Thomas Hall

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Florida camp is a wrap…almost. I’ve got one last paddle this afternoon and then tomorrow I’m on the road with some sci-fi on tape to keep me going during the long long night.

This training camp was a great one. All the boys in the canoe group are on their A game and as fit as I’ve ever seen them.  I think we’ll be near the top of the pack come world cups in May. Personally, the camp went really well. I had some ups and downs, as always, but for the most part I feel like I made some serious technical and fitness improvements.

I also made a few rookie mistakes and over trained my ass off for a week and then died like a newbie before that cycle ended. It’s a funny thing how fine a balance it is between a maintainable load and a training load that you can’t handle. Literally just a few extra paddles and I was toast.

In the end though I’m better off for having made some mistakes. It was a good reminder of how well one can train as long as one stays in the appropriate zones and recovers adequately.

Anyway, I’m excited to be heading home to Montreal despite the miserable training that will happen on the cold, grey Olympic basin. It’ll be nice to work with Coach Mike and spend some time focusing on the final touches need for trials in may.

Cheers,

T

As I had tried to do on my previous moves and carries I made a conscious effort to move slowly, and not strain myself. I could see a group at most a kilometer ahead of me, moving slowly. There was another group a little further along that seemed to be making better time, so I thought I’d peg my speed to theirs. I set off and once again I was loving the fact that every step took my higher than I had even been, I kept on checking my altimeter to see what personal milestones I was passing, 16,500 feet, 17,000 feet and feeling great. But right about 17,500 just before I had caught up to the first group, I felt my heart go crazy, pounding extremely fast. I stopped, stood and listened. The beats were so hard in my chest that it was more like hearing them than feeling them. I had a moment looking down on Camp One about 1000 feet below, just before reaching the Ameghino Col (a saddle that joins the two mountains) where I almost turned around. I had only been climbing for a short while (I was going too fast again) but I knew something didn’t feel right. I stopped and rested, took a swig of water and waited to see if my heart would settled; It did. After what felt like a long time but was probably just a few minutes, it returned to a normal rhythm and I decided then that I would continue. Hell, despite the anxiety caused by my heart I was having a damn good time.

I caught the first group on the col; they had stopped at an intermediate cache they had left there the previous day and were busy changing some supplies. I stopped and chatted with them a bit about the usual things people talk about: candid gear reviews, how you’re feeling, whining about the interminable rocks and dust. I felt amazing at this point, I was breathing heavily but honestly I felt like without 20 or 30 kg on my back I could’ve jogged. Of course, if I had tried this I most likely would have passed out, but nevertheless I did feel great. The views were stunning as the higher you go the more the vistas open up; climbing the highest mountain outside of Asia also means that it’s the highest mountain in the range you’re in and at around this point every step one takes up Aconcagua causes their view of the Andes to grow. It was beautiful.

I resumed climbing realizing that no matter how hard I tried I wasn’t able to slow down my pace, so instead I resorted to simply stopping more. I didn’t have a set time per se, but I would walk for however long and then stop, catch my breath, drink a little and wait. Following this routine I slowed, but was still closing in the faster group too quickly. I soon caught them; we were just above the col looking down on what appeared to be a little sulfur puddle. I said hello to the first of them, they were strung out over a couple of hundred meters and we chatted briefly. It turned out that this group was the guys that had been set up just above me in Camp One. I continued up and soon caught the next guy and the next one after that, all the while moving higher and higher up the side of the mountain. Looking up I could see the Polish Glacier under which I would be caching my extra stock in Camp Two. I could see the summit, windswept and barren but still far overhead.

I climbed a little higher, finally reaching 18,000 feet or 5,468 meters when my heart started again. I stopped following the same routine I had done earlier and it settled again. I resumed climbing until I reached around 18,800 feet or 5,750 meters where my heart went once more and I decided I would turn. The decision didn’t come easily but I was far from comfortable and I knew I wouldn’t be making the summit at this point. Mentally I was OK, but just a little too nervous for my own good. If I hadn’t been alone I think I would’ve been able to continue but after about ten minutes of sitting down and resting only a little below Camp Two that sat just over a ridge above me, I decided I would turn. I took some pictures, shot a video and began to climb down.

