Aconcagua – Camp 1 and Death on the Mountain
Monday, January 10th, 2011
Going from BC to C1 is where the training wheels come off and you feel like you are a real mountain climber. Gone are the accoutrements – spartan though they may be. You are now completely dependent on yourself, your team, and whatever you brought up the mountain.
The altitude is much worse – we were now above 16,000 feet, and the headaches continued to go along with it. Our new home at C1 was fairly well protected, but still windier than BC. We got to know some of our neighbors, many of whom were very accomplished mountaineers and some of whom will figure into the story going forward.
We had guys nearby who had climbed Everest multiple times, guys who had climbed Cho Oyo and put up first ascents in Patagonia. These guys were strong, accomplished climbers and it was fascinating to meet and swap stories with them. There was a large, guided contingent of British folks who were a bit behind us, and was also got to know Joss and Zach, a Belgian and an Aussie. This was getting fun!
After moving to C1, Nina and I were both feeling quite strong and well acclimitized. Carly and Jeremy were a bit more sporadic, and so Nina and I decided to carry a load up to C2. Here again, we wanted to be doing “active acclimitization.” Also, the weather had been reasonably good, and we wanted to make sure we were in a position to take advantage of a good weather window should it exist.
The hike up to C2 was tough, far tougher than we had imagined. As we got about 2/3rds of the way up, some nastier weather started to blow in, and we talked to a couple of strong climbers who decided to cache their gear just off the trail and head back down. We tried to keep going towards C2, but an hour later we realized we had made nearly no progress. In the interest of saving our strength, and getting out of the weather, we went ahead and built a gear cache and stashed our payload. We decended rapidly to get off the ridge where we found the weather was much more pleasant, and decided to hang out and breathe the thin air for a while before heading back down to C1.
After the rest day, Jeremy and Carly were feeling better, and there was some discussion of them combing their cache and move days to do an all-in-one. Ultimately, it was decided that wasn’t a good idea, and the next day we all got up and headed off together. Jeremy and Carly were planning to do a gear cache, while Nina and I decided we would move up to C2.
That morning, we had head stories of a group of 4 Americans who had taken the Polish Direct route up the glacier on Christmas day. They had apparently had slow going (unsurprising, since many accomplished climbers had pronounced the glacier as unclimbable in it’s current state) and had summitted at around 7pm in a whiteout. After reaching the summit, they had been unable to find the trail. We heard conflicting stories, but it seemed as though one american had died above C2, and we would later find out that another died at BC while two more were medivac’d out in critical condition.
Shortly after Nina and I collected our gear at the cache below C2, we were on our final approach to camp. In the distance, I could see four park rangers manhandling a sleeping bag and had a sick feeling in my stomach. I was bringing up the rear of our crew and we all stood to the side as we watched the rangers struggle to get the bag down, by this point it had become quite obvious that it was the body of the dead climber.
I averted my eyes both out of respect for the dead, and simply to spare myself the sight. It was a stark reminder of the risks involved in our expedition, and reinforced my committment to make sure no one on our team shared a similar fate. We climbed the rest of the way in silence, and finally made it to camp at the foot of the deadly Polish Glacier.
At camp, it was clear the mood had shifted dramatically. There was very little speaking, and Jeremy and Carly were clearly ready to head back down. They were already voicing doubts about whether they would return to the high camp. They finally decided to leave their gear at C2, and make a decision the next day. I had seen how much different a rest day or a nights sleep could make, and I was hoping that by getting up to 19,200 feet, it would make their time at 16,000ft much more comfortable.
We set our tent up near Joss and Zach, and across from two North Face VE-2 tents that we would later realized belonged to the tragic climbing group. Carly and Jeremy headed back down the mountain, while Nina and I got settled in. We were next to a glacier pond, where we could literally dip our water bottles in and drink fresh water straight from the the pond untreated. The views were absolutely amazing, and we were extremely happy to be there. We spent quite a while securing the tent, making sure it would stand up the winds and storms of C2, and chatted with Zach and Joss before turning in.
Little did we know that the night would include a brush with Cerebral Edema and a raging blizzard before it was over….
Category : aconcagua
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