The Mountain Trip Carstensz Pyramid expedition team is meeting today in Bali, Indonesia, a beautiful place to stop and regroup before heading further East to the island of Papua. Carstensz Pyramid is a massive limestone peak in the middle of the island and towers over the jungle at 16,023 ft. Carstensz Pyramid is the highest…
The team is on the summit after a long, hard morning of climbing! Everyone took the opportunity to say “hi” from the top of Aconcagua this afternoon. It sounds like they had a good day, and while they took advantage of nice weather, the team moved up to the top in strong fashion. Summit day…
The team moved up to high camp today! They are at over 19,000 ft on Aconcagua tonight, relaxing and enjoying the views and preparing to leave for the summit early tomorrow morning. They are all doing great and are in high spirits with hopes of another beautiful day tomorrow for their summit attempt. Jason made…
Lead guide Fermin Avila called in the team report today. The team is taking a rest day at Camp 1, and the plan is to move to Camp 2 tomorrow. While my spanish is definitely lacking in some basic skills, from what I understand everyone is doing quite well and the team is happy to…
The team is on the move! They moved up to Camp 1 at 16,400′ today. Leaving Plaza Argentina, the trail climbs up a rocky stretch, which is the residual rock from a glacier that used to push east from high on the side of Aconcagua. The glacier has largely disappeared, but portions of it were…
Alex Hall gave a ring from Plaza Argentina after the team carried loads up to Camp 1, almost 1000m above. Today was a long one for the climbers. They spent almost nine hours above Base Camp, while they cached supplies at an elevation of 16,400′ before returning to Plaza Argentina for the night. This system…
The team has some amount of connectivity at the Plaza Argentina Base Camp, and our guides took advantage of the internet to send us some photos of the trip thus far. In chronological order:
Dr. Kyle Kelbert called in a nice post from the Plaza Argentina Base Camp at 4100 meters (13,450′). The team awoke earlier today and crossed the frigid Vacas River astride horses, saving their feet and legs from a chilly morning bath. Once on the west side of the river, they hiked up and into the…
Johan Bogren called in after a day on the trail, hiking roughly eight miles (~13 Km) up the Vacas Valley. The team gained only about 1000′ (300m) of elevation today, but the trail required a fair bit of hiking up and down, passing broad colluvial fans that sweep out from tributary valleys feeding in from…
Mountain Trip guide Jason Denley called in an update on the January 13th Aconcagua team, who reached their first camp on the mountain at Pampas de Lenas. The team left the high mountain ski town of Penitentes where they spent their last night in hotel beds at roughly 9,000 ft (2750 m) before hitting the…