Within about thirty seconds of turning I went through a gamut of emotions; sadness, exhilaration, defeat, and finally excitement at the thought that if all goes well I’ll be home in just about three days! I arrived at Camp One, exhausted, ate a snack then read a little and prepared my gear for the hike out. After all the days getting to where I was it was only going to take me a day and half out. I didn’t think it would be so bad, however I knew that tomorrow the hike from Camp One all the way to Las Lenas was going to be hard. Las Lenas was a good 32km away and 8000 feet or 2,500 meters below where I was now, and I would be doing it with a heavy pack down some very steep terrain. However once there I would only be about 12km from the trailhead and after that a quick 2-3 hours drive back to Mendoza.

I went to sleep that night excited and still worried about rocks falling on me. I had a slightly better sleep than my first night at Camp One, however it was far from good. The next I packed up early and moved. After sliding down the hill below Camp One, getting lost in the minefield once again, I arrived in Base Camp. There I checked on my friends from Grajales, met some Canadians who had brought Pringles (those damn mules) and I gave away almost all my extra food and snacks, reducing my load as much as possible and continued down.

This day was torture. It was by far the hardest and most painful part of the trip. The constant jarring, rocks, dust and fatigue caused my feet to blister, my knees were aching after only a few hours and it took my close to 12 hours to get to Las Lenas, minus the hour or so at base camp. I couldn’t believe how hard this day had been. When I stumbled into Las Lenas I set up my tent and limped over to the water source cooked some dinner. Didn’t bother getting more water for nighttime sips because the thought of walking the 50m’s to the river made my feet ache. I passed out soon after eating.

The next morning involved a hasty coffee and quick breakfast and I was off early. My ride was supposed to be meeting me at around 1 at the trailhead. I gave myself ample time and arrived around 11:30. I sat and waited and rested, that last 12kms had been tough as hell and the pain in one of my ankles is still nagging me when I wear boots, now over a month later, and my toenails are just now about back to normal.

I arrived at the hotel in Mendoza that afternoon, showered twice lay down slept for a while changed my flight to one leaving the next morning and then went out for some beer, an amazing bottle of wine and a delicious steak. More than a little tipsy I showered one more time and passed out.

After a harried day and night of traveling, I didn’t know there are two airports in Buenos Aires…did you? I arrived home tired, stinky, still dirty but happy and alive. Needless to say my mother was thrilled.

I’m not too upset I didn’t reach the summit. I went into the trip more as test rather than a quest and I think I passed. I didn’t push too many of my own boundaries and I want to go back. In fact I am going back once a little thing called the London Olympics are out of the way. After a year of planning, reading and obsessing I can finally, proudly put it behind me, and focus on my task at hand. I’m happy with the knowledge that I’ll be able to head back there again, hopefully with some friends, to try it again.

But now…..London.

Today was going to be an easier day than my carry to Camp One; for one thing I had no return trip and presumably I had acclimatized a little on my climb the previous day. I slept in as much as possible, made myself some coffee, at some granola or something granola related and slowly packed up all my gear. Packing is usually pretty easy, especially when it’s only about half of my gear, but wrestling a down bag rated to -30C into a bag that when closed and compressed in the size of bowling ball is not fun. This is made worse in a little tent when it’s not nice outside; it has a tendency to not stay where you put it, I kind of felt like I was at a fair with a mallet trying to keep the ground hogs down…they just keep coming back. Once everything was packed, I luxuriated in the still standing pit toilettes at Base Camp, not relishing the thought of what the next few days were going to entail. Nothing can stay on the mountain, as I described in an earlier post, so aim and Ziplocs were going to be key.

I was somewhat anxious to get to Camp One as I knew it was fairly crowded and I had left almost all my food, gas and quite a bit of cold weather clothing cached at my tent site. There is purportedly some theft of food and gear on the mountain though I was never really worried, as everyone I met seemed nice and honest enough not to steal someone’s food on the side of a mountain. What I was more anxious about was that someone would have stolen my awesome sheltered tent site. So, I went over to my new friends at Grajales and checked on their rebuilding process and shared a last Matte with them, not thinking too hard about the straw we were all drinking out of, and said my goodbyes. If all went according to plan I would not be seeing them again as my plan was to traverse the mountain after summiting and to come out down the normal route because it’s a shorter hike out.

