Old Dreams Die Hard-An Attempt on the Highest Volcano on Earth
The Dream
Ojos del Salado is a peak that I have wanted to climb for a long time. In fact, it became one of my top three "dream climbs" back in 1984, at age 10, which is when I first read about the mountain. The other two dream climbs at the time were Muztag Ata and Aconcagua. Unlike Aconcagua however, Ojos del Salado seemed so mysterious and unknown. Dreams however, change over time and over the years I focused on other mountains in the world and never got close to Ojos del Salado.
Old dreams are eventually either fulfilled, never die, or die hard, so Ojos del Salado was always in the back of my mind somewhere and for a later date. That later date finally came in January 2016. Because of work, I can only get time off in the Northern Hemisphere winter. My thirteen year old son and I wanted to attempt something higher than we ever have before. Aconcagua came to mind, but that mountain has gotten more expensive and crowded over the years. There was also a rule in place that you had to be 14 years of age to climb it and my son was not 14 yet. Ojos del Salado seemed like the logical choice for our climb in the winter of 2015-2016.
Introduction and Preparation
Ojos del Salado, at 6893 meters (22,615 feet) is considered to be a fairly straightforward ascent for a mountain of its elevation. No mountain that high is to be taken lightly however, and any climb or attempt of Ojos del Salado required planning and preparation.
Ojos del Salado holds many records and accolades, some of which are second to other mountains. Some of them are as follows:
Ojos del Salado is the highest volcano in the world. It is the second highest mountain in the Western Hemisphere, the second highest mountain in the Southern Hemisphere, and the second highest mountain in the world outside Asia. It is also the second highest of the Second Seven Summits and the highest of theVolcanic Seven Summits. It is also the highest mountain in Chile.
The mountain sits in the heart of the Atacama Desert, which is considered to be the driest desert in the world. It is one of the most desolate and isolated places on earth, though since the area is rich in minerals (especially gold and copper), it is actually fairly easy to access for such a remote region.
The mountain can be climbed from the Chile side or the Argentina side. The Chile side is easier to get transport to. The Argentina side is said to be more scenic and is an easier climb. We chose the Chilean side since we could find transport to that side of the mountain.
Even though the mountain sits in the desert, high in the mountains storms are still fairly frequent. The area around Ojos del Salado is said to be one of the windiest places on earth. It isn't the technical difficulty that are the main challenges in these mountains, it is the elevation, cold, wind, isolation, and lack of water that provide the main challenges.
Kessler and I took almost a year to prepare for Ojos del Salado. We climbed more than one hundred mountains in the previous year, many of which were done in extremely cold and windy conditions. See our 2015 Trip Log if interested. We did a lot of fine tuning of our gear as well.
Since Ojos del Salado is such a big mountain, we didn't want to do it alone (my son was 13 years old and I found it prudent to have another adult along). I couldn't find any interested friends that could come with us, so we decided to hire a local to take us to the mountain. We would be on a "light guided" trip, meaning that we would have a companion and transportation, but that we would bring all our own gear and would be responsible for setting up our own tent, etc. We didn't need, nor did we really want to spend the money for a fully guided trip, so a light guided trip seemed the best way to fill in the gap and to have another adult along with us.
January 17: Valle Chico
After flying to Santiago and Copiapó the next morning, we met Fernando at the airport on January 16. In the afternoon of the 16th, Fernando asked us if we wanted to shop for our own food, or if he should do it. Since Kessler and I had forgotten our sleeping pads, we opted to go shopping for them, instead of with Fernando.
Copiapó is a fair sized city in the Atacama Desert at the foot of the Andes. It's economy is based on gold, silver, and copper mining. It looks similar to the area around Death Valley, and away from the river it is so dry that not even cactus will grow. Never the less, in March, there was a very rare rainstorm that flooded the town. It hasn't rained in town since then.
We left Copiapó in Fernando's Hilux for the dusty ride to Valley Chico.
In the afternoon, we were at Valle Chico, at a beautiful spring and oasis surrounded by canyon walls. Kessler and I hiked up the valley and explored around an old mining camp and some caves before returning to camp. We had a nice barbecue for dinner.
January 18: Laguna Santa Rosa
In the morning, Fernando drove us to the Laguna Santa Rosa. There were many flamingos in the lake. We also saw vicuñas and guanacos. We hiked around to the other side of the lake and climbed a small peak for the views.
The wind is relentless here and blows constantly. On the summit of the peak, many of the flat lying rocks were vertical became the wind had blown them that way!
We had good views of Tres Cruces, some of the highest mountains in South America.
January 19: Siete Hermanas
Today we climbed Siete Hermanas (also known as Siete Hermanos). We made pretty good time up to the summmit (4890 meters/16,043 feet). It was clear and the views were great. Kessler was the first one to the summit. We could see many volcanoes from the summit and the views were great.
As always, the wind is relentless and blows constantly. It sucks the life out of everything. Nothing even decays or rots here, it simply dries, bakes, freezes, and mummifies.
The sun is so intense, that even though the temperature is not that hot, it feels very hot whenever the sun is out.
January 20: Laguna Verde
Today we traveled by truck to Laguna Verde (4300 meters/14,200 feet). The desert is very desolate along the way.
http://www.summitpost.org/images/medium/965278.JPG
The incredibly desolate Atacama Desert. It is so dry here that not even cactus will grow. Arica, a major city in the desert gets an average of 0.02 inches of rain a year. By way of comparison, Death Valley, the driest place in the United States gets 118 times more rain. It would take more than one hundred years in Arica to get the amount of rain that Death Valley gets in one year. Although sometimes listed as such in some almanacs, Arica isn't even in the driest part of the desert. Some towns in the vicinity of San Pedro and Calama were settled more than 400 years ago and it still hasn't even rained once since the towns were settled. Even in the larger towns and cities, many children have only read about rain in school books and have never seen it.
The lake is extremely salty and I tried to wash our clothes in it. That was a mistake. It made them stiff and salty. I washed them another three times in the fresh water hot springs, but they were still a little stiff. We also took some nice baths in the hot springs.
Setting up the tent in the strong wind was challenging. The wind always seems to blow here.
After dinner, Kessler and I walked west along the south shore of the lake to a freshwater spring and to some big cliffs made of volcanic tuff. There was one flamingo in the pool at the spring.
In the late evening, Kessler and I played UNO with the Russian expedition in their big dining tent. I wanted to ask them about joining them on a future expedition to Peak Lenin, but we only played cards. They gave us some chocolate as well. We ended up going to bed very late.
January 21: Mulas Muertas
Today we set off for Mulas Muertas. We climbed it right from Laguna Verde. The summit of Mulas Mertas is actually a long way from the lake and extremely long day climb from there, so we only went up to the first false summit on the ridge. We could have climbed farther along the ridge, but it was supposed to be a rest day and we had to save our energy for Ojos del Salado. Since we were well above 5000 meters though, it made a good acclimatization climb.
Once again, it was very windy and my hat kept blowing off. We had some great views of Laguna Verde, Incahuasi, and many other volcanoes.
This area is very desolate. The Atacama Desert is probably the most desolate place I've seen that actually is populated in a few places (though not in this area). It's as if this region of the earth died long ago leaving nothing behind but the old bones and dust of the earth.
Dinner was disappointing. On this night, we regretted the decision of not doing our own food shopping. We had plain rice with a very few canned oysters thrown in. It was hard to force down the tasteless concoction at this altitude. The Russian expedition seemed to be eating well and we could only look at their food with envy.