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Safely back from the mountains and in Mendoza – luxury! Showered for the first time in 2 weeks!

Adie and I made it up to 6000m (camp 3) (-17C in the tent overnight), but suffered a lot with the altitude so called it a day then. 2 of our group managed to summit – David (Spanish) and Lila (Russian). The winds had lessened from when we were in Mendoza last, and Aymara‘s 14 expeditions with 0 summits for this season is now up to 18 expeditions with 4 summits (usual success rate for them is 80%).

Our plans to come back in a couple of years’ time to try again include a gear review, especially for summit day (given how cold we now really expect it to be, and the key issue being wind); and to ascend through camps 1 and 2 more slowly with better acclimatisation (possibly by booking a private guide, since the itineraries run by the companies are all otherwise quite rigid). If you plan to try this and want to discuss, you’re welcome to drop me a mail (below) and I’d be happy to share experiences/advice.

We have a couple of nights here then head over to Santiago for our flights home. Sitting in the minibus on the way back from Puente del Inca last night I saw the stars and realised that for the last 6 months I’ve been looking up at the constellations of the southern hemisphere, and in a week’s time I’ll be back staring at the northern stars, like I did for the previous 33 years. Big thanks to everyone that made it so special for me – all the crew and cyclists of the Bike Dreams Andes Trail 2012, and the guides and climbers of the Aymara 23 Dec 2012 Aconcagua Normal Route expedition. It’s been an amazing adventure, and hopefully I’ll retain many memories and friends for a long time to come.

Fernando (our lead guide on the Aconcagua expedition) said, as he described the way the guides kept encouraging us all to maximise our experience, and suggested we adopted as a life mantra: keep pushing