Climbing High
Aconcagua Expedition 2011

Our Brief Itinerary (an excerpt from Joanne Soo's article)
This will be a 24 days climbing expedition starting from 5th to 28th February 2011.

To arrive at the base camp of Aconcagua, we will start from Mendoza. Mendoza is 760m above sea level in western Argentina. The city of Mendoza is an important hub for land transportation. The city’s bus station has several daily services to all Argentinean provinces, as well as to Chile. We will spend one day exploring the charming city of Mendoza, and being in the heart of wine country, it is wiser not to get too high before getting high on the mountain.

We will leave Mendoza early the following day and be driven to Los Penitentes at 2,580m above sea level. Another day of short distance drive will bring us to the trailhead. We will start our approach walk to Confluencia Camp at 3,360m. All expedition food and equipment will be carried by mules allowing us to enjoy the trek with a daypack. We will spend an additional day at Confluencia Camp for active acclimatization.

The trek to our base camp at Plaza de Mulas (4,250m) will take about 8 to 9 hours. This is a long and difficult day but we will enjoy the impressive views of Aconcagua and the surrounding peaks.

We will establish our high camps from Plaza de Mulas and will practice faithfully the philosophy of climb high sleep low strategy as we ascend. There are three high camps before the summit and we will have to ferry our personal gear to the high camps during the acclimatization phase.

Altitude at each Camp:
Base Camp – Plaza de Mulas – 4,250m
Camp I – Plaza Canada – 4,900m
Camp II – Nido de Condores – 5,400m
Camp III – Camp Berlin – 5,900m
Summit of Aconcagua – 6,962m

Regardless the choice of our climbing route, it is the high altitude and the potentially extreme weather that challenge our climb. While we cannot fully predict the weather, we can better prepare ourselves with adequate training and be vigilant with our health and be aware of altitude sickness.

Click here to read the full article written by Joanne Soo

Click here to go back to Aconcagua Expedition Main Page