Aconcagua Seven Guys 20 days expedition supported by INKA Expediciones Guides Javier Gutierrez and Mariana Busaniche Day 1 - First meeting with Guides & Team in Hotel Diplomatic Equipment check by Guides Rent of missing equipment at Chamonix Outdoor Equipment Day 2 - Acquisition of permit and drive to Penitentes Acquisition of permit at Aconcagua Provincial Park's visitors center Last formalities at INKA office and good bye Mendoza 4,5h drive incl. lunch break Arrival in Penitentes & preparation of gear for Mule transport We have separated the loads We have on the bags on the left side which will go by mule transport to Confluencia and on the right hand side the bags for the base camp Briefing together with another INKA group Last night in proper bed Day 3 - Check-in at Aconcagua Provincial Park and start tracking 10mins ride to the Aconcagua Park entrance The s**it bags... Arrival in Confluencia Camp after 3,5h Tasty and high caloric reception in each camp Our beds for the first two nights Day 4 - Acclimatization walk to Aconcagua south wall viewpoint Stone avalanche Arrival at south wall viewpoint 3:40h Day 5 - To the Base Camp - 2nd longest day of expedition All right, let's go! Heading to Plaza de Mulas an 18km walk starting at 7:00 in the morning Priceless relaxation... First look at the Base Camp... Still 2,5h to go Guys! Look at this! Isn't luck? Lucky me! Is that my summit ticket? We will see! Guys, here we are! After a 8:40h hike and 900m vertical meters we have arrived at Aconcagua Base Camp The second largest base camp after the Everest Base Camp Look at this! Day 6 - Base camp life - rest day Rest Day in Plaza de Mulas 7:00 in the morning WTF Rest Day? Wake-up call The daily wash - ice cold... ...and pretty cool Solar powered hot shower 1st one included - each next shower 15 USD 20 liters of hot water for 30mins drinking water comes from glacier Tons of food... ...converted by best chefs ... ...into three delicious dishes every day The highest art gallery in the world Schmetterling - INSIDER JOCKE The guides check blood oxygen saturation and pulse regularly As long other symptoms of acute mountain sickness don't occur this value is OK Milky way - 30sek exposure time Day 7+8 - Mount Bonete - Acclimatization hike + Rest day We are on our way since 1,5h to Mount Bonete at 5.000m this is our acclimatization hike today A last rest at 4.900m Arrival at Mount Bonete summit after 4:15h Feels like we would need a cappuccino, right? 5.000m and look how small the base camp is over there Day 9 - Load carry to High Camp 1 (Canadá) 15kg (Jackpot!) Finally we start We carry gear to first high camp today I have 20kg on my back Just 46mins into the hike and 200m above the base camp level Beautiful weather, no wind Everybody is doing great Watching all the videos on YouTube before the expedition I was wandering how it would be to climb without the hiking poles At least for me it works quite well on that piece to camp 1 The 20kg give me a good grip actually The last meters were tough... ...but here we are in Canada - Camp 1 Arrival after 2:55h We are just about to store our food for the next couple of days until the summit White gas Everything is being secured with stones Return to Base Camp after 5:20h Just another rest day Day 10 - Base camp life - rest day UNO - the base camp game - kept us busy for hours Tent set up training Briefing regarding life in high camps and summit day Everybody carries 4,5kg of common food and white gas and some... In addition everybody packs individual breakfast and lunchboxes HE HATES IT! Hmmm, I LOVE it ! Looking forward to eat TASTY porridge every morning! Lunch box for a 9h summit push... Cereal bar Chocolate bar Waffle bar Some Candies Cookie Popcorn This is for summit day 3rd (final) medical checks prior ascent Hello, how are you? Are you feeling good? Very good The wold famous barbecue! I saw it on Facebook. That's why I am here! Thank you! Out of 7 only 6 mountaineers remained Day 11 - Good bye Base camp - move to High Camp 1 (Canadá) We will be wearing the double boots only from now on We are leaving the base camp... ...and will only come back after we have been up there Same way as 2 days ago, but a little more wind Arrival after 3:39h One more thing! Here at the edge of the camp we have the toilet tent... ...now