High Altitude Hiking
We had to be up early today for our 7am pickup even though the bus didn’t come until 7:40. This is normal for Argentina. I hate sitting around after having to be up so early when on vacation. However, we were able to arrange to get breakfast delivered to the room at 6:30, something I really enjoy about this hotel - our breakfast is served in the room.
We drove in the van for roughly 3 hours and watched as the landscapes changed (though Brooke and I both had a sleep near the start). The highway lead us through some wonderfully changing landscapes. There are some amazing rock formations and, because of the altitude and desert like conditions, everything is exposed and visible - rock is all you see. I couldn’t help but think that it would be a fun place to do field geology. Our day trip into the mountains was to hike around and get to see a mountain called Aconcagua. It is the highest mountain in the Americas at 22,837 feet tall. Our hike started at the gate to the park where you had to pay for your entrance permit based on what you were planning on doing. We were just there for a day hike so it was only $20 but it would be more if you were to do the full 20 day pass for hiking to the top. It could take 20 days from what I could understand. I was under the impression that the normal number of days to hike the route to the peak is 6 (plus 6 back)but there is often days spent waiting at the base camp for the conditions to become favourable. It’s not a difficult mountain to climb apparently but it does present challenges. I think one of them is that the base camp is only at 11,000 feet and you still have 11,000 vertical to climb over a long distance. I can see how, with trying to adjust to altitude, you probably can’t get more than a couple of thousand feet in per day. I know at Cotopaxi, you can stay a night at the base camp at 15,700 feet and finish the next 4000 the next day. But you start at 10,000 feet in Quito which, if you spend a couple of days really helps. However, Cotopaxi is 2000 feet less than this and I think that is a big difference.
It was a wonderful view and hike up to base camp. We only had one fellow in the group that struggled to make it. He wasn’t as fit as he should be but he never gave up. He was from Buenos Aires and I think some people have a harder time adjusting to 11,000 feet than others.
After the hike, we made it back to the hotel and discovered that the street just around the corner from us is the party street. It is full of bars and restaurants and stores. Actually, I think we lucked out on our location as everything is right here next to us. So, as luck would have it, we found another cerveceria called Antares. We sat and had dinner (it also happened to be Valentine’s Day!) and a few wonderful pints and enjoyed the warm night air as one would hope to do on vacation in a warm country.
In the back of the Van, exhausted, 8am.
The road we were on goes to Chile. They have just finished clearing it from a bad landslide due to an earthquake. An Aussie fellow on our bus was taken on a 26hr bus ride that he thought was going to be 8. He didn’t understand that the bus was re-routed.
Our first glimpse of the mountain!
The ranger station.
You have to check in and out to go into the park.
There were awesome clouds.
Aconcagua is thinking……
It looks like a chocolate river.
Look at the soft sediment deformation…….Cool
”I’m a lone clump of grass……”
What you can’t see in this photo is how windy it is. They were clearing people off of the mountain because it was a storm coming.
This is the weather forecast system.
A place for us to eat our lunch in the shade.
There are a lot of ‘permenant’ structures here.
There’s a surprising amount of stuff here at the camp.
Checking in at base camp. Brooke is on the left and our guide on the right.
We eventually got some rain.
Look at the awesome sedimentary structures!!!
This is a different one. Look in the light brown areas – they are full of larger stone clasts.
This was our hiking group.
My hiking group.
Brooke took this wonderful photo.
You’ll see in these photos that the whole valley has this red escarpment. I’m pretty sure that at some point after the glaciers in this valley retreated, the valley was blocked and formed a lake. The fellow at the tour company that we booked the outing with tried to tell me that the mountains sat on this bed. I didn’t understand what he was trying to tell me but now I can understand what he was thinking. The mountains do look like they wit on top.
Here is a really awesome view of the cut. This river is an anastomosing channel bed.
Enough science, let’s talk beer.
This was a nice little brew pub (cervezeria).
They had around 10 of their own brews.
We tried a few.
