Eating Steak at Daniel Lopez'
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2005
1
Trip End
Jan 22, 2005
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Aconcagua, Argentina
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Having "conquered" Aconcagua, I think back and wonder: "why would someone want to climb Aconcagua?" (or any mountain for that matter.) All the training, carrying huge loads in an uncomfortable backpack, the chance of sickness or falling off a cliff, not being able to breathe, extreme cold, terrible sleeping conditions...who would fly around the world and pay money to put up with these conditions? The "because it's there" answer has become cliché. Hundreds of people were climbing Aconcagua, but nobody was climbing Mt. Ameghino, Aconcagua's neighbor, which would have been a more technical climb and offered a striking view of Aconcagua without the crowds. Ameghino is "there" just as much as Aconcagua is "there." What it comes down to is the human desire to strive. Aconcagua was simply the bigger prize. And as part of millionaire climber Dick Bass' Seven Summits-the highest peak on each continent-Aconcagua, situated in Argentina just across the border from Chile, is a destination for many people striving to climb them all.
Once you choose a mountain to conquer, however, you must choose a route. Will you make your own route, as the famous mountaineer Reinhold Messner did on the steep South Face, with its rockfalls and steep glaciers? Will you take the more challenging path, the road less traveled? Will you use porters? Will you climb Alipne style? Over 20 routes make their way up the different faces of Aconcagua.
We strived to accomplish what we could. I surely couldn't climb even the easiest route on the South Face. We "settled" for the False Polish Route, which has a longer approach route, a longer summit day, is less crowded, and is more scenic than the Normal Route. For me, that was enough striving. The challenge for me was that climbing this mountain would be full of unknowns and would require great physical and mental stamina over three weeks. The summit was well over a mile higher than I'd ever been before. I did not know how I would acclimatize. I did not know if I'd be in good enough shape, seeing that three months before my only fitness activity was playing beach volleyball once a week. When Kevin called and said: "so are you in?" my affirmative answer was a test for me. Could I do it? It seemed too much of a challenge when I began training in October and running three miles was difficult. Fears crept into my mind: I can't even handle exercising at sea level-this is crazy. My lungs will explode.
At the intersection of the Vacas and Relinchos valleys, Aconcagua came into view for the first time after two days of travel through hot and windy mountain desert, a beautifully stark landscape of folded sedimentary rocks, river valleys, spires, needles, buttresses, and scree slopes. Entire mountains were colored like a fine dessert tray-dark and milk chocolate, raspberry, caramel, dark mint, coffee, cream, key lime. Often their colors were layered like a fine cake yet thrust into the air and tilted at sharp angles, rising 6,000 feet above the chocolate milk river below. The rocks were friable-erosion and weathering were rapidly shaping this landscape. Hummingbirds darted among rare spring-fed yellow flowers; the early summer weather summoned all plants to flower-and they did, the few that survived here. Condors soared in this landscape and guanacos, the larger relatives of llamas, roamed the scree slopes, grazing on spiny vegetation. We only saw evidence of the uncommon guanacos-a jawbone, a skeleton, their pathways along the upper slopes of the valley walls. The Relinchos valley framed Aconcagua and headed towards base camp, where both vegetation and wildlife are rare.
In this environment, looking at Aconcagua, more fears crept into my mind as the mountain summit still stood 13,000 feet above, and I was just recovering from food poisoning on the plane ride down. But these fears were also mixed with confidence as I'd trained hard, climbing over fifteen peaks in the White Mountains and exercising at least four or five days a week. I trained mentally as well, reading people's blogs about Aconcagua, looking at mountain photographs and maps. I wanted to picture the climb in all its aspects. Despite my fears, I felt as ready as I could be for the unknown challenge this expedition offered. At least I think so.
Six people took the challenge. We hired two guides through Aconcagua Expeditiones, Heber Orona's company. Heber was the first Argentinean to climb the more difficult North Face of Everest (without supplementary oxygen). He and his assistant Christian met me at the airport with a sign saying "Lloyd Raleigh." No one's ever done that for me before. Immediately I felt very V.I.P. That changed when the Russian mountaineer came to town (he just climbed a new, difficult route up the East Face of Everest). The Russians had a different approach to mountaineering: they acclimatized by getting drunk. In front of Heber, they emptied plastic bottles of mineral water and filled them with liquor. Heber was fascinated with this technique, as was I. I hope it worked.