we get the briefing how to use it Mariana did not want to have the camera but... ...well... this is the most important part of the expedition :-) Is this the one time use bag, or we have to reuse it? No, no. Only for one time! It's a team bag! OH MY GOD! LITERALLY: I will not give a piece of sh*t! Day 12 - Move to High Camp 2 (Nido de Cóndores) A break on the way to Camp 2 and an interesting phenomenon in my shoe it's annoying like a stone but it's ice let me show it to you here... ice has just appeared water is condensed and became ice underneath the primaloft trousers Arrival in Nido de Cóndores after 3:18h The Condor - our host for 2 nights The guides melt snow for drinking water Day 13 - 4th and last rest day of expedition 4th and last rest day of expedition The rest our bodies need for acclimatization The weather forecast for summit push is SURPRISE First Pizza above 5.000m Hej, that's my pizza! Thank you! Sooo good! Yummy, Yummy, Yummy! Out of 7 only 5 mountaineers remained Day 14 - Move to High Camp 3 (Cólera) and those 5 will move from camp 2 to camp 3 The move to camp 3 proves to be steep ... and slow Down there - 200m blow us you can see camp 2 A small break after 1:25mins The second half on the way to camp 3 appears easier to me but still very demanding Here are the old shelters Camp Berlin Not in use at the moment Still 20mins to go and behind this rock up there we will find the camp 3 The last bit to before camp 3 is secured by a fixed rope Today we don't need crampons because the snow has melted Despite the rope the last piece is freaking exhausting The pump is running full speed Camp 3 - AWESOME! 6.000m Congratulations guys! New personal altitude record Only Anders has reached 6.088m in Bolivia before Thank you for your support Congrats! GOOD JOB! What a reception at 6.000m Does it taste even better than usually? Hi There, we have into our accommodation at 6.000m It is not only the highest point we have ever reached but it is the highest bad for the next 2 days - All inclusive Freddy, doesn't it sound well? Yes, absolutely - I love it. Well, sleeping long is not an option because we need to start the summit push at 5 in the morning But that's why we are here and we can't wait Day 15 - Summit Push - the hardest day... Wake-up call at 03:30 Good morning Aconcagua It's shortly after 4 in the morning and we are getting ready for you We will be with you soon Let's get dressed and go All right, thank you for waiting Do you have sunglasses of goggles? Water? Food? Crampons? Everybody has crampons? Yes...... Yes.... Yes.... OK guys, we will start slowly we have a long day, OK Is this the hardest day? The hardest, sure! Good luck! SLOW MOTION 10 minutes later - REAL TIME According to our guides an extraordinary warm night! First break after 1,5h tracking through the darkness GPS recording replay We can switch off the head lamps soon 2,5h hours on the way - 200m climb accomplished GPS recording replay 40mins break We have to pun on the crampons here Up there on the ridge we will need the crampons The small ice patch was smaller than expected but we left the crampons on because there will be another snow patch soon and it would be not so comfortable to put them on over there Walking with crampons on over scree stresses the material for sure but works surprisingly well After 4:10h we reach the snow patch which you can see well from Camp 2 From Camp 2 it looks like a horizontal line in snow but in reality it is very steep GPS recording replay Down there you can see Camp 2 and here is the snow patch which is much steeper than it looks from down there Up there you can see the entrance to famous Canaleta already This last piece has been my toughest so far GPS recording replay This is the famous Canaleta entrance So lets have a look how it looks inside Yes, the Canaleta is really tough Have a look Well still some 2h final spurt - funny, ha, ha! The summit on the left and still a long way to go These are the famous loose rocks One step forward and almost two back This is Canaleta seen from top Almost accomplished Still one hour until summit We are so close and yet so far away Unbelievable, almost there Just 10m climb ahead of us Congratulations Thank you! Great! I have managed it! Aconcagua summit! Here we are - Top of Aconcagua After 8h and 