Puente del Inca sits atop the Andes right next to the mammoth Aconcagua. We arrived to this little mountain town on thursday afternoon. The bus ride was longer than expected because of a fatal car accident that blocked the road for over an hour. We arrived into Puente del Inca (about 9000 feet elevation) and found a refugio to stay in which was one of only like 10 buildings in the entire town. The refugio sat directly next to a natural land bridge crossing a river with an Incan site built into it…increible. The refugio was basically empty the first night because it is the end of the climbing season there. Only two other people stayed in the refugio and Julian (the guy who ran the place) treated all of us to free pizza the first night. Throughout our visit to this small town, we of course kept flirting with the idea of attempting to summit. Aconcagua is one of those mountains that I have read and have known about for quite some time. It is on my dream list of mountains to climb and here we were, sitting right at the base of it. It was especially tempting because the mountain is actually doable for anybody in decent shape because the main route is basically a walk up. The toughest part about the climb is the altitude. Seven climbers have died this season on the mountain and four of them died of altitude sickness from poor acclimitization. Another one died by falling in a crevase while attempting to climb a more difficult route, another died by falling off something, and another died by having a heart attack on the top. Apparently that guy got to the top, sat down, and had a heart attack right there. Anyway, I have no idea why I am talking about fatalities but I think the point was, we were really tempted by this giant mountain but sanity won the day. I think we finally decided for sure not to climb it when Julian was telling us how cold it got up there this time of year…although we still ran into a few attempting it. Julian lives near Buenos Aires but in the climbing season runs the refugio and spends time climbing the various mountains nearby. He is also a guide and holds time records for peaks in the area and has climbed Aconcagua numerous times. I thought I heard him say he has climbed Aconcagua 100 times but I think I misunderstood him since it takes about 2 weeks to summit. On Friday we went scrambling up a peak in the area and at the top (about 12000 feet) we had a beautiful view of Aconcagua. Since a lot of the climb was loose scree, we got to basically run/ski down for a portion of the descent…fun times. On the last part of our leg down I chased a wild horse down the mountain…in the heat of the chase I got to the bottom in no time and realized that Adam was still way up on the mountain…so I let the horse get away…or else you all know that I would have caught that horse…ok, maybe not. Anyway, today we caught a bus back down to Mendoza and are waiting around for a night bus to Cordoba. I hope everyone is doing well…love to all of course!
Sphere: Related ContentMarch 19, 2006