Aconcagua 2010 - A Success!

Gallery Updated: http://picasaweb.google.com/siggen81/Aconcagua2010#

Post-summit greeting from the Expedition leader:

After 14 days of struggle, hard work, radiating sun, dust, snow, windstorm (yes, really!) we managed to put 8 of the team members on the summit of Aconcagua. 8 out of 11 is very, very good, taken into consideration that the normal success rate for summiting Aconcagua is only 30%! That was great, but not without drama. 2 of our members got altitude sickness, the last one as high up as 5780 meter and had to stop the summit attemt. One member decided already in BaseCamp to give up, but eventually made it anyway to the summit! By pure will!

Except from the very, very heavy storm (22 m/sec) at the camp at 5380 meter (Camp Nido) the weather was fairly good. We had really few problems. Maybe the really critical one was that the luggage didn't show up at the airport in Santigo! Almost everybody lost their luggage, including Håkon who arrived the previous day. We were told to go to Mendoza in Argentina to wait for the luggage, and that was a loooong wait indeed! A nervous wait..., but during the next day it all showed up. Puhhhh!
The very long trek into BaseCamp was a nice one, although a long one for some (11 hours).
The most of us also climbed Bonete, a 5002-meter peak as part of the acclimatisation-process from BaseCamp, a real challenge on it's own, and the most members did new personal altitude records. Three of us needed some more acclimatisation in BaseCamp, so the group decided to delay the climb one day in BC, but I am sure that gave benefit to the whole group.
Unfortunately Avinash acclimated somewhat slower than the rest of the group and decided to leave Aconcagua in favour of the beach in Renaca/Vina after having climbed to Canada (4910 m) twice.
At Nido (5380 m) we were joined by Tove, who unfortunately lagged one day behind us other in acclimatisation. She eventually also decided later to go down, due to lack of speed and acclimatization.
The summit day started out as a fantastic day, with blue sky and no (very rare!) wind. The morning started with some drama; both Knut Roald and Mona had very low values on the oxymeter; 64, in addition Knut Roald felt really sick and decided not to climb that day. By a fantastic luck, Monas saturation-levels increased to the very good 77 just before leaving camp! These figures often showed mysterious numbers, and these new measurement proved to be correct indeed; Mona was the second strongest to the summit, only beaten by Sven. We started out from Camp Berlin at approx. 6 o'clock in the morning, the first period with headlamps. The first hour was in dusk and bad view but at 08:00 the sun rised and helped somewhat on the cold. The weather started out very good, with no wind and clear sky, only -16 centigrades, but during the day it started to snow quite a lot.
After 8 (effective +/-) hours, we made it to the summit! We ALL made it; out of 8 who started that morning, 8 made it to the summit! Fantastic! And all within approx 1/2 hour. Sven was first, and Mona, our only remaining female member, as second. The very best achievement was from Jarle, who was behind in acclimatisation but did a tremendous efford to keep up with the group all the way to summit, conquering both severe headache and fatigue. Fantastic Jarle!
Unfortunately the bad weather prevented us from the expected fantastic view from the summit, but we took quite a few pictures of the group and headed down. We reached down to Berlin at approx. 19:30(?). Totally exchaused, at least I was... But as a happy man on behalf of the group. Knut-Roald was still sick, had been sleeping the most if the day and had decided to cancel the summit attemt.
After a loooong sleep we hurried down to BaseCamp, out of the Aconcagua National Park and headed down to Vina del Mar/Renaca at the coast of Chile for some warmth, beef-steakes and wine, but that's another story... But a nice one!

Thanks to everybody, both members and viewers on this blog, for this unforgettable climb and tour!

Regards
Håkon

Pictures

I have added some pictures to my personal gallery. They can be found here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/siggen81/Aconcagua2010#


More pictures will be added to the blog as well. I am working on gathering everyone's pictures at the moment.


SS

The Summit!

I am in the process of sorting and modifying pictures, but here is the team picture from the summit!

Click on the picture for large version!

From left: Christen, Sigbjørn, Atle, Mona, Jarle, Håkon and Sven. Marius had already left the summit.

After summit

Everyone except Knut-Roald, Avi and Tove made it to the summit Thursday 15th at 15:00.

The summit day started out nice, but ended up with heavy snow and cloudy weather at the top.

We are heading for Chile today, and look forward to a few quiet days at the beach.

(This message was received January 17th to my mobile phone in Florida. Ingar)

Great News!

Jarle has recovered, and will join us up to Camp Canada tomorrow (and hopefully to the summit as well!)
Everyone is feeling great after a nice day in the sun here at basecamp. Me (Sigbjorn) and Avi had two hamburgers for lunch! :)

Wish us luck!

Still in Basecamp

We were supposed to head up to Camp Canada at 5000m today to set up camp, but due to slow acclimatization for some of the members, we decided to stay one more day in basecamp. We went to Canada yesterday to deposit our high altitude gear, then we headed back down. Jarle was struck by severe head aches and vomiting on the way up there. He has decided to abort his climb and stay in basecamp.

Avi and Knut-Roald are lagging a bit behind on their O2 saturation, so the group decided to stay one more day down here to give them a chance to acclimcatize better. Hopefully everyone will be able to set up camp at Canada tomorrow. The weather is beautiful in basecamp today, and everyone should benefit from an extra acclimatization day.

Tove has been set up with a porter guide, but due to her slow pace, a summit attempt seems to be out of the question. She might hike to Camp Berlin if time, strenght and weather permits.

The rest of the group is feeling strong and is well acclimatized. The weather forecast is still good as well, so team morale is high.

Thanks to everyone that sent us greetings on SMS!

Blogs will be short at best once we leave basecamp. We have limited charging possibilities for our satphones up there, and the battery must be charged in case of emergencies.

Basecamp!

Here comes the first blog update in a few days. We didn't get a chance to update it since we left Mendoza. We spent new years eve in Penitetes, a small skiing resort not far from the park entrance.

1/1/2010: We started the trek from the park entrance to Confluencia, the first camp at 3400m. Most of us were carrying heavy loads, 25-30kg. It was sunny and hot most of the way, but we were hit by cold winds just 30 minutes from the camp. The weather changes here are just insane.

2/1/2010: Acclimatizion trip to 4300 meters. It was a 4 hour trek up a valley where we should have been able to see the south face of Aconcagua, but it was too foggy. We did see a huge avalanche though, at the far southeast side of the mountain.

3/1/2010: Hike to Basecamp. The hike to basecamp (Plaza de Mulas) at 4300m took us 10 hours. It was extremely hot most of the way, and several of us were suffering from head aches at the end.

4/1: Basecamp. Today we haven't done much. Mostly relaxing and acclimatization. Head ache is a common problem throughout the group. Christen and Mona seems to be doing best. Tomorrow we will head up a nearby peak at 5050m for acclimatization. The day after we start the logistical trek up to Camp Canada. There we will deposit the high altitude gear and head back down to basecamp to sleep.


We will try to update the blog again before we had up for the high camps, which should take us 6 days. Hopefully we can make a summit attempt january 12th!