24minutes LACK OF OXYGEN! We got there only after 9h 24min GPS recording replay THEY HAVE MADE IT POSSIBLE GRACIAS Mariana & Javier Anders - Denmark It's been wild, see you all down there Robert - Switzerland I have been here as well Freddy - Germany Matthew - USA Peter - Germany Aconcagua, I have made it Big thank you to my family who made it possible We spent 55 minutes on the summit The descent to Camp 3 (Cólera) took us 4:01h Now we really did it Healthy back in Camp - Congratulations Same to you, you did very well Back in Camp 3 after 14 hours and 20 minutes Day 16 - Descent to base camp & celebration After 2:40h we are reaching Plaza de Mulas Ha, ha, well done! Thank you for being here - Great! You're welcome. I have been enjoying and relaxing Eating with the staff and everything Good job, well done, congratulations Thank you, Cheers Ice cold Coke as welcome after arrival... ...and the official celebration with champagne after dinner Yeah! Open it! When we hit the window, we'll get an extra bottle 1st attempt 2nd attempt Here you have your extra bottle Firstly I want to mention the great staff here in Plaza de Mulas They have a hard job They are really really passionate about their job I want to say thank you! For us as a team it was a great expedition Sometimes we have a lot of work. But this one was less work Because you are a fun group Mariana and me we had 12 or 14 funny days Thank you very much Cheers! ¡Salud! Maybe it's time to say something also from our side I think what we have experienced within the past 14-15-16 days is that all the people that came and came as different people is now a group and we have our jokes and we grow together besides this you two and the team here as well had a great part that we grouped together as a group and therefore we wanna than you very much You as guides I think you did much more that what we expected - Honestly! Small things like: "Do you wanna have you want to have some water or Tang" We want to give you something as a thank you For you guides but also to the group here, the team here we also think about you and we also want to give you something But this is from our side only a brief attempt As a big thank you! Time to go home NO HELICOPTER! Let's do it the hard way Day 17 - A last long walk... The last breakfast is over We clear the base camp Bye bye Plaza de Mulas! 25km tracking ahead... Oh my good! Seriously? Robert fell and got a small stone under the skin The 25km back to Aconcagua Park entrance took us 6:51mins THAT'S IT? NO! ONE MORE THING THANK YOU! Now the whole truth about base camp life Ok, we are now in base camp Plaza de Mulas arrived yesterday - after a.......... SHORT walk! 8 hours, 45 minutes ... and almost no elevation ... Almost 900 meters climb ... really eeeeasy well, at least noone puked Today, we received orders to relax - I pass on to Peter well - not really - we have to drink - and pee and what else? Eat, eat, eat.... drink, drink, drink.... pee, pee, pee.... relax Oh, what a beautiful view! Freddy slightly in the shadow, but these mountains! Here we eat and drink, but for peeing we go out Jep, that's the plan for today The End
Good video. Alot of time was spent making it I can tell. My personal altitude record is 6088 m in Bolivia (prob the same as the .. Norwegian guy? in the video), but jesus I got sick, the lack of prepertion and height acklamation really matters.. Can't imagine 7000 m yet 8800 m ..
EDIT: Sorry for the typo in the title. Should read "a detailed documentary about the most difficult parts".
Hi all, a friend of mine just finished editing a video of his climb to the Aconcagua earlier this year.
In his words, "My plan was to reach the summit documenting especially the hard parts of the expedition. On YouTube you usually see how the breaks and the summit look like. I wanted to show how the work looks between the breaks when breathing is an issue – and that in high quality of course. Also I have collected a lot of data like temperatures, pulse and GPS tracks on my way and I am showing it in my movie."
Trailer (1:00): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58XGRwsJZzQ
Full movie (42:42): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52TDprX_xx8
If there is enough interest, I might convince him to do an AmA here. He's not a redditor [yet].