The move to Camp One was essentially the same as my carry the previous day except this time I was almost totally alone on the trail. Apart from some porters, who passed me like I was going backwards, there was no one else. Best of all there were no sexagenarian Germans to race against so I really made my self try and slow down. In the end my effort to pace myself and go slow and steady resulted in me arriving about to Camp One about ten minutes faster than I had the day before. Whether this was due to some acclimatization, less stop and go than the day before or an utter failure to pace myself is up for debate but regardless of how fast or slow I was I felt fine when I arrived.

I quickly found my unoccupied, awesome site and cached equipment. I then had a snack and set up my tent and the rest of camp. Once I had everything set I wandered around a little and talked to some of the people I had become acquaintances with at Base Camp. It seemed that almost the whole camp was going to either be moving to or carrying to Camp Two (19,200 feet or 5,900m) the next day. My original plan was to take a rest day at Camp One before trying to head to Camp Two. The reasoning behind this was mostly because I was way out of my element and I to be safe taking more time to acclimatize is obviously better than taking less. After talking to a few groups and hearing that many weren’t spending any extra time at Camp One, I began to doubt the necessity of my original itinerary. I lazed around camp, reading, writing in my diary and taking stock of everything I had. I still had more than enough food, gas and water was plentiful, what I was running low on was patience. After ruminating more and more about whether i should stay or try for Camp Two I hadn’t made up my mind what I was going to do the next day as I began to try to sleep. It was not a pleasant night.

My sleep was going to be bad, I had prepared enough to know that until you’ve acclimatized sleeping can be a real challenge at that kind of altitude. What I found happening was that as I was falling asleep and my breathing rate would slow I would jolt awake with sleep apnea like symptoms. Before your body acclimatizes to altitude it has to some how make up for there being less O2 in the air, generally the best way is to breath faster. My body happens to be good at doing this automatically, however, when sleeping it apparently isn’t. So every few minutes I would jolt awake and gasp a little, eventually I grew tired enough that I fell asleep anyway but it wasn’t a nice feeling.

The breathing issue was expected and therefore not necessarily scary, but nevertheless it was a pain. However, there were two other issues that I wasn’t comfortable with. The first was an erratic heart rate that, combined with my high blood pressure, and gasping were not helping me to feel either safe or sound. The second was that as I was lying in my tent, drifting off, there would be the occasional CRACK and then a moment or two later a thump, or sometimes a sound that made me think of rocks or ice rolling. Maybe the reason all the experienced guides didn’t set their tents up in the lee of the giant cliff was because occasionally rocks fell on tents. I hadn’t read about this happening anywhere in my research but regardless it was pretty scary and I had a few moments where I was almost ready to simply pick up my tent and move.

After that night I was taking a rest day at Camp One, I’d be stupid not too, and I was moving my tent.

Of course, we all know that decisions made late at night, to sooth our racing minds tend not to be the most firm of decisions. I awoke, ate, used my Ziploc fairly well, and went over to talk to some people who were breaking camp. I should have been stealing my resolution to rest at this point, but impatience combined with inexperience and the thought of being super bored all day had me right at the brink of being convinced to make a carry to Camp Two. After some conversations with the guys whose tent was directly above mine about falling rocks, which they heard too, one of them even jumped out of their tent, I still hadn’t decided and even after saying goodbye to almost the entire camp I still hadn’t decided. It was when I wandered back to my little lonely orange tent that I decided I was going to try and make a carry to Camp Two.

My cache bag was ready to go as I hadn’t needed to unpack it the previous day, so I loaded it up in my pack, grabbed some extra snacks and filled my water bottles and excitedly began the climb to camp two.

The challenge on the carry and eventual move to Camp One lay, once again with the terrain and the added challenge of less oxygen. I had experience little in the way of difficulty adjusting to the altitude so far, I did have high blood pressure but apart from that I was feeling OK so, I gathered about half of my gear 20KG or 45lbs, and started the hike to camp one.

