Agree. I had three aluminum tent poles snapped in a decent new mountaineering tent at high camp on Sajama when perched on an icy platform near a ledge. I thought we were going to be blown into oblivion.

Rodrigo, I truly appreciate that you apologized to Claudia and me for what happened on the mountain, appologies accepted. I also think you should do the same thing to the other two who were with us in Camp 2 and at one point or another had to abandon the expedition for reasons which AP could have avoided.

When we lost the two guides, I think that maybe a reasonable approach would have been to have merged the two AP teams. In this case, it would have been 12 clients with 4 guides, which probably would have been adequate. This would have saved you money, us headaches, Wesley would have not been stressed out and in a hurry to quit our expedition to catch the next, and all might have been a lot better for all of us. But I am pretty sure you had your own good reasons why not to do this.

I never expected AP to carry me to the top of the mountain and I never expressed such expectation. But I never expected AP to preclude me from trying to attempt the summit either. In terms of adventure, I live an adventure every day just driving to work and back (just kidding). To me an expedition sounds more serious, more organized, lead by professional guides and therefore is somewhat predictable. Adventure is more like the weather - nobody knows how it is going to be. An adventure is something loosely planned and you go out there to measure yourself against the unknown. If I had gone by myself to conquer the mountain I would have called it an adventure.




Bonnie, insulting and erroneously accusing me of doing things I have never done or thought of doing and fabricating stories to discredit me is not going to bring you or your company any glory. But the pledge you have made to repair what went wrong in this expedition, even if it is in a very small paragraph and hard to spot, will. If your pledge will materialize, that will mean that my goal of someone else not repeating the experience my team and I had in this expedition, will be accomplished and, I thank you for that.
I am not sure how common it is to have 2 AP expeditions on the mountain at the same time, but I did notice that the tents of the other team were all newer than ours. Is it possible that the guides of the other expedition picked their tents first and our guides took what was left? To me it is unlikely that our guides purposely had picked the older tents, so maybe it is unfair to blame it all on our guides.
I am thinking that if Wesley was not involved in two expeditions with overlapping dates maybe he would have been a different person and make better decisions. Maybe he would have decided to spend more time in Camp 1 and move to Camp 2 when weather would allow, since he was aware of the coming storm. Maybe he would have made more stops to allow us to drink enough water and have some snacks along the way and be able to take care of the nature calls. Maybe he would have been less stressed, more focussed, more client oriented. Maybe he would have even taken a picture or two with us like the guides from the other AP team did.

I would like to take this opportunity to commend the way in which Felipe took care of his clients from the first to the last day of the expedition. Also Eliel was of a great help to all of us in Mendoza, before and after the expedition. They are both a great asset for your company.




Response to comments made by other.
I am sure that AP had some very successful expeditions last year, the year before last and maybe even this year. My review is NOT about those expeditions. It is about the one I was in. I wish I was in one of the successful ones which you guys describe.

Regarding my mountaineering experience I think is irrelevant under the circumstances in which poor equipment and bad decisions caused the issues we had on the mountain. However, I think I have enough mountaineering experience to realize when something goes wrong on the mountain. At the BC I knew that our tent, in the condition in which it was, may not withstand high winds higher up the mountain and it turned out to be true. We discussed among ourselves that maybe it would have been a better strategy to wait in Camp 1 for the wind to subside before moving to Camp 2. From talking with guides from other guiding companies I learned that this was what they did and thus they succeeded. I know when something is wrong to raise a flag to the mountaineering community so others don’t have to repeat my unfortunate experience. I hope I passed the test.

Only the two tents of our team were completely destroyed by the wind in Camp 2. Other tents sustained minor damages but they could still provide shelter.

I don't have a dog in this fight (though I've enjoyed spending my lunchbreak reading the thread!), but Aventuras Patagonica's website is still saying "All trips to the top! 100% success rate". But other aspects of it look like they maybe need updating, too (if you're reading, AP).

My Stephenson is good for 148 mph - I think that's what they claim - of course I suspect that is with the wind to the long axis of the tent. Any tent that fails in 62 mph winds is not a mountaineering tent. Sorry previous posters - YOU ARE WRONG.

Actually, someone claimed that it was three days of 75 mph winds with gust to 93 mph.

