Aconcagua Slideshow @ SLC REI

[Iceaxe]

Local mountaineer Carol Masheter will present a slideshow of her trip to Aconcagua in January 2007 at the Salt Lake store, 3285 E. 3300 South, in East Millcreek. At 22,840 feet, Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the Americas. The show starts at 7 p.m. on March 4, 2008.

http://www.sltrib.com//ci_8383577?

[Brian in SLC]

Local mountaineer Carol Masheter will present a slideshow of her trip to Aconcagua in January 2007 at the Salt Lake store, 3285 E. 3300 South, in East Millcreek. At 22,840 feet, Aconcagua is the highest mountain in the Americas. The show starts at 7 p.m. on March 4, 2008.

Might be kinda fun to see. That's a big windy pile of dirt. Not the most "alpine" of mountains, especially from the "route normal". But, a popular gig since it's the tallest.

Wonder if she went in via the Vacas or the standard route?

-Brian in SLC

[Iceaxe]

Brian, have you climbed this one?

I had some friends do it a few years back, can't remember the route. But I do remember them bitching about the never ending stream of false summits.

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[Brian in SLC]

Brian, have you climbed this one?
I had some friends do it a few years back, can't remember the route. But I do remember them bitching about the never ending stream of false summits.

Yeah, we were the second party to summit in the 96/97 Season. Grim year. Something like 14 folks died. First time I ran into Eric the blind climber dude (they got shut down with weather and bad conditions). I recall he went back and got it a couple years later.

At the time, mostly due to bad weather (wind, wind and more wind) I thought the gig was an awful thing to do. But, as time passed and I looked at the pictures, its pretty neat. Kinda reminds me of the west desert in Utah, only high and much much windier. Best equipment advice I give folks is to take a good tarp for their tent bottom. All four of my tent poles shot through the tent bottom after rattling around in that abrasive pumice in the wind.

Mendoza is a darn fun hang, and, worth spending some time in.

I think they filmed 7 years in Tibet just out of Mendoza.

We didn't really have a false summit (nor does anyone who does either the standard route or the false polish traverse to the standard route finish). You climb up the Caneleta (a sorta coulior thing) and when you pop out on the summit rim, you're on the top. So, maybe these false summit prophets were suffering from altitude hallucinations or something (har har).

Our intentions were to do the Polish direct, but, the weather was so bad and we got beat down and cached our technical tools and just hoped to be in position for a mad dash if the weather broke. It kinda did, and, we had a pretty good summit day but pushed pretty hard. You can traverse from the base of the Polish glacier over to the standard route near the upper rescue hut, which, is a pretty good way to do the peak actually (avoiding the less inspiring dirt trail on the other side). My poor partner, in way better shape than I, had a rough night at high camp (around 20k) and puked up a bunch of interesting stuff the following morning as we packed up. Took him a long while to recover.

Anyhoo, kind of a fun gig. I think we were a tad early and the weather and conditions might be better in mid Jan or into Feb. Oh, did I mention it was windy?

Worth it just for the vino tinto and Argentinian beef...

-Brian in SLC