The first few hundred meters were easy presenting little in the way steepness and the path was clear and easy to follow, easy with an asterisk that is, as it still meant loose scree and therefore constant awareness of foot placement, but it was relatively flat. I should mention that the distance between Base Camp and Camp One was really not the great at all, and many sections can be broken down into hundreds of meters, I’m not sure what it would in terms of KMs however I’d be shocked if it was more than 5-7kms.

The athlete in me found the lack of distance a challenge because I could see where I needed to go and wanted to get there as fast as I could. I was surprised to learn that patience isn’t a forte of mine; alright not that surprised. I was aware that going too fast here could be at absolute worst fatal due to altitude sickness or simply falling on the steeper section of trail, or at best mild altitude sickness and having to take a day off, so I was sure to pace myself as best I could.

Soon into the move I could see ice peeking out of the rock and dirt and I realized that this section is a large glacier covered in rock and dirt. It was startling and beautiful to see walls of ice where sections of the glacier had separated and slid apart revealing the white blue ice underneath. The walls weren’t discovery channel size but nevertheless they served as a reminder that we were walking on a giant piece of ice and every time I saw one I thought of how awesome this was.

Early in the climb I passed a group of Germans or Austrians being led by an older man, thinking that was the last I’ll see of them, only to have them pass me on my first break a few minutes later. I again, somewhat stubbornly, motored passed them only to have them retake me later on. This was very tortoise and the hare but in the end I managed to get to Camp One about 20 minutes ahead of them because the last section of trail was so hard that everyone was struggling with it. What was that about patience? This was not the attitude I wanted to have at altitude and I quietly told myself that when I moved to camp one the next day I would take extra time.

The trail narrows after the initial section and enters a steep sided gully formed by the glacial runoff on its way down to Base Camp just after it which it joins the Vacas river which was the river I had been following since the beginning of my hike. The river then continues on down to the city of Mendoza, which relies so heavily of Aconcagua for both water and tourism dollars. The gully at this point was reminiscent of what I described on my way in to Base Camp but on a smaller scale and with less path and more rock. The constant shifting and settling of the scree erased most tracks on the walls of the gully. There was no flat section to walk on, it was simply pick your way along the walls of the gully from one solid point to another, moving quickly between them on the sliding scree. I was shocked to discover that this type of fast movement caused burning in my legs and left me gasping for breath; it was a little like doing sprints in deep snow. This struggle up the gully lasted for about 30-45 minutes and then I reached a plateau lovingly referred to by some as the minefield. Personally I thought it looked a lot like a no mans land from a First World War movie.

This next area, the minefield, was a mess of trails that skirted the edges of craters that where about 5-10meters deep. Some of caters had glacial pools in the bottom that went who knows how deep. At first I found this sparse evidence of a glacier underfoot pretty cool and beautiful like the ice, but soon I realized how tedious this was going to be. The trail was somewhat marked by inukshuks but I lost it numerous times and though there was no fear of getting capital l Lost, there was the constant annoyance of getting confused and reaching dead ends. Both times I made the trip down back to Base Camp I got mixed up and spent about 20-30 extra minutes picking out a trail through this area. I did not enjoy this section.

After this the trail traversed along the steep wall of a ridge upon the top of which lies Camp Uno. The trail skirts along the side of this ridge for another few hundred meters until it reaches the runoff stream from higher up on the mountain at which point we ascend almost straight up the steepest part of the mountain I experienced. This section was truly difficult, the lack of Oxygen combined with the very steep trail and the constant movement of the rocks beneath my feet winded me repeatedly. I’m not sure what grade this section was but it was steep enough that I was using my hands frequently and if I hadn’t had poles I would have been in trouble. Once I crested the ridge Camp One was about 50 meters to my left up another little ridge.

The layout of Camp One made me think of a river delta; the camp was shaped a little like a wedge or a spoon. The top of camp was very narrow, only about 5 meters wide, enough room for one tent site surrounded by a pyrca (wall of stone built to protect from wind like in Base Camp) and long enough for about ten such sites in a line. This part of the camp was in a sunken streambed that was presumably dry now. On one side the site was the little ridge I’d climbed over to get into camp beyond which was the main glacial melt stream and the other side was a gradual rise punctuated by giant boulders that had fallen from a cliff about 15 meters away that towered above this section of camp. I found a good site in this narrow section thinking that those suckers below in the wider part of camp would be more exposed as their section wasn’t in the deep part of the old streambed nor was it close to the large wall that presumably, would offer some protection.

