|
Dispatch#8
December 27th, 2001. Aconcagua Base Camp,
Argentina. Team I, Team II Hi
this is Ellie reporting from Group 1 on Aconcagua
for December 27th. We just heard from Willi
and he reports that his group just completed their
first carry up to Camp III at 19,200 feet.
This is a spectacular camp right at the base of the
Polish Glacier and from this camp you can look off
to the North to the next big mountain with big
glaciers which is Mercedario and also a very
interesting, steep looking mountain called El Mano.
The group's enjoying an amazing string of good
weather. We've had several days of morning sun
and a few afternoon snow flurries, but no real bad
weather at all, no high winds, no deep snow, they've
had to dig out a little. Willi says that it's
almost the best conditions he's seen in almost
twelve years on the mountain for the Normal Route.
The Polish Glacier on the other hand, seems to have
pretty deep snow on it, so we'll see what happens as
they get up higher.
Everyone
completed the carry up to Camp III in about three
hours. Then everybody tested their strength
working on building their tent sites. They're
planning on spending two nights at Camp II so that
they can get these tent sites built ahead of time so
that they can move right into them. They were
digging out snow and chipping ice to level the tent
platforms, and also building rock walls, they have
to build pretty high walls in case the wind comes
up, it makes a good protection for the tents, if the
weather turns bad. So tomorrow on December
28th, they'll be ready to move up and they are
planning on moving into Camp III and then the
following day having a rest day, and if the weather
holds, then they'll move on to high camp and
hopefully for the summit.
Here at Base
Camp, Team II enjoyed their first full day of Base
Camp resting, lounging in the sun, some of them did
laundry, and the whole group was seen to be gorging
on pizza towards evening. So their first day
in Camp went very well. So that's it for
December 27th from Aconcagua, and we'll be reporting
again soon with further news.
 Dispatches
|
|
