Aconcagua – Basecamp
Sunday, January 9th, 2011
Rest day! Thank God!
I woke up in the tent at BC with a splitting headache and a feeling of being roasted in an oven. I had closed the vents in the middle of the night in order to keep the tent warmer, and it had worked too well. As the sun came up over the ridge it started beating on the tent, which warmed up like an oven with me inside my sleeping bag. Sweating out all that fluid was certainly not helping keep my hydrated, which in turn was not helping my severe headaches.
In fact, both Jeremy and I had pretty brutal nights “sleep.” I would soon find sleep to be a tough tradeoff between wanting to stave off the dehyrdation headaches by drinking plenty of water, but balancing that against not wanting to have to get up to pee constanly. Finding that balance was tough.
The headaches also seemed to be a bit more mild if I was able to keep my head elevated.
Anyway, today was a day to rest, get acclimated to the altitude, and re-sort our gear for going up the mountain. We had brought a full rack of glacier travel gear to BC, but were advised that there was no snow on the mountain, and the weight didn’t seem to be worth taking up. Similarly, lots of food and relative luxuries (like soap) that seemed important for BC deemed unworthy of their weight for going up the mountain. We decided that would would take sufficient supplies for 6-8 days at the higher camps (planning on 6 days, with enough to make it 8+ in an emergency.)
We hiked part of the way up to Camp 1 (C1) to try to get better acclimated to the altitude. Different people have different thoughts on how best to do that, I am a big believer in “active rest” – staying active, and trying to hike high in order to sleep low.
We also got to know Daniel Lopez – the Jabba the Hut of our Mos Eisely cantina. Sr. Lopez ran the dining tent that we had access to by way of our mule fees. He kept us supplied with reasonably clean water, and generally seemed to be the head of the area. He seemingly knew everything that was going anywhere in camp or on the mountain for that matter.
The next morning was our carry to C1 to cache gear. We got a bit of a late start (a pattern with us) and were forced to go up during the mid-day heat. The hike up is bout 4-6 hours, depending on a variety of factors. The first part is a pretty steep climb followed by some rolling hills, and then an extremely steep uphill which feels like a near-vertical scramble up a loose scree slope. The climb up was pretty uneventful although we were all exhausted by the end of it. We took out our trashbags and duffels, picked our tent site, and took a breather before heading back down.
That night was Christmas Eve, and we decided to treat ourselves. Sr. Lopez had meals which could be purchased for $40, and consisted of soup, spare ribs, mashed potatoes, and flan for desert. After our tough carry, and to be nice and strong for the next few days, we decided to celebrate Christmas in the dinner tent.
Carly and Nina had also decided to add a bit more christmas cheer, with carly bringing a bag of candy/small gifts for each person, and Nina having a table centerpiece and stockings with each person’s name. The coup de gras was clean ex-officio underwear for everyone – which we knew would come in handy for the hike out!
That night, Nina and I hung the stockings in our tent, and looked up at the sky which seemed to be bursting with stars while being satsified with a belly still full from our Christmas dinner. We agreed that it was certainly one of the most memorable Christmases we would probably ever experience. It was one of those moments that makes the whole trip worthwhile.
The next day we fought through the less enjoyable aspects of the trip (splitting headaches, constant fatigue) as we repeated our climb up to C1 with the rest of our gear. Our packs were much lighter, and we actually made great time (so good that Nina and I were even able to do an acclimitization hike late that afternoon after setting up camp.)
Category : aconcagua
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