Getting back into the grind has been tough after being on the road for a month. My next posts until summit day will be dealing with carrying and moving up the mountain. From base camp at 14,000ft the plan was to head to 3 camps each higher than the last to get us staged and ready for a summit attempt. In order to do this, we would be double carrying our gear up the mountain. One day we “carry” half our gear (mostly food and misc. gear) up to our next camp stashing it there before heading back down to our previous camp for the night. The next day we “move” our tents and the balance of our gear up to our next camp. All my time on the high mountain would be broken up into these two day cycles of “carrying” to a higher camp one day and then “moving” to that camp the next day. These cycles not only broke up our loads but also gave our bodies a chance to acclimate to the altitude. Our “carry” days would expose our bodies to the higher elevation but we would head lower that evening letting our bodies catch up while we slept. The “carry” days were always a bit rougher than the “move” days since each “carry” day we exposed ourselves to higher and higher altitudes.
Feb 4, 2018- Carry to Camp #1- Finally today was it, my first chance to carry a load at elevation and see if I trained the right way. I woke up feeling great and my tooth didn’t bother me too much over the night so I was feeling good. After breakfast we divvied up the group gear and packed it up with our personal stuff. I felt my pack compared to others in the team and have no idea what I’m not carrying today but my pack feels light! I’ll find out tomorrow when I carry the rest of my gear if I over or under shot today.
We left base camp and I felt strong! Looking up at the mountain the summit looked a million miles away and our goal of getting to camp #1 didn’t look any closer. We kept on hiking and at one point came to an area with rock fall potential so we strapped on our helmets. Halfway through the rock fall zone my head suddenly started pounding and my tooth started screaming. The pain that washed over me was so sudden and unexpected it caught me completely off guard. I continued hiking trying to make sense of the splitting headache wondering if I was experiencing High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) or if maybe I was super dehydrated. The tooth ache was expected although nothing I wanted to deal with but the headache was searing. I climbed higher with the team wondering if I needed to grab our guide Luke and tell him that I was miserable and question if this was HACE setting in? After battling for a little over an hour with the headache, the toothache, and myself we came to a break outside the rock fall zone and took our helmets off. As soon as I popped my helmet off the headache disappeared and my tooth ache mellowed out. I always wear the same Pacific Iron Works hat on my climbs and have worn it many many times with my helmet over it having never experienced an issue. For whatever reason today the combo didn’t work but thank goodness it wasn’t anything bigger. For the rest of my time on Aconcagua I would never wear the hat and helmet combo again. The experience of fighting the headache and toothache while hiking brought up thoughts again about how far was I willing to take this? If the toothache got really bad would I be at a point on the mountain where I could turn around or would even want to turn around? How would it feel to go home early because of a toothache? Would I recognize HAPE or HACE and turn myself around or would the guides have to do it? I’m great at overthinking things so I decided to chill out and let it all play out for now. What is meant to be is meant to be. If I’m forced off the mountain with HAPE, HACE, or for a toothache then that would be something I would have to deal with but for now I had a whole mountain in front of me.
(Not even close to the summit, Camp #1 is right of the spire)
After some lunch we pushed further towards Camp #1. We came to the last section of climbing before the camp and it was appropriately named “Hell Hill”. The guides warned us the next section was one of the worst on the entire mountain and it did not disappoint. Rising 500ft or so the hill is all scree and gravel which feels like hiking on ball bearings. We would take one step up and slide two back. This along with carrying 60lbs made for a helluva climb. We kept our heads down and trudged up the hill but somehow it just got worse as we went higher. The last section before summiting to Camp #1 was the worst. At this point I was super exhausted and pretty pissed off from feeling like I was going nowhere fast on this mountain of marbles. I dug deep and went Incredible Hulk on the last 50ft ditching all thoughts of going slow and saving my strength. I went full beast mode and arrived at Camp #1 huffing and puffing thankful it was over. As I’ve pushed myself harder and harder in the mountains I’ve learned to tap into this “inner beast”. It’s one of the greatest things I’ve found within myself and a force to be reckoned with but I’ll write more about this later.
(The view from Camp #1)
Arriving at Camp #1 we took a brief rest and then began stashing our gear. Nothing fancy, just heavy duty trash bags tied up with rocks placed on top of them. I had brought up most of my food and some gear like my down parka and down pants that I wouldn’t need until we were higher. After the stashing and a quick snack, we headed down to base camp. During the descent down “Hell Hill” I realized I would have to hike that thing again tomorrow. The thought of doing it all again loomed over all of us on the team that night at base camp.
Climbing the 7 