Dispatch#1 December 18th, 2001.  Penitentes, Argentina.

Hey guys this is Willi Prittie with a big hello from Penitentes, Argentina.  We're cranking up to get on the way in for our first expedition to Aconcagua this season.  It looks like we've got a good strong team.  The team includes Roy Ziegler, Cory Monk, Matthew Gebhardt, Scott Crawford, Chad Neeley, Roger Kelley, Guy Knoller and Bill Snyder.  A fair amount of climbing experience and we're good and heavy on guide staff going in as well, we have Lhakpa Rita Sherpa and Ellie Henke that will be spending most of the season up there, and as well I have a very able assistant with Eric Remza, coming in with me.  We actually met just fine, everybody showed up fine with all the luggage in Mendoza and spent the day organizing and sorting equipment up here at Penitentes, getting everything ready for our trek in tomorrow morning.  We had to go through about 1,000 kilos worth of equipment that has to go on the mules, so it's a fair amount of work.  That's about 750 kilos or so specifically for our expedition and perhaps another 250 kilos or so for setting up our semi-permanent base camp for our season on Aconcagua.