Sorry for all the questions but it will best for me to ask them all at once than over multiple posts.

- I am interested to know whether people have a preference to go in December (colder/less busy) or in January (warmer/busier)

- I've done Kilimanjaro, Elbrus, Island Peak and Huayna Potosi. I have never really had issues with altitude apart from one day on Elbrus we went from 2100m to 4500m and back down to 3800m, my mind was scrambled. Generally though I feel I have a higher natural tolerance to altitude than average but would like some suggestions on pre-climb acclimatisation as I do live at sea level and I think it would be very beneficial to get a bit higher before this climb. I was going to go via Ecuador but if I can just do something close to Mendoza it might be cheaper...

- Suggestions on a good guiding service? I hear good things about Grajales, any reason to go with a western company?

- Just how much equipment does one need? I have seen most gear lists for Aconcagua ask for 2 very large duffel bags which confuses me. Why do you need two large duffels? is this because you need 1 for personal gear and one for communal gear? (tent, stoves etc)

- I also plan to live in Colombia for a bit afterwards (6 months) so will be bringing another suitcase full of clothes. Will I have problems with weight limits for my luggage on my flights? not sure how to get around this, any tips welcomed.

- In terms of gear I have the following I would like to use: Mountain Hardwear Nilas down jacket, First Ascent Karakoram 0F sleeping bag, La Sportivia Spantik boots are these Sufficient?

- I get very cold hands and haven't found gloves that work for me, does anyone have suggestions?

- To what height can I wear normal trekking boots to before I need to wear my Spantiks?

- Gear rental. To limit the weight of my airline luggage I am interested in renting heavy equipment like Ice Axe, Crampons etc. doable in Mendoza? or through the guide service?

- I have gone over my previous high altitude climbs and tried to identify problems I encountered and also things I did right. Every single climb I gassed out around the summit due to poor nutrition during the summit attempt. Anyone got any suggestions for good high calorie snacks to take and any general summit nutrition tips?

- Shitting in a bag and carrying it with you. Tips? (lol)

- Any gotchas I should look out for? Any Aconcagua tips and suggestions welcome. Sorry for the 20 questions but thought I would get some knowledge from the wise ones on here.

Thanks in advance

That's a lot of questions indeed. I've got a few suggestions on some of those.

drManhattan wrote:I have never really had issues with altitude apart from one day on Elbrus we went from 2100m to 4500m and back down to 3800m, my mind was scrambled.

In my experience, many climbers don't plan much time for acclimatization. Most get away with it, suffering mild symptoms of altitude sickness in the process but nothing more serious. And with higher peaks, it can happen that you wake up in a high camp one morning and feel too weak to do anything, and if you don't have enough spare days that means you won't get to reach the summit. My preferred solution is simply to take plenty of time to get used to the altitude before starting to climb any high peak. In fact, I've never been on just one mountain very long, carrying stuff up and coming down again. Whenever I want to climb something high, I take my time to climb a bunch of other, lower ones first, progressively higher, and then I can climb the big one in a short time frame. Being acclimatized means I can go up a whole lot more than just 300-500 m on a day. And a shorter time frame also means that I need to haul much less supplies up the mountain than those that climb it in a two week siege. Obviously, not everybody can take a lot of time off to do this though. If you've only got two or three weeks for Aconcagua, which is what most people take, there isn't all that much time to climb lower peaks. You can do a couple, but after that the time constraint kicks in and you have to go to Aconcagua itself.

drManhattan wrote:I also plan to live in Colombia for a bit afterwards (6 months) so will be bringing another suitcase full of clothes. Will I have problems with weight limits for my luggage on my flights? not sure how to get around this, any tips welcomed.

So far I have managed to take everything with me, as much as 40 kg of luggage on one trip, but at times I thought about sending some stuff ahead to where I was going to get around the weight limits. You could consider shipping a suitcase to Colombia.

drManhattan wrote:I have gone over my previous high altitude climbs and tried to identify problems I encountered and also things I did right. Every single climb I gassed out around the summit due to poor nutrition during the summit attempt. Anyone got any suggestions for good high calorie snacks to take and any general summit nutrition tips?

I sometimes do not eat or drink enough on summit day. Not because I have no appetite, I just tend to forget occasionally. One reason is that I'm enjoying the scenery so much that I simply don't think about it. A contributing factor is that I don't want to take off my mittens when it's very cold. The last time that this happened I completely ran out of steam. It wasn't cold, but the scenery sure was great! My head was fine, but I felt really weak and was a bit lethargic. My climbing partner diagnosed my condition correctly, and told me to eat and drink something. It took me a few minutes to snap out of it and start eating and drinking, but then it took just half an hour before I was back to normal. The lesson for me? Keep eating and drinking regularly on summit day!

