Best time to climb Aconcagua is from November to March. Anyway, in Aconcagua weather changes are so unpredictable that sometimes it is impossible to reach the summit for lack of experience in making a personal forecast.
Best time to climb Aconcagua is from November to March. Anyway, in Aconcagua weather changes are so unpredictable that sometimes it is impossible to reach the summit for lack of experience in making a personal forecast.
Considerations
Mount Aconcagua, “The Colossus of America”, so cold and special, so crude and dreamed of. It is precisely because of its weather that it is compared to the eight thousands of the Himalayas. The low humidity, low oxygen percentage and strong winds are only some of the most outstanding characteristics of the weather of Mount Aconcagua. The main cause of storms and bad weather is mainly the wet winds originated in the Pacific Anticyclone. The winds go South and rise to the West clashing against the mountain range, cooling and thus releasing their humidity as snow on the high peaks of the Andes.
Not only snow and wind-storms are common in Mount Aconcagua but also the feared electric storms, due to its geographical situation. Lightning bolts fall especially on the mountain peaks in the Northwest area and on the summit, making the stay and ascent difficult.
Mt Aconcagua is assailed by strong winds from the West (over 5500 meters above sea level), which added to the large size of the mountain, form the enormous and renowned “mushroom”. It is located in the upper part of mount Aconcagua and can be seen from Plaza de Mulas, creating a beautiful scenery and a terrible negative forecast of strong winds and precipitation. Approaching the summit in that moment would be deadly. When a storm approaches it is advisable to abandon the upper part of the mountain.
In good weather (summer) the temperature at night above 5000 meters is about -0,4º F.
In the summit the usual temperature is -22º F.
In case of bad weather from the South, in Plaza de Mulas the temperature can drop to-0,4º F, whereas in the altitude camps it is common to have -13º F.
In winter the temperature there never goes beyond 32º F.