The team climbed up to high camp, located on the north shoulder of Aconcagua.  They are camped at roughly 6100m and are looking forward to making an attempt on the summit tomorrow morning!

The climb up from Chopper Camp climbs starts with a steep climb out of camp and then follows a rocky, gradual incline up to the base of a huge bowl that drains slightly to the north, into a valley known as El Valle de Guanacos, or the Upper Vacas Valley.  Rene nicely captured the look and feel of the upper portion of the bowl, which she compares to having a somewhat lunar feel to it.  Towers of bizarrely shaped rock in hues of red, purple, grey and black are scattered around the bowl and definitely seem like they should be on a Star Trek set!

The weather was perfect and the forecast for tomorrow looks really good.  The wind event that had been forecasted a couple days ago has been downgraded a bit, but tomorrow looks much, much better than the next two days.  Everyone is feeling really well, so they will go to bed early and rise at about 04:00 to eat, drink and ready themselves for an ascent through the darkness towards the top of South America.

Here’s Rene:

recording

Hiking up toward high camp. Camp is immediately behind the prominent tower at the top and just left of center in the image.