Dispatch#4 December 23rd, 2001.  Aconcagua Base Camp, Argentina. Hello from Aconcagua.  This is Willi Prittie and Eric Remza reporting for the 2002 Aconcagua Season.  Yesterday we actually did our first carry up to Camp I, we had totally perfect weather for the 7 hours it took us to do the carry.  It was actually pretty amazing, it's quite rare that you see windless beautiful weather like what we experienced and enjoyed yesterday.  There's a few minor altitude headaches, but all made it up to Camp I very well and very strongly and we're all looking forward to the actual move up to Camp I which we are hoping to do tomorrow.

A few things here for Base Camp...we had a final rest and acclimation day here. We had a few new things in camp, here on Aconcagua the mule service providers are required to provide toilets, a kind of a pit toilet, instead of what it has been: a small three foot by three foot tent that you zipped yourself into with a wood framed hole, that you heed nature's call to.  Our mule service provider actually got theirs constructed which eliminated one serious objective hazard of the rickety one which everyone had been using here.  

The rest day today brought a change in the weather, it was afternoon thunderstorms and snow just above base camp, but that didn't affect us too much here, we are just kind of hanging out doing our final rest and acclimation day, while the Alpine Ascents guide staff suffered greatly in both Hearts and Chess here in base camp. Once again hopefully this is the last Base Camp day before we begin staging up the mountain and it was celebrated by a protracted hot cakes brunch this morning, and also fresh salad and fried hamburgers and falafel burgers for dinner.  All are really looking forward to the beginning of the actual climb, staging up towards the summit tomorrow, we should be doing our cybercast from Camp I tomorrow.  A couple of quick messages:  from Corey: "Hello Jessica, your rose is with me, I love you." and also Eric wishes his mom Frederica a very happy birthday.  That's all from Aconcagua for now.