Cheers, Rob


The scenery that distracted me so much that I forgot to eat and drink enough...

A couple of thoughts:

For most people, I would not recommend using a guiding company. Use Grajales or Ruddy Parra for mules to basecamp, then climb on your own.

Boots will depend. We didn't a traverse so I sent my hiking shoes back down from base camp. If I didn't send them down, I probably would have worn them all the way to the summit, but we were there in a very dry year.

We spent 2 days at the ski area near the trailhead (sorry, can't remember the name right now). It was a good place for acclimatizing especially if you hike around, including up the ski runs. We went up the Polish Glacier side and took 3 days to get to base camp so we were in good shape when we got there. You could also go ahead and go into base camp and climb a couple of the smaller peaks around there for acclimatizing.

I took a single, large duffel worth of gear onto the mountain. It was enough gear that we needed to do carries. I would carry less if I went back again. Mostly, I would carry less food (we had food for 20 days, would have had plenty of surplus if we planned on 14 days.)

- Shitting in a bag and carrying it with you. Tips? (lol)

1) Double bag it!
2) You'll be fined $200 if your bag is not reasonably full after your climb.

- I have gone over my previous high altitude climbs and tried to identify problems I encountered and also things I did right. Every single climb I gassed out around the summit due to poor nutrition during the summit attempt. Anyone got any suggestions for good high calorie snacks to take and any general summit nutrition tips?

Bring snacks that you really like since your appetite decreases at altitude. Carry it inside your jacket so it doesn't freeze. Add Gatorade or tang to your water to help you drink more.

Generally though I feel I have a higher natural tolerance to altitude than average but would like some suggestions on pre-climb acclimatisation as I do live at sea level and I think it would be very beneficial to get a bit higher before this climb. I was going to go via Ecuador but if I can just do something close to Mendoza it might be cheaper...

Cordon del Plata

I also plan to go to Aconcagua in January or February 2015. If you want, we can discuss and see if we can arrange something together.

My mail is: hugo.meric85@gmail.com

Cheers,

--hugo

I'll do my best to help answer your questions and then add tons more of infinite babble regarding my trip and what I brought home from it.

I went over Christmas and found the weather to be perfect other than a couple days of high winds (85MPH w/100MPH gust). No rain and just a dusting of snow above 6000m one morning and lots of sunshine for me.

I live at 300m or about 800ft and didn't do any pre-climb acclimation. Just allow for a few days at Mulas and you should be fine. I went directly from Mendoza to Confluencia and didn't stay a night in Los Pen. I didn't feel it was going to be of any real benefit and needed to get to 14,000'.

In terms of guide services. There's probably at least a half dozen or more. I went with INKA for mules and some of there other services. They by far had the biggest presence on the mtn followed by Grajales. They were wonderful to work with and be around in Mulas. They have everything from simple services, water, bathrooms to full blown lodging and meals, porters, internet, phone, hot showers, basically everything you could want or not want. Prices are reasonable. I had to ditch my gear at camp 2 and return to Mulas for 2 nights due to wind and a bunk in the bunk house was $15 US/night. Well worth it. You get there's bathrooms and water with that too. They will take care of you. I highly highly recommend INKA. Can't say enough good things about them.

When it comes to the bags they want to separate your stuff evenly on the mules. I had other dry bags which also helped load the mules nicely. They appreciate that. You will be carrying some personal gear, clothes, food and other stuff up the mtn. Make sure to arrange if/when you need your stuff. For example if you don't carry your tent and bag in your pack up to Mulas make sure the mules stop at Confluencia so you can get your gear. I had a lot of gear but was no where near a full load on the mule. But it was nice to not have to carry everything. Also it's a good idea to use there "potato" sacks over your gear before putting them on the mules. It will save wear and tear on your stuff. It's a long ride up and back.

The gear you listed is perfect. You will want more but that is a good start. I wore light hikers to camp 2 and never felt cold or had any issues. From camp 2 I wore and brought only my Spantiks. For gloves I got a killer deal on some OR Alti mitts which were a bit overkill but if you really suffer from cold hands, keep them dry and not clamy, and probably bring hand warmers. Mine made it through customs but I didn't really use them.