There was no doubt they were more exposed but it seemed that many of the tents in that area belonged to guiding companies, which I take to mean that someone had considerable experience. So, why were they down there when they could be in the shelter of streambed? The thought came and went rather quickly, and I’d like to be able to attribute that to altitude but in the spirit of honesty that I’m trying to keep alive in these reports, it was inexperience that helped me choose my site.

Anyhow, I buried my garbage bag full of extra gear and food under the rocks of my tent site, thereby hopefully reserving the spot for my move to Camp One tomorrow night and turned around and headed down the mountain with a considerably lighter pack. The way down is obviously quite a bit easier than the way up, but it hadn’t occurred to me how much easier it would be. The terrain poses problems in all the same areas as it did on the way up, just in the opposite way. Going down the very steep last section of the climb, meant almost skiing down rocks in my boots trying not too fall and not to shower those below me with rocks. The minefield was actually far more challenging than on the way up, I repeatedly lost the trail and had to back track, and the first steep gully was also difficult. Despite those challenges and getting mixed up in the minefield area it only took me a third of the time to get down as it did to get up which was great!

I settled down in my tent, luxuriating in the comfort of my sleeping bag after having
“washed” my self with some baby wipes and made a snack and rested for the next day when I would be carrying the rest of my gear the 3000 feet or close to 1000m from Base Camp at 13,200 (4000m) feet to Camp One at 16,200 (5000m).

For those of you not on Facebook here is a link to the Facebook album of my trip: just copy and paste it. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2456463&id=13618458&l=62e96d2730

I woke up to plastic, metal and wood shards all over base camp.

There had been some kind of wind phenomena in base camp, either a very localized twister of some kind or simply a very powerful gust that lasted long enough to cause some serious damage, either way the wind had culminated in a powerful enough something to destroy the Fernando Grajales camp, destroy multiple tents and lift someone into the air.

The F.G. camp consisted of five large tents with hollow steel support beams and thick plastic sheeting as the tent fabric, like a slightly smaller version of a temporary garage. In one of the tents was a kitchen complete with stove, oven and various cast iron cooking implements. In another were simply bags full of gear used by the various guiding companies that use Grajales as an outfitter for food, water and transport like I was. The remaining tents were mess tents with tables and plastic chairs. Almost all of this was gone in the morning. Sometime around midnight a guide for Alpine Ascents was in his tent “sleeping” (the wind was so loud I doubt anyone had a truly restful night in base camp) when the guy lines (tie downs for the tent) of his tent ripped out and his tent was lifted into the air, flipped over and dropped onto the ground…with him in it. Luckily, he came out with only a bruised head and shoulder and he worked his way over to the mess tent Alpine Ascents was renting from Grajales to try and get some sleep. According to him, just as he was dozing off the mess tent disappeared and he was lying on the wooden floorboards with nothing around him, tent, tables and chairs were gone.

The steel poles had bent and broken and some had been hurled through people’s tents, hitting another person on the head. The plastic chairs had disintegrated and shards of them littered camp along with pieces of wood and tent material. The toilets at base camp are large barrels dug into the ground with sheet metal outhouses sitting atop them. When the barrels are full the outhouse is moved and the barrel is helicopter out of camp, elaborate but a sound way of keeping base camp crap free. Sadly on much on much of the mountain a trip behind most large boulders will result in the discovery of someone who doesn’t respect nature, or other people enough to clean up their shit. These sheet metal outhouses don’t weigh very much and their roofs are simply about a meter square of sheet metal with rocks on top to keep them from flying away. A good idea in normal conditions but not so good when the wind is strong enough to do something that no one at Grajales had ever seen at Plaza Arengtina before. Luckily there aren’t that many outhouses so the flying square meters of sheet metal only results in one torn tent and no decapitations.

In the end, everyone was pretty relieved that no one was seriously injured. The potential for a true disaster was huge. The worst injured was the guide who felt able and ready to continue to climb. A few people higher on the mountain and some of those in base camp had their trips ended when their tents were annihilated by the wind and they were unable to afford new ones. Those tents at F.G. had been being used for at least ten years or so and they had never any problems with them before. It’s interesting to note that other companies didn’t seem to have the same problem but, as I wrote earlier, much of the damage to camp was localized and the broken and ripped climber tents were for the most part, from around where F.G. was set up.

