“Es muy muy muy frio…”, the Argentine mountain guide was saying to me in slow Spanish, which I found all too easy to understand : “…it’s very very very cold..”. The date was 1st February 1991, the place was …
Continue reading1. Prologue…
2. Preparations
Once I had decided to attempt to climb Aconcagua, the most immediate problem seemed to be the lack of any potential companions. Nearly 7 years had gone by since I had hatched my rather naïve …
Continue reading3. Santiago to the Argentinean Border
Thursday 8th January dawned : I had already bought my ticket for the one o’clock bus from Santiago to Puente del Inca, and set about doing the last minute purchases. After contemplating the possible effects …
Continue reading4. Puente del Inca (2750m / 9000ft)
A kilometre after the Argentine border checkpoint the bus pulled into the side of the road at Puente del Inca, and off I hopped. The bus driver’s assistant elected to heave my rucksack out of …
Continue reading5. The Shimmering White Monster
I woke several times during the night, feeling short of breath, which didn’t seem a very good omen. I felt no urge to hurry in the morning. What was ultimately going to govern the length …
Continue reading6. Confluencia to Ibañez
When I woke up on 10th January I was encouraged by the fact that I’d slept almost continuously – much better than the previous night. The acclimatisation process seemed to be working. It was a …
Continue reading7. “Upwards Ever Upwards”…
Sunday 11th January dawned another calm and sunny day, but I couldn’t persuade myself to get out of bed before 9:15 am, which was the time the sun hit the bottom of the valley (having …
Continue reading8. Plaza de Mulas
A couple of km further on I passed the ruins of a brick built refugio – it wasn’t obvious why it had been so badly damaged. I could only assume that it had been crushed …
Continue reading9. Acclimatising
The next day (12th January) being a rest day I felt no guilt in staying in my tent until well after the “9:15 instant warm-up”, and in fact only got up because it got too …
Continue reading10. Carrying to 4900m
Peering out of the tent at 9:16 on 13th January, everything looked very much as it had done the previous morning, and the morning before that : the conditions were clear, calm and cold; the …
Continue reading11. The Wind Starts…
A steady strong wind would probably have made it much easier to sleep. The problem was that several minutes of silence was inevitably followed by an ominous whistle, the precursor of a vicious gust, whereupon …
Continue reading12. The Gran Acarreo
Soon after midnight I woke up and got the impression that something had changed. The wind was still just as strong, and still making just as much noise, but my tent was no longer being …
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