Our guides were Cesar and Lito, short for Miguelito. Lito was the head guide and had climbed Aconcagua 26 times. Cesar had climbed up three times, first when he was a porter. After a month climbing back and forth from camp to camp, he was able to climb from base camp to the summit with ease. His second time was up the Polish Glacier route, a more technical route--alone. Cesar enjoyed signing falsetto American heavy metal and pop songs and saying: "te amo" every time a beautiful woman hiked by. He would speak in Spanish with Lito thinking we didn't understand. He was right...partially. At one rest, I understood few words but knew he was talking about the Scandinavian woman walking towards us, so I mimicked his falsetto Argentinean accent and said: "te amo." Cesar was passionate about life, embodied the Argentinean spirit, and taught me how to say "Como va!" Lito was more laid back, but just as passionate underneath his calm and steady nature. He set a good pace and listened to us, giving us the best chance to reach the summit. He knew the mountain through his experiences. During his first experience he lost a good friend who fell off the Polish Glacier. We spoke French sometimes, which reminded him of his ex-girlfriend in Lausanne. Language was important on this trip; English, Spanish, French, Mandarin, Cantonese were all spoken.
English was the common language for our diverse group. Our expedition represented four countries-Argentina, China, United States, and Taiwan. In international politics this would make for an interesting mix, but we had a common goal-reaching the summit (or was it enjoying the scenery?).
My tent partner was Joe Wong, from Hong Kong. He was a physical therapist for a hospital and had climbed with others in the group before. At base camp, we lay in the tent for the third acclimatization day and he said something like: "this gives us lots of time to think about ourselves." He was right, for better or worse.
Our trip leader, John Tsang was also from Hong Kong. He masterminded the trip plans. Without him there would have been no trip. Without him, I would not be writing this. Yet, he maintained a dignified modesty the entire trip, while motivating everyone at the same time ("ok, everybody...let's go.").
Kevin Cheng completed the native Hong Kong triumvirate. His signature piece of equipment was his bright red nose flap that kept it from getting sunburned. He also developed a balaclava mouth hole that would open up so it wouldn't fog his glasses. He's the next McGuyver, mountaineer style.
Jay, whose last name I have never seen since his e-mail name shows up as "ÛªN ³¯" (apologies to Jay) was from Taipei. Although he didn't speak much, it didn't matter. His kindness and warmth permeated you, and you could tell that he was a happy person through and through.
Kevin Claus, who is now living in Hong Kong, and I have been traveling around the US and world since high school when we were in Explorer Scouts. Despite his brothers' attempts to assassinate me (one with a billiards ball the other with a big chair-not your typical murder weapons), we are best friends and I was honored to be his best man a few years back on Decatur Head out in the San Juan Islands of Puget Sound. His long strawberry blonde hair, chin scruff, and wild smile complete with scrunching crows' feet at the corner of his wide eyes are testimony to his perpetual youthfulness, at least so far.
Most of our trip we watched the weather, the mountains, and the other expeditions from the three camps. I was surprised: the camps were much larger than I expected. Hundreds of people were camping around Aconcagua, all trying to reach the summit. Permanent domes, expedition headquarters, a helipad, and a Guardaparque station were all established at base camp, called Plaza Argentina, which sprawled over a large area. When we arrived at Plaza Argentina, the winds howled and sent another expedition's tents flying up the moraine a good quarter mile. We watched in awe and quickly added larger rocks to hold down our tent's guy lines. During these windy times, sleep was difficult. I remember you could hear the shaking tents in the upper reaches of the camp followed by closer tents. Then, as the gust ripped through, our tent shook fiercely. In the morning, we watched the mushroom cloud form over the summit and knew it would be another windy day. Later we'd hear that people had descended from Camp Two-too much wind. No one attempted to summit on those days. Another evening, we watched people come back from a successful summit attempt and eat steak at the Daniel Lopez Expeditions hut and wanted to do the same as our mouths watered. At Camp One, we watched lumbering cumulonimbus storms generate heat lightning over the Tiger Mountains across the valley where we hiked days before. We watched sun dogs encircle the sun, the Polish Glacier calve into the abyss below, and avalanches tumble down narrow chutes. We also waited while perfect summit days passed by. The winds stopped and the horseflies returned. We had time: time to boil water for soups, time to explore the extensive moraines and glaciers, time to wash clothes or to bathe, time to write in our journals or take pictures or talk about rocks or nothing in particular. But still, we were not yet ready for the summit.
