Aconcagua Update: February 1, 2018

Cumbre!!

We’ll go with the most exciting news first – this morning at 10am local time we had 4 members of our climbing team summit Aconcagua. Conditions were breezy up there but winds were noticeably less than forecasted. Our teams are psyched they stuck it out and pushed up the mountain looking for that coveted summit window, and they sure did find it!

The Final Push

Prior to the successful summit push this morning, the climbing team made solid moves from camp 1 to camp 2 on January 29th, with everyone feeling pretty good as the altitude progressed. They spent two nights at C2 (17,900’/5456m) to further acclimatize while waiting for winds on the summit to decrease.

On January 31st they made the move to C3 (19,700’/6000m). Conditions were warm with a light breeze. Adrian reported back to the office that these were the “lowest winds and warmest temps I’ve ever had in C3…”. Interesting, given that the forecast was for high winds making life miserable.

Late that night, the team put on their headlamps and cast off for the summit. Winds were indeed breezy, but much lower than forecasted. One member of the team turned around above 20,000′, however the rest of the team continued on feeling good about their pace and the weather. Pushing through the early morning twilight and into full blown morning, our team touched the 22,841′ summit at 10am. They quickly descended and at the time of publishing this blog they were nearly to base camp.

Congratulations you guys! Well done!