Later on my way up to camp one, I ran into one of these unfortunates at base camp and invited him to join me for my ascent, but he had already acclimatized and would’ve had to have traveled at a pace that would have proven dangerous for me to attempt due to his travel arrangements.

I proceeded with my plan for the day that was to carry about half my load, mostly food and fuel and cold weather clothes, to camp one. I packed my bags and began the, for me 3 hour for some 4-5 hour and for the porters who live on the mountain 1.5 hour trip to camp one.

The trip proved more challenging then I had expected.

I’ve been home for about a week now. The trip went relatively well, and I had an awesome time. I didn’t summit due to some concerns I had about a very high blood pressure and some weird heart rhythms. Here is how it went:

The hike to base camp was what I had thought was going to be the hardest part of the trip. I thought this because I knew I was going to have around 100lbs, or 46kg on my back for those three days. What I had expected was some relatively easy terrain for the first two days and then a sharp increase in grade for the third and final day into Base Camp. I was right, kind of. The terrain was relatively flat except for a sharp climb at the start of the third day, however it was not at all easy with the weight I was carrying. Much of the valley I was hiking through was covered in rock fall and mudslide and this meant walking on very uneven terrain. With a lighter pack it wouldn’t have been as much of a concern but I had to constantly be aware of my foot placement. The rocks were scattered enough that there was rarely a smooth path and I always had to keep my head down to avoid stubbing my toe too frequently, and of course, to avoid falling.

The paths along the valley varied from a trail through a flat flood plain or mudslide refuse, to a narrow (half a meter) wide path with a very steep drop of anywhere from 3 to 10 or 15 meters down to a river. This type of path, which I grew to loath, was especially hard on the third day into base camp. At times the path was almost nonexistent and I had to shimmy along gaps where a mistake was not an option. Obviously, I made it but I never thought I could have been as tired as I was on that final day into base camp. The constant vigilance about foot placement, the heavy pack and the sharp increase in altitude was more than I had bargained for.

Once in Base Camp I sat down for a few then set up my tent next to some friends I had made on the hike in and lay in it for about two hours not doing anything. Finally I cooked something (boiled water and added it to a bag of dehydrated something) and felt a little better. I then proceeded to find my water and toilet source, Fernando Grajales Expedition was my outfitter for these things, as well as some meals and Internet.

Everyone who wants to go past base camp has to pay a visit to the Doctor at base camp who checks their vitals to make sure they can go up. I went in soon after arriving in camp and he measured my O2 saturation (a measure of how much oxygen is in your blood, at sea level it theoretically should be 100%, and as you get higher it drops as there is less O2 in the atmosphere. From what I understand this is what causes altitude sickness, AMS, and thus the measure of O2 saturation at least gives some indication of how someone is tolerating altitude, however it is by no means a predictor of AMS.) My saturation was fine and quite high at around 88%, but my blood pressure was extremely high at around 160/100. Obviously this was some cause for concern. I added another rest day and went to visit the Doc again only to find no change in my BP. He said it is normal in some percentage of the population so I decided that the next day I would move to camp one.

But that night a little disaster hit base camp.

On Sunday the 5th of December I’m taking a few weeks off training to go take a hike. About a year ago I decided I wanted to climb a mountain; no, not that figurative mountain that all athletes climb, but an actual mountain. I’m not a “climber” but I can haul a heavy bag for a long time so I needed something non-technical, I also wanted something high and challenging. I settled on Aconcagua in Argentina, it’s the highest mountain outside of Asia and sits at around 23,000 feet or just fewer than 7,000 meters. It’s high enough to pose some very real dangers; the most significant of which is altitude sickness. People die every year on the mountain from succumbing to AMS and not getting off the mountain quickly enough. The weather is the other extreme factor as it gets very cold when you’re very high and there is a notorious wind the rips across the mountain occasionally that brings with it terrible weather and temperatures that even someone from Saskatchewan would find cold.