As we waited day after day at the camps so our bodies could produce enough red blood cells to survive the summit climb, I read Jack Kerouac's The Dharma Bums. One of the Bums, Ray Smith, was climbing the Matterhorn in the high Sierras of California with his Bum friend Japhy. Their emotions on climbing ranged from ebullient, when Japhy reached the summit ("letting out his triumphant mountain-conquering Buddha Mountain Smashing song of joy."), to utter terror, when Ray couldn't climb any higher ("Oh what a life this is, why do we have to be born in the first place, and only so we can have our poor gentle flesh laid out to such impossible horrors as huge mountains and rock and empty space."). In the end, however, the Zen saying "when you get to the top of the mountain, keep climbing" became the mantra for the mountains.
Between rest days, we climbed up and down between camps, slowly going higher and higher. Our carefully planned schedule from base camp to the summit was: 1. Plaza Argentina rest day. 2. Carry gear to Camp One, return to Plaza Argentina and rest. 3. Plaza Argentina rest day. 4. Climb to Camp One and rest. 5. Carry gear to Camp Two, return to Camp One and rest. 6. Camp One rest day. 7. Climb to Camp Two and rest. 8. Camp Two rest day. 9. Potential summit day.
We strove to cook our own meals with our MSR stoves and camping pots. At the higher camps, we switched from blueberry pancakes, Chinese specialties, and cheese quesadillas to dehydrated meals. Add boiling water to a bag, wait, and you have a meal. At 20,000 feet, where the air is thin and cold, however, boiling water took many, many times longer to boil than sea level, even when we used two stoves to boil one pot of water. But we had plenty of time on our hands at Camp Two and a hot meal went a long way.
Along the way, we learned from our culinary mistakes. First, never pack eggs on the back of a mule. They will break. Second, don't bring two Clif Bars per person per day. Third, you don't need a liter of fuel per day. "Anyone need extra fuel?" became a commonly heard question. We brought a lot of food and ate well, although dehydrated meals, Clif Bars, dry Chinese meat, and the chewy, cartilaginous duck kidneys are things I don't want to eat for a while.
Other lessons:
I learned not to pack liquids in Ziplock bags. Ziplock bags work great for solid things. Unlike the commercial showing the bags holding water tightly within its yellow and blue enclosures, in real life mountaineering, it doesn't cut it. Dr. Bronner's peppermint soap infiltrated the dried mangoes bag. Honey and toothpaste seeped from other bags. I struggled to contain them like an Exxon oil spill.
I learned to love pee bottles. Although at first, pee bottles may seem to be disgusting and intimidating, they are one of the most useful things you can have. After drinking five liters of water a day to avoid the perils of dehydration in the dry high desert environment, you will pee. Pee bottles save the trip out of the tent at 19,600 feet when the icy wind is whipping your tent to death. Imagine what the wind would do to your pee. The key was timing peeing with the wind gusts so you don't wake up your tent mate. The other key was knowing which Nalgene bottle is the pee bottle and which was the drinking water.
I learned that lip block and sunscreen are important. They make you look good when you return. At 20,000 feet, your soft sea level lips are toast.
I also learned that shit and trash are very important. People want them-off the mountain. Near each camp, the rocks are lined with toilet paper and shit; they almost seem part of the natural rocky environment (almost). We bagged our shit and brought it down to base camp, where the Guardaparques (rangers) put it into the toilets down there: portable toilets with huge barrels at the bottom. The Guardaparque helicopter lifts the barrels off the mountain when they're full. We also presented them with our numbered trash bags. If you lose your trash bag, you will be fined $100. They should try that in the city.
The most important thing, however, is your breath, especially on summit day. At 8,000 feet the effects of altitude are minimal and I was able to take seven steps per breath: a sharp exhale followed by a slower inhale, all through the nose, steps and breath in sync. At 10,000 feet I was down to four steps per breath. The first day at Plaza Argentina (13,400 feet) I was down to three steps per breath on flat ground and was winded setting up the tent. On steeper sections going up to Camp One (16,000 feet), I was breathing once per step. Towards Camp Two (19,300 feet), the trail was steep switchbacks up scree slopes; concentrating on my breathing became difficult.
