Props for the highest rockers

"Following the light of the sun, we left the old world"
- Christopher Columbus -

For the tenth time that night I jump up from my bed, out of a deep sleep. Again I get the feeling that I can’t get my breath and that my hard stops beating. We are now for the second night at 6000m and I’m suffering badly from involuntary hypoxia. Outside the wind gushes make the tent heavily vibrate, and snow keeps falling on my head; because it freezes –10° Celsius inside the tent, the damp from our breaths turn into ice; outside the conditions are much worse. This is the night that we have to summit; if everything goes well, we will get up at 4.00 am and leave at 5.30 am.
Suddenly I hear a voice in the distance, but the wind is to strong to hear what it says. When a flashlight lights up the tent my heart starts beating heavily; it is time to go. Then I hear Juan, our guide, in the front of our tent shouting. Alex… Bogdan… it is impossible… we have to… fast! I can’t really understand what he is saying, and he is gone before he can hear my reply. When I get out of the tent I can see the Andes far beneath us. The glow from the infinite number of stars, the full moon and the milky way make the white mountains shine in the dark night. When I turn to Aconcagua I see the dark silhouette of the mountain, which takes up most of my view. I see clouds razing over the mountain with great speeds and when I look up I see a big white mushroom shaped cloud, the infamous Viento Blanco.

