a trail system that allows climbers to quickly move between camps solo, unroped and often in trail running shoes. Aconcagua seemed like the perfect test for going light on our first 7,000-meter peak.

The only similarity between an ascent of Denali’s West Buttress and one of the standard routes on Aconcagua is that you are moving a camp up mountain. Going big in the Andes was a completely different experience. First off, Aconcagua lacks the deep, glacial snow pack of the Alaska Range. This drastically affects the way you move and camp on route. Without the need to use floatation and with an extensive trail network, we wore old trail runners for most of the route. The shoes were originally just for the approach hike into the mountain and then for around camp. But warm temps and dry trail conditions allowed us to hike in shoes all the way to our high camp at 5,980 meters. Plastic mountain boots were worn on days we moved camp so as to keep them out of our packs.

Taking Shelter

Along with how we traveled between camps, the lack of snow forced us to think differently about how we would make camps. The flanks of Aconcagua are a fantastic wonderland of volcanic rock and rubble. There is little natural protection from any weather events that may arise off the Pacific Ocean just to the west. Tales of El Viento Blanco, The White Wind, smashing camps on the upper mountain are the stuff of legend. Snow is a great construction material, allowing Alaska climbers to ‘dig in’ and surround their camps with thick walls of quarried blocks, which is key to using an ultralight shelter on big mountains. On the volcanic slopes of the Andes, not so much. Another consideration is the speed that volcanic rock eats through sil-nylon, a lesson learned from using our 2.5-pound sil-nylon tent on a previous volcanic trek. For this adventure, we finally decided on a more traditional double-wall mountaineering tent with bomber guylines that attached to the tent body.

Cache and Carry

We embarked on our just-over-two-week (seventeen days) trek in mid-January, peak season for ascents of Aconcagua. Our route would take us on a three-day hike up the Vacas Valley into Plaza Argentina (4,100 meters), basecamp for routes on the north side of the mountain. We enjoyed mule support to this point with most of our food, gas, and mountain gear packed into two barrels. We spent three days for acclimatization and made a carry to our next camp at 5,000 meters. Snow storms kept us tent-bound for one day at each camp, but they never left any accumulation. Our next carry was to our high camp at Colera (5,980 meters) where we cached four days of food and fuel. The next day we moved to Guanacos Camp at 5,500 meters for a couple more nights to acclimatize. This officially began our traverse of the mountain as we moved to the western side.

A building weather front kept us at camp two for three days, as we preferred to wait out storm events at lower, more protected camps. With what looked to be a sign that the storm was abating, we moved to our high camp just in time to catch the front's full fury. Four days of wind and snow ensued. Our camp at Colera was positioned above the normal area and protected by wild volcanic formations; a Godsend for the strong winds. We emerged on January 26 to a winter wonderland. After a long morning of digging out and preparations, we headed out for the summit at a leisurely ten o’clock in the morning. Turned out the snowstorm was pure luck, as it was much easier to kick steps in the foot of fresh snow than it would have been to hike scree in plastic boots. Our hike landed us on the summit of Aconcagua five hours after leaving camp. The top was an international scene like we’ve never encountered in the mountains. Several different languages filled the air and a cross-cultural camera exchange took place (take my picture?). After a couple oxygen-starved hours on top, we descended back to high camp. Thanks to the new snow, we were having our first round of dinner two hours later.

Porters, Porters Everywhere

There is another aspect of trekking on Aconcagua that caught us by surprise. This was our first head on collision with serious commercial mountaineering. There are no reliable figures kept for climbing Aconcagua, but the number of non-guided people on the mountain could be counted on both hands. Given that we do also see more guided climbers than independent on Denali’s Washburn Route, the flavor of these groups differed greatly from what we’ve experienced in Alaska. Aconcagua guided trips are more expensive. Support by mule teams and porters (yes, people do hire porters on Aconcagua) make it possible to trek to the summit carrying only a water bottle. Many people around us happily paid full price to have their packs carried for them. And the porters were only too happy to oblige. How this affects being on the mountain as a non-guided party is that the talk around camp follows two genres: Ed Viesturs (the famous mountaineer) and CEO/CFO jargon. As always, making sure you have a compatible partner is the best piece of gear you can bring.

Please click on a thumbnail to view the full gallery.