Finally, after two windy and cold days and nights at Camp Two, we began the summit ascent. At 4:30 am, I was incredulous, as my tent was getting ripped around in the wind and the temperature was four degrees inside the tent. How could this day-just as cold and windy as yesterday, when we cancelled our summit bid-be a summit day? But we were off by six, after dressing in more clothes than I have ever worn. By eight, the wind had subsided as our guides said it would.
On the way up, I remember oftentimes leaning over my trekking poles gasping for air, struggling to keep up my energy level. We traversed a long scree and snow slope, over a ridge, up another scree slope or two or three, then across another scree slope before reaching the Canaleta, the final test-a 1,300 foot steep slope rising to the summit. The Canaleta was a mixture of scree, snow, and larger rocks, many of them loose. Looking up, I remember thinking that I wasn't going to make it. My breath was failing.
I was blacking out.
Here the mind took over. I struggled to focus on stepping and breathing, setting a goal every 20 yards or so: "You can make it to that rock!" My breaths were rapid; I needed to slow down. Every time I overexerted, I began to black out. Others in our group were blacking out too, which made me feel better, or at least as if I was more normal. Near the summit, I was breathing to the point of hyperventilating, but was barely getting enough oxygen. I slowed down more. Every ten steps or so, I had to stop completely and catch my breath as best I could. Eventually, we made it to the summit.
Once you make it to the top of a high altitude mountain, the feeling is not euphoria. It's more one of indifference: "man, I'm so tired, let's get down." Months of preparation to make it to the top and getting down is all you want to do.
I want to breathe oxygen. I want to see a tree, or at least a shrub or something green. I want to eat steak at Daniel Lopez' and drink some wine in Mendoza. Maybe I should have thought of all these things before coming all the way up here.
We saw the Pacific Ocean across Chile. We saw the glacier fields below us. We saw the valley we ascended. We saw the peaks that once looked massive as we walked below them, now insignificant. Ok, it's worth it!
We descended as klutzes. I was uncoordinated. Kevin felt the same way as we fell over the scree. Ten or so hours after we left our wind-blown tents in the freezing darkness, we returned to our tents, successful. Joe, who had decided not to continue up to the thin air, greeted us with boiling water, happy to see us. We were happy to see him.
This marked only the beginning of our descent, however, as we still had over two vertical miles left. We completed the descent in two days because, thankfully, you don't have to acclimatize back to lower elevations. No one has ever said: "I can't descend to base camp yet, the air is still too thick for me down there." We also took the quick and direct route back.
On the first day, we had extra full packs as we had to carry everything down, including our shit. Jay and I shared the job of carrying the shit bags down. On a hot sunny day, we really stank, and many people passing us probably wondered about what was in our pants. In a few hours, we were back down in base camp.
That night we ate steak at Daniel Lopez'.
Luckily, I was also able to give away my Clif bars to a porter who worked for a wildfire fighting organization called C.L.I.F. and wanted to show his old co-workers.
On the second day, we had light loads, as our gear was packed for the mules. We headed for Plaza Francia, the base camp for the South Face, where Reinhold Messner climbed his route. From Plaza Francia, our hike would take us down the Horcones Valley to the nearest road. Our guides were confident of this route, although none of us could figure out where the trail went, since we were surrounded by steep mountains. The answer was: the trail goes straight up the mountain and down the other side. Little did we know that our steepest climbing would be after we had climbed Aconcagua. So up the scree slopes we went, grabbing gingerly onto the friable rock as best we could to avoid rockslides. Soon we were at the top only to see that we had to go down an even steeper slope. As we descended, rocks occasionally flew by us at dizzying speeds; one rock hit John on his backpack; he was uninjured. At the bottom, we were happy to be down-it was relatively flat from here and the views of the Horcones glacier, its jutting ice spires, the immense South Face of Aconcagua, and the surrounding mountains provided visual fuel for our last steps.
Soon we were in a van back to Mendoza, where we could drink wine. Everyone slept as The Police, Bersuit, Sumo, and Dire Straits played. I watched the mountains shrink in size as we left the Andes and joined the plains of Argentina. It was time to sleep, relax, watch Argentinean football, walk Sycamore-lined streets under a hot summer sun, and to keep on climbing: "when you get to the top of the mountain, keep climbing." Where or why, in the end, doesn't matter.
