Tag: How to Climb Aconcagua

Freedom means learning to accept reality, with all its contradictions and paradoxes, both the terrible and discouraging aspects and the pure and inspiring ones. The freedom of our limits”

We met at the Directorate of Natural Resources, to get the permits to climb Aconcagua. There I met Eric, Eduardo and Leandro, from Buenos Aires and members of the expedition

I gave Constanza 15 kg of cargo for the mules, where she goes food and clothing. On January 26, she had given him a duffle bag with 30 kg of clothes.

I see the whole group very happy and confident in achieving the goal, we are all very excited. Some may wonder why try to climb Aconcagua? …. The answer is because it is there, because it is beautiful and impressive, a real challenge!!! Aconcagua 360 Route

Wherever you can do it or dream it starts…. in audacity there is genius, energy and magic. That’s what everyone feels in their own way, it’s like an inner tremor that transforms you, you want everything to start at once, in my case a year preparing for this moment. I don’t know how else to express what I feel, I can only assure you that I never felt something like this

Tuesday 03/02/05

“Growing up is learning that maturity consists of a sum of personal choices and decisions; carrying them out makes us free. Daring to take responsibility and the pain of this type of freedom entails, is what it means to be alive”

Liliana takes me to the bus station, with my backpack that weighs about 15 Kg. I think I have everything I need, even a small chair so I don’t always have to sit on the stones. a sad and worried face possibly originated in the farewell and in realizing what was to come.

I plan to read and look at stars as well as admiring the incredible landscapes that surround that great mountain, the highest in America.

How to Climb Aconcagua

I have two books: Don Quixote, which I have already read in extreme situations and I plan to reread, at least some chapters, and Captain of the Ship, a book by Patric O Brian about ships and seas in the 19th century, another of my passions. I travel by bus to Horcones together with Belén and Gladys. I say goodbye to Liliana thinking that the next time I see her, this project will be finished, I hope successfully. The bus leaves at 10:15 and arrives in Uspallata at 12:00. 100 years surrounded by a small wall. I had never seen it, it is diagonally from the Service Station, I take a picture of it. On the trip I read three chapters of Captain of the Ship, very good.

We arrived at Horcones at 2:00 p.m. We got off the bus and began to walk to the park ranger control. We took some photos along the way. We arrived at the park ranger where there are three helicopters standing and the rest of our group waiting for us. 7 a.m.

We do the corresponding paperwork, I greet Pablo Perelló, Chief Ranger and in-law on the part of Leticia, Liliana’s sister, I send greetings to the family through him and we begin, after eating two sandwiches, the walk to Confluencia (3300mts) where we arrived at 7:00 p.m.

Starting from camp 2, climb obliquely to the left (direction East), until you reach the glacier. It is climbed directly to the right of it (orography left), slopes of 30 to 35 degrees. Then the glacier begins to gradually rise until it reaches a maximum inclination of 45 to 48 degrees, around 6,450 – 6,550 meters. Here you cross the “bottleneck” and continue straight up, while the Aconcagua 360 Route slope decreases slightly. Finally, the edge that limits the south wall is reached. Here the inclination decreases very noticeably and it is possible to walk in the snow. The descent can be done by the same route or by the normal route, the latter being the most advisable and fastest option.

The descent along the normal route is developed first by the “canaleta”, then to the north in a traverse crossing next to the “Peñon Martinez”, arriving at the “Portezuelo de los vientos” and, finally, the “Independencia” refuge at 6,250 meters . From this shelter directly down to the North-East. Camp 2 is perfectly located.

How to Climb Aconcagua

The “Stone Sentinel” rises to the sky, to the south, (an immense wall almost 3,000 meters high and 7 kilometers wide). The legendary French mountaineer Lionel Terray visited the great wall during the southern summer of 52/53, after climbing the once mythical Fitz Roy. He considered then that the impressive wall of ice and rock constituted a colossal alpinistic problem. And he was not wrong…

The aspect of the South wall as a whole is one of difficulty, danger and, at that moment, almost impregnable. But it is very clear that mountaineers of all times hate the word impossible. During the southern summer of 53/54, a strong French expedition led by Rene Ferlet reached the bottom of the “Horcones inferior” ravine, on the margin of the glacier of the same name. There they installed their comfortable base camp, in what is now known as “Plaza Francia” (4,100 m), ready to besiege the wall of the great mountain.

After acclimatizing and carefully studying the slope, they chose the large spur that limits the gigantic central avalanche channel of the wall to the right. This spur is relatively protected from any falling ice or rocks. Towards the end of the second third it is interrupted to give rise to a large balcony of ice called “Upper Glacier”. This is a hanging glacier that pours its ice cascades into a void of almost 2,000 meters and constitutes one of the main dangers of climbing on the south face.

Aconcagua Guided Climb

They used more than a month of acclimatization and preparations, during which they equipped the first difficult sections of the spur with fixed ropes. Towards the end of February, 6 climbers launched themselves to the top. The group was made up of G.Poulet, R. Paragot, P. Lesseur, L. Berardini, A. Dagory, E. Denis, at that time the best French mountaineers, which was equivalent to saying in the world.

For seven days they struggled between the unstable rocks and the ice, severely affected by the cold, they finally managed to reach the top. There was then talk of “heroic bravado.” Undoubtedly the French created one of the hardest routes in the world, being at the time, the most difficult wall, with the greatest slope and the highest above sea level, that avant-garde mountaineering managed to climb.

The glacial action was much more significant in the past, and the geomorphology that can be seen today is modified by the action of subsequent processes such as mass removal and fluvial action. The current glaciers of the mountain range in general, which therefore affect the Aconcagua Guided Climb, are classified as valley glaciers, mountain glaciers, and snow patches; These, in turn, can be presented as uncovered, covered by debris and rock glaciers. Almost the entire fluvial network of Mendoza corresponds to the Desaguadero basin formed by the Mendoza, Tunuyán, Diamante and Atuel rivers. The Barrancas and Grande rivers that form Colorado do not integrate the mentioned basin in the southern part.

All these watercourses are born in the mountainous area and descend to the plains, where they interrupt their basins due to their intense use for irrigation. They are antecedent rivers (which conserved their courses since before the orographic formations) that cross the mountains through enormous gorges eroded during the tertiary movements, and practice many of them lack water for much of the year and with the spring thaw their channels are They make it very torrential.

The Mendoza River is formed from the union of the Tupungato and Las Cuevas rivers. It receives the waters of the Horcones, Santa María, and Vaca’s rivers that descend from Aconcagua. Note the difference in the flow of a river that feeds on thaws such as the Mendoza, comparing its average flow, calculated at approximately 55 m3 / sec., With 750 m3 / sec. that reaches in the summer.

Aconcagua 360 Route is surrounded to the west and southwest by the Río de Los Horcones that runs through the valley of the same name and part of the northern and eastern sectors by the Río de las Vacas. The Los Relinchos stream is born on the eastern slopes, which feeds the Vacas river after a short journey.

There are no glacial lakes, and we only see some remains of them in the form of small buckets in the high mountains.

The Laguna de Los Horcones is the most critical water mirror in the preserved area. Glaciers, those enormous masses of ice that occupy the highest parts of the massifs, have their maximum expression in conservation unity.

Two are found on the southern slope (Horcones inferior and Horcones superior glaciers) and the resulting glaciers on the North and Northeast slopes, the main one being Las Vacas, located at the head of the homonymous river.

How to climb Aconcagua

On the south and east walls, the aforementioned Polish glacier stands out, with an area that reaches 700 hectares, and the Güssfeld glacier with a site that exceeds 1,000 hectares.