When the expedition got to Camp 2 they faced three days of 120 km/h winds with gusts of more than 150 km/h

My Stephenson is good for 148 mph - I think that's what they claim

Maybe so, but only for brief periods. I'd be willing to bet that if you used it an entire season in high winds, there is a pretty good chance that it could sustain at least some damage. It may not, but there is still a pretty good chance.

Sorry previous posters - YOU ARE WRONG.

Coming from someone who has little experience in the mountains and didn't even make Camp Berlin guided. Real smooth there. I'm sure the rest of us are all wrong.

I was at high camp on Aconcagua a little above Berlin for two days with gusts over 60mph which did not damage our Trango tents with AP with all guy lines deployed and "moderate" rock walls. The air ruffled the bottom of our tents, but did not damage them.

On Sajama at high camp, we had to set up our tent (new mountaineering Doite) by chopping a platform on an exposed saddle which did not have protection from the wind (big snow season earlier, no rocks available for wall building). We might have been able to pitch a camp lower along a wall, but with too much of a slope. At the time we didn't have any wind at all, and we even considered pushing for the summit directly bypassing high camp (I almost regret the decision now, but If I'm going to err, it's usually going to be because I was a little too conservative). Sometime a little after sundown, the winds consistently picked-up to sustained speeds I believe were well above 80mph. The tent moved a little despite two of us + gear and all guy lines deployed. Later an aluminum pole snapped, and a little later two others did too as if we were being crushed by a tremendous weight. After the poles broke, it felt like we were inside a parachute and falling if that makes sense. There were two other tents nearby that were similarly damaged that were closer to a cliff. Other than snapped poles, the fabric of the tent was not torn/damaged.

Mnovac and Claudiac, I'm not going to draw any conclusions about your tents from your experience or even make a direct comparison. I'm sure your night, like mine was not a good time. For those who haven't been in similar conditions, it may be difficult to imagine how this can happen, but it sometimes does if you do this long enough.

Woodie

I don't think I see the tent we used there. It would be at least 2 years old by now. It seemed to be a reasonable tent for our purposes, although TNF Mountain 25s that we also used were likely a little tougher. Either way, barring extreme conditions such as we had, it seemed to be a reasonable choice at the time. I'm not sure the other tent would have fared much better, though.

Woodie

there is no need to make a direct comparison with our experience. I would be understanding and actually sympathetic to AP if their tents were fine in good weather. as they were not, I still consider that they sent us on the mountain a bit carelessness, AP cannot stand by this. what happened that night is just an end result of accumulated issues. it's as simple as that.

to respond to Bonnie's comments- nobody was inappropriate or impolite to Wesley, on the contrary. I don't think Wesley has anything to complain against us. I would be quite surprise if he does. Otherwise, I would have appreciate it if Rodrigo would have apologized on a personal email, not on this forum. A bit too late for his public apologies. I personally moved on, might get back there in winter this year, but definitely not with AP.

As a Guide from AP, I have to say this is a great company. I have worked for a lot of guiding companies, local and foreign, and for many reasons I can say this company has the best service.
For you to know, we start doing the shopping at least 3 days before our clients arrive in Mendoza, so they can have the best food up there. We provide all the necessary food for each client.
In those 3 days we try to look for the highest-quality tents and kitchen things from our storage. We are always trying to find the most desirable resources for you all, so the idea is that you can have all the best and the greatest experience on your trip.
I am a local Guide, and I do the most I can for all of the team members. It is a job you really need to love, enjoy and feel passion for, and I am one of those persons.
We work all the time as a team with the rest of the members of the Aventuras Patagonicas company, with the managers, Directors, etc.
If you ask me, I totally prefer to work for AP rather than other guiding companies. To be honest of course we are humans and we can make mistakes, but the first idea and the idea since I first started working with Aventuras Patagonicas has been to give the best of the best to all the clients.
The thing is that sometimes clients have to do things on the mountain that they don´t want to do or come to Aconcagua to do nothing more than walking. But hey, it is not like that, its a tough mountain, and as a team the idea is to help in whatever way we can, or give a hand whenever we can because it is always better working as a team. There are a lot of reasons to help. As guides we do our best to try to give you the best possible experience on the mountain but ultimately its teamwork and a positive attitude, which will help make your climb be a successful one.

Emiliano Poletti
High Altitude Mountain Guide