Can anyone offer advice on the down fill / weight of the down jacket needed for an Aconcagua summit push?

Checked kit list upon kit list, but all I get is 'thick down jacket' and the like.

Have had my eye on two Haglofs pieces; would anyone know if these are overkill or should I be going lighter/heavier?

MAGI DOWN HOOD:
http://www.haglofs.com/en-US/products/c ... en-us.aspx

YALDA DOWN HOOD:
http://www.haglofs.com/en-US/products/c ... en-us.aspx

Cheers,

Dave

When do you plan on climbing? Later in the season apparently, it does get warmer. I love Haglofs gear. If it was me I would go the warmer jacket. It's just 200 grams more but I am quite conservative in how I choose clothing. I bring stuff based on the premise I might need it if I get stuck, rather than the fast and light ethos.

Thanks for the reply! I see what you mean, shaving 200g off probably isn't worth the risk, and better be a tad too warm than too cold. I'll be going in mid december 2013, but like to plan ahead. Thanks again mate

I wore a NF Redpoint Optimus Primaloft jacket the first time I climbed it, and a Patagonia DAS parka the second time. Both times I climbed through the night from C1 (Nido) to the summit in 8-9hrs, not using C2. This was cold, both times, around -25C at 6000m at 3am, and I also wore MH Compressor Primaloft pants both times, which made a significant difference.

Most will climb from C2 though, so won't be climbing as much in the dark and cold, so a mega puffy 8000m type parka is not really necessary, unless you have 8000m plans in the near future, and want to buy just one (!*) jacket. Most 750-800 fill power down jackets with a good hood will do. Also, if you take more time down low (as I do) or pre-acclimatise elsewhere like I did (Cordon del Plata) then you may move faster up high, thus not needing such warm gear. On standard commercial itineraries though, most suffer a slow plod from C2, summiting around noon or later, which means you're mostly in the sun, but of course the wind is often strong.

D




* In which case you have no place on this forum!

I had a TNF Baltoro on Aconcagua. On the day we summited, I would have turned back with much less. -10F, 40+mph winds on the traverse below the Canaleta.

Many thanks for your help boys much appreciated.

I found the summit push cold, very cold, but the nights were even colder. Fill the pee bottle or need to take a dump and you'll be outside at 6,000 meters in the night.

Compared to Denali I found it down right blamy late Dec. None of my party (5) had a huge parka. And were were all fine. Any of the mid weights would work well imo. Anyone of these would work fine:

http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/2012/03 ... ckets.html

Dane1 wrote:Compared to Denali I found it down right blamy late Dec. None of my party (5) had a huge parka. And were were all fine. Any of the mid weights would work well imo. Anyone of these would work fine:

http://coldthistle.blogspot.com/2012/03 ... ckets.html

So I'm assuming a Feather Friends Frontpoint jacket would be fine as well?

I had a huge dawn jacket but it wasn't as cold as usual in December 2013.

I wanted to warn everybody who is about to climb Aconcagua about Aconcagua Trek company. DO NOT GO WITH ACONCAGUA TREK – it’s almost a scam. We bought mules service from them and on the way down they must have not secured our bags and as a result we have damages of over 1000 USD worth of equipment. And they refuse to pay us back! The damages include:
- backpack completely torn into pieces
- solid Northface bag damaged
- goggles broken
- solar battery broken
- some items from the backpack are missing, most expensive and troublesome are corrective glasses (also a swiss army knife, a bottle of gas).

This company damaged our staff, lost some of our properties and refuses to take any responsibility.
Imagine if this happened on the way up – we wouldn’t even be able to leave the base camp.
So if you don’t want your climbing experience ruined choose other, more professional companies.