With these dangers in mind I approached climbing this mountain as an exercise in over preparation and calculated risk. I knew I didn’t want to be guided; as one of the seven summits, (the highest points on the seven continents) and a relatively accessible mountain it can be quite crowded. I like trying things alone and the prospect of sharing a tent with a stranger at 19,000 feet when peeing in a water bottle in the tent is generally the smart way to go to the bathroom, wasn’t exactly appealing. The guides mostly take care of logistics, and prepare tents and meals, which are all things I’m very comfortable with. As for leading people up the mountain this shouldn’t be too much of an issue as most people I’ve spoken with who’ve been there say that often you’ll be waiting in line on the mountain and that you’re never on your own. With all this in mind I choose to forsake the guide and go solo, again ensuring that my approach would be overly cautious.

My brief itinerary is as follows: A three-day hike into base camp from about 8,500 feet to 13,500 feet. A few days at BC to acclimatize and then up to do a cache at camp one (to adjust to altitude most people climb up to a higher camp and leave some gear and then sleep at the lower camp). After a night back at BC I’ll head up to camp one take a rest a day and than carry to camp two and sleep at camp one…etc. Finally I’ll be either at camp two or a higher third camp, depending on my route, waiting for the weather to give me an opportunity to try for the summit. After about 14 days on the mountain I’ll hopefully have had a chance to summit safely at which point I plan to rip down and off the mountain as fast as I can. Ideally, I’ll be off the mountain and in the city close to three days after summiting.

I guess I haven’t said why I’m doing this. I paddle a canoe for a living and spend most of the year in Florida. Why on earth would I live on dehydrated food and a headache for a two to three weeks? I’m not clichéd enough to say because it’s there, in fact not only would that be clichéd it would be a lie. The short answer is because I want to. I’ve always had a thing about climbing high mountains and this will be my first foray into that world. The way I look at it, if I’ve got an opportunity to do something that shouldn’t negatively impact other parts of my life, I’m going for it.

So with the drama behind me here are some links that may be of interest:

- Follow me here: Aconcagua Adventure this will give you my location on a map. The locations automatically disappear after seven days.

- Web cam/weather: here is a link to a site that should have a webcam going soon. It’s at the other base camp, Plaza Del Mulas but the weather at the BC’s is the same. My base camp is Plaza Argentina, and it is the jumping off point for the Polish Direct or Traverse routes. I’m doing the Traverse route, and may come down the mountain on the other side via, Plaza Del Mulas. The reason why I’d go up one side and down the other is because it’s interesting and it’s a shorter hike out from Mulas (one day) than Argentina (two days).

- Weather two: Here you can find a more detailed, in some respects, weather report. On the left below resort info, there are three altitude you can choose from. Choose one and get the report below, to switch to metric it is on the left next to the days of the week. The webcam link is the same image as the one I’ve linked to above.

- Guiding Company: here is a link to a guide company that is starting their trip around the same time as I am. You should be able to read their updates and get some idea of what I’m experiencing in terms of weather…etc. Mountain Trip

Alright that is it. I’ll probably manage to do an update at base camp via very pricey satellite internet. That should be around the 11th-12th of Dec. I hope to summit around the 19th-20th and should be able to do another update on my way out on the 21st or so. These dates are obviously subject to the whims of…a lot of things, so don’t worry if I don’t update. Same goes for the spot messenger that I’m using, they can and do break, or simply run out of batteries so if it isn’t updating don’t worry about it.

I’ve been bad again. I haven’t been updating very often because there isn’t a whole lot on which to report. I’ve been busy with school and training hard down here in Florida. There’s a good crew of paddlers down here and we’ve been pushing each other on the water and in the gym. The water has been excellent (=flat) and the weather has been hovering around 25c most days.

This is a short camp for us, at only three weeks, and then it’s back to the cold in Montreal for about a week and then I had to South America to climb a mountain. More on that later.

Big news in my association, Canoe Kayak Canada sprint side has found a new High Performance Director in Barney Wainwright. Graham Barton, the previous HPD, was snatched up by own the podium around the end of summer and officially stepped down on Oct. 1st. It was a big deal for me and, I think, most of us because Graham had been in the role our whole careers. I know I’ll miss Graham but it’s always exciting to see what fresh eyes can bring to a team.

Anyway that’s the update!