You will have no problem renting gear in Mendoza. You could bring nothing and rent every piece of gear you need in Mendoza. There's at least 4 rental places that I saw or passed while in town. Shop around and know what you are looking for and you'll do good.

Food is important and it starts before you leave your tent on summit day. Eat more than you think you need and take in tons of water. 200-300 calories every hour while climbing should help. Even though it doesn't seem like this climb is extremely difficult you're still burning a ton of calories. Eat, eat, eat and eat some more. Energy shots, energy bars, trail mix, carbs, carbs, carbs. Eat and bring things you like. Sugar or candy is also good for the final push.

The crapping in a bag isn't all that difficult. Absolutely double bag it and maybe bring something that would help you tie it to a strap on your pack. Better to have a leak outside your pack than inside you pack. They're fairly tall bags so I would take mine and roll it back so it was only 3-4" tall and just set it on the ground and hover.The closer you can hover the less of a chance of a misdirected launch.

Now for some random info. Use it or not it doesn't matter to me but these are some extras I'd thought I'd share.

I flew through Bueno Aires & Sau Paulo and had no issues with customs. But I had left all my peanut butter, mixed nuts, trail mixes, beef jerky and things at home for fear of customs having a fit. Others that came through Sau Paulo brought their stuff and it was fine. The people I met that flew in through Santiago had all their stuff taken. By stuff I mean food. Maybe I and others got lucky and they let all the stuff through but who knows. I did bring mtn house and various energy shots and energy bars. They are hard to find in Mendoza.

One thing I overlooked was the bus info. The lady at the Hostel told me what bus line to use to get to Los Pen. Had I not had that info I would have been screwed. The terminal is quite large and there's tons of choices. I can't even count to 10 in Spanish so getting on the right one would have been very difficult. I believe it was called Bertinni or something like that. They have roughly a 6:00 am and 10 am bus to los Pen. It cost roughly 45 pesos. Sounds like you may stay in Los Pen? If so any bus will be fine but if you palan on heading to Los Pen I would suggest the early bus. It gives you more relax time at confluencia. the 10am was fine but it put me in Confluencia around 6pmish.

Absolute get the street rate for currency exchange. It's no big deal and one you do it once you'll know how it goes. The street rate saved me roughly $350 US just on the permit alone.

I stayed at Hostel Mora. I would recommend them. Very reasonable, lots of activities, 1 block off of main street or the main square in downtown. They even have some rooms with AC and it was 100degrees everyday i was in mendoza.

The ice cream is good.

If you like steak they have plenty and it's everywhere.

Bring both pesos and US dollars if possible both in town and on the mtn.

Tons of other stuff to share but I have to get going for now. If you have any specifics just post them here or PM me. I love talking about this stuff.

I was on Aconcagua from late February to early March this year (too late in season, not recommended). I was with a Western guide service, but no matter who you use I think, they will be subcontracting another company to provide mules and food. We used Grajales and they were great. INKA probably has the biggest presence on the mountain (lots of tents and loud music all day long), but I have heard that their safety record on the mountain is not very good.

If I were to go back I would go in January and use Grajales to get my stuff taken in by mule, and go independently from there. The route is not difficult. You could use hiking boots to haul loads to Nido easily. Crapping in a bag is not bad, but the bags that the park provides are not very good. I brought heavier bags and used them. Remember that it'll freeze and is easy to transport without leaking then. I single bagged them and put the little bags in a heavy trash bag.

The two duffel bags allow you to leave one in Penitentes with your operator and take the other up the mountain. If you are going independently the second bag will hold food. A spare bag (could be a stuffsack or trashbag) or two may be useful to hold your food and gear at Canada and Nido from blowing away in the wind.

If you go independently, the most important thing I can say is to bring food to Argentina. Argentina has halted nearly all food imports (messed up gov't down there) and food selection is not very good. Many staples such as hard cheese are not available... We did manage to find peanut butter in one store but I would not count on it. There is pasta, flour and rice, but finding protein that will keep will be a challenge (though you don't want to eat a lot of protein at altitude I have heard). Grajales sold egg and milk powder to us I think, so that might be worth looking into.

Renting gear is possible in Mendoza but I would definitely bring boots at least down there. The rental boots are pretty beat up. Buying gear will be very expensive due to import tariffs.

I'm a confirmed participant for December 21 with Grajales.

I'm not in great shape at the moment, going to try and put in some good training over the next 3 months then do the Annapurna circuit before I head to Argentina. Hopefully I will be ready to roll once I arrive in Argentina.

Excited!