The Aconcagua Expedition 2006 started ten days earlier in sunny Mendoza, Argentina, at 700m altitude. Bogdan and I arrived four days before the start of the expedition so we could plan everything in a relaxed way. The more we heard about the mountain, the more confident we became. Within a day our gear was complete, and we filled our days with sitting on terraces and talking about the things to come.
The day before we would leave, we checked in to Aconcagua Hotel, a four star resort. Here we met up with the team whom with we were going to climb the highest mountain of the Americas. There were ten climbers and three guides. First there were four friends, Gene and Jason, two Australian entrepreneurs, and Nick and Kristo, two cousins from Greek origin but living in respectively Australia and the United States. Kristo is in the music business with his rock band Sloth, contracted by Disney, and earns his money, before his expected breakthrough, in real estate. Nick is a 37 year old self-made god-zillionaire. He has several businesses on internet, organizes symposia which informs people all over the world to avoid paying tax, Masters of Wealth. Nick has already been in space, and is momentarily in training at the Russian Space Program, which will take him to the International Space Station (ISS) in three years time for a whopping $15,000,000 (he will be one of the first Space Tourists himself; just like his good friend Dennis Tito, in 2001 the first space tourist ever). Two years ago he even had lunch at the Titanic in a Submersible. A rather unique guy. Furthermore there was Herbert, in his late forties the oldest guy in the group; an entrepreneur from Germany, and a very nice and relaxed guy. Then there was Rasto, a former basketball professional who played in the national team of Slovakia; he also does marathons up and down mountains. The last two guys were Alexei (that’s so civilized, herbal tea on a mountain) and Jim, two students from England, with whom we had more great laughs.
Soon after starting the trip we noticed that the people attempting Aconcagua are very different from the adventurous tourists at Kilimanjaro; these people were far more serious about the climb. Their occupations vary little; almost all are entrepreneurs with their own businesses, who spent the little spare time they have traveling around the world seeking adventures. Almost everybody in the group has climbed Kili and other mountains of the Seven Summits. Their minds are all set on the great Seven and many want to attempt Everest, the highest mountain in the world; most of the talks during the trip were about this. In the first ten days we met many expeditions coming back from the mountain, totally broken and all had failed to reach the summit. The winds were too strong and the cold was mind numbing. There was a team from Malaysia who were going to challenge Everest in March (Aconcagua is the number one mountain in the world to practice for Everest), they also didn’t make it.
The first day we started at Puenta del Inca and had to walk the first three hours to Confluencia. Here we spend two nights, making a day trip to the south face of Aconcagua near Plaza Francia. Here we saw, from very close up, the mighty mountain in all it’s glory; and we were even rewarded with an avalanche falling from it’s snowy slopes. The next day was the big climb to Base camp, a ten hour hike to Plaza de Mulas at 4300m height, the base of the mountain. Here we stayed four days to acclimatize and practice ice climbing. Every day we made a visit to the doctors, where we got a physical check up. The prerequisites for going to the high camps were very strict and many people had to turn back at this point, also in our group. The oxygen levels required for passage to camp Canada were 80%; in our group this varied greatly on the last day from 68% for Gene who had to turn back with ‘pulmonary edema’, up to a whopping 94% for me. Furthermore I had a high/low blood pressure of 120 over 80 and a hart rate at rest of 94; all sounding very promising!
From base camp we started the climb to the first high camp (camp Canada) at 4900m. Gene and Jason had to turn back for various reasons; the remainder of the group seemed fit enough. Because we were heavily packed, up to 20kg, this was a very tough day, though manageable. These days my nails were starting to crumble and my cuticles (nagelriemen) were starting to bleed. At high altitudes the body stops to regenerate because it needs all the oxygen and energy for the primary functions in the body. At sea level the body uses 2000 kilocalories every day; on the mountain this varies from 3000 up to 8000 on the summit day. Everybody should eat more, but fails to, due to lack of hunger as the body shuts down the digestion system of the body. At the end of the trip I lost four kilo’s.
Immediately the next day we advanced to high camp 2 (Nido de Condores), at 5400m. This was a very hard climb, and for the first time during the expedition doubts started to raise in my mind about the final outcome. This night I got a very bad headache which lasted for the next two days. Because of a severe storm we had to stay an extra day at Nido and we were locked in our tents for two and a half day. The conditions were very bad and the cold, especially at night, was unbelievable. Because of the extreme altitudes we had to drink 5 liters a day, and therefore every night I had to leave the protection and comfort of my sleeping bag and tent to go out into the storm, in my boxers, for a leak. At Nido our tent was almost teared to pieces due to the wind; luckily it didn’t, but the toilet tent was destroyed. The infamous Viento Blanco, a near perfect mushroom shaped cloud at the top, was present all the days we were at Nido. This cloud means winds up to 180 km/h near the summit, and almost immediate death for climbers present near the summit. The last day at Nido we lunched with cheese, ham, olives, goose liver and the best Argentinean wine, high above the surrounding Andes range.
After the weather improved a bit, we advanced to the last camp at 6000m, camp Colera. Here we spent a total of three nights and four days because of bad weather. The third day everything improved, the wind disappeared almost completely and that night we were able to make the trip to the summit, our very last chance. Everybody in the group was excited and the depressed conduct of the last few days disappeared immediately. That night before the attempt we watched the sun go down in the west, where we could see the reflection of the sun in the Pacific Ocean, 400km further away!
We got up at 4.00h and left an hour and a half later. The temperature was -25°C, but with all the gear we had, and as long as we kept moving, it was doable. The first two hours went by quite easily. I had lots of energy and felt very strong. At 6400m everything changed. The energy in my body was gone in the blink of an eye and I started to feel worse every minute. We kept advancing to the Traverse, a wind swept path around the summit. The temperature dropt severely on us and the wind almost blew us of the steep slope. During our trip on the traverse we came across many people soloing Aconcagua; many had a strange stare in their eyes and were hardly moving anymore. Some were hallucinating and did not know what they were doing anymore, many kept advancing without knowing how. Our guides helped some of these guys. When they don’t, the guides told us, these people keep advancing until they die on the spot; the cemetery on the mountain is the silent witness of the people less lucky every year. Halfway the traverse my speed decreased to nearly zero and I lost track of the group. Augustine (Tinto) stayed with me, so I could advance at my own pace. Almost at 6700m, just before the infamous Canaletta, I collapsed. I had a bad cough, the beginning of pulmonary edema, and no more energy in my body. The amount of oxygen at this altitude is only forty percent, and the body is only capable of absorbing an even smaller amount of that. Here, walking slowly is like running with a rope around your neck; it feels like suffocating. At this moment a Spanish guy came running by. Later we found out that this was a successful world record attempt; the fastest ascend and return of Aconcagua ever. This guy managed to go from the entrance of the park to the summit and back (a trip of 90 kilometers, and an altitude gain of almost 7 kilometers) in only 14,5 hours! Normal people do this in 18 days; and I know a guy who tried it with his friends in six days ending in hospital with cerebral edema (hersenoedeem).
After half an hour resting, I took a leak, but didn’t know how to close my pants anymore, just the click of a button away. I couldn’t think clearly anymore and was getting worse. Finally Augustine decided, very wisely, that it wasn’t responsible for me to go on anymore. Three hours later I was back at the camp, hearing the remainder of the group making it to the summit over the radio, at 6962m; a glorious moment. Six hours later they were back, totally destroyed they sat at the tents. Jim and Alexei were hallucinating all the way down, and even at camp. Jim didn’t know where he was anymore and stopped walking 200m before the camp. Nobody noticed this, and 40 minutes later he came by to ask where we were. Alexei had seen a rolled up ear nailed to a wooden board along the way and faces in every rock.
The day after we descended quickly to Plaza de Mulas, at 4300m, where we had a big party. We drank champagne, wine and beer, and everybody became drunk. Nick lent out his satellite phone ($6 per minute) so we could all call our families back home. The next day we saw a condor flying over the camp; the last time this happened according to the guides was four years ago.
Finally we walked back on the 30th of December, a horribly long trip. Back in the hotel I couldn’t walk anymore, had big blisters on my feet and my liver was hurting severely, due to lack of water. This was the end of the hardest trip in my life (the hardest trekking in the world). I learned a lot during this trip, made great new friends and it was worth every step and every peso!

The next mountain to be climbed will be Mt. Elbrus, the highest mountain of Europe, far away in southern Russia in the Caucasus mountains. This will probably be with Bo, Nick and Kristo.
I want to thank all my travel buddies on the mountain and our guides Juan, Tinto and Nacho; without their help we wouldn’t have come so far, or even worse things could have happened.

Update: The 31st, Bogdan and I flew to Buenos Aires. At new Years eve we catched up with Ximena, who came all the way from CBBA to party with us. Together we went to Pacha, the hippest discothèque of BA, on the Atlantic Ocean.

I want to wish everybody a very happy and successful new year, 2007!