At 3:30, I heard voices coming from the guide’s tent, and within minutes, one of them had unzipped the fly to our tent, and was rousting us for the climb. I peered out into the darkness, and felt no wind, only bitter cold and thin air. By prior agreement, my two tent mates, Mike and Loren, and I had decided to get up in staggered formation, since the tent was far too small to allow us to move all at once. Loren is the first to crawl out of his bag, while I stayed warm in mine. I closed my eyes and listened to his labored breathing while he tried to pull on his gear. In a few minutes he had all his clothes on, and stepped outside to pull on his boots and crampons. I’m next, and in the glow of my head lamp, I fumbled around, trying to remember where I had stashed all my clothes the evening before. I managed to get everything on and crawled out into the darkness to find my frozen boots and buckle on my crampons.
I saw a few other figures with head lamps, huddled over by the guides tent, and I assumed they were waiting for the water to boil so that they could try to get some warmth in their shivering bodies. We were told to wear every stitch of warm clothing we had. I had on heavy weight thermal underwear, heavy weight fleece pants and jacket, mountaineering wind shells, thick socks, woolen mittens and mitten shells, and a fleece cap. But the cold cut through me like a knife. My feet in particular felt as if entombed in ice, but I could still feel my toes when I wriggled them, and I hoped that they would warm up once we got moving.
Mike, who had forgotten his head lamp down at Camp 1, called out from the tent, asking to borrow mine until he got dressed, but I told him I was still packing and needed to see what I was doing. I called over to Loren to see if he could spare his, and he tossed it into the tent.
The half moon had gone down hours ago, and only starlight, and the lamps on our heads illuminated the frost from our breaths. I managed to stash the few things I had planned to take with me, water, snacks, and my cameras, into my pack, and wandered over to where the water was now boiling, to get a hot drink. I filled my cup with hot water, and rummaged around in the bag that held the instant cereals. To my dismay, all the oatmeal was gone, and I had to settle for cream of wheat. Nothing tastes very good at this altitude, but cream of wheat is distasteful to me even at sea level. However, having no choice, I mixed up two pouches with some hot water, and shoveled it down my throat.
By this time, Mike had exited the tent, and having had to give Loren’s lamp back to him, asked if I could come over to stand by him while he shoved his gear into his pack. I still had a few minor things to stash and buckle, so I pulled my pack over next to him and we tried to share the light from my lamp. It was obvious that he had not been very diligent about prearranging things the evening before, as he kept asking me to shine the light here and then over there. Finally, he had to strap on his old fashioned crampons, with the cumbersome rubber straps that were difficult to tie with frozen fingers, and tended to cut off circulation to one’s toes, hastening frostbite. It took him forever, and I had to lend him my woolen gloves after watching him fumble around with his mittens.
The others were already milling about, ready to go, and I was still standing over Mike, watching him tying his crampons on. Robert yelled over to him, are you ready? Mike said yes, and stood up to go join the others. At the last minute I realized that I hadn’t replaced the batteries in my head lamp, batteries don’t last long at this temperature, and now, as I fumbled through the ditty bag, trying to find my spares, I was the one holding everybody up. I cursed Mike for forgetting his lamp, but I realized that I should have replaced the batteries the day before. Finally, I too was ready, and we gathered at the edge of camp to get roped up for the traverse to Piedras Blancas, where we would join the Normal Route on the way to the summit.
As we were getting tied on, I checked my little thermometer on one of the zippers of my pack. It read minus five degrees Fahrenheit. My toes were registering the same temperature, but the rest of me, save perhaps my nose, was surprisingly comfortable. I congratulated myself for having researched and chosen my clothing wisely. Up here, you can’t spend too much on good gear, even a good pair of gloves can save your life. Or perhaps, I mused, it was just the cream of wheat.
Finally, shortly after five o’clock we began the climb to the summit of Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the western hemisphere. I had spent a year preparing for this moment, and now the crunch of my crampons in the frozen snow, signaled the beginning of the end of this adventure... ordeal... I didn’t know.
The traverse across the ice field was uneventful. We were roped into two teams; Robert led the first one, with Bruce, Loren, Robert, the dog-beating Brit, and Mike. Win led the second, with Nate, myself, and Chris on the rear. We trudged slowly through the darkness, navigating by way of small, flagged wands left stuck in the snow by some previous expedition. Luckily, there wasn’t much wind, as the temperature difference would have been dramatic. At about six, the light of the rising sun striped the horizon pink and purple, and soon there was enough light for us to switch off our head lamps. Our pace was slow and deliberate, and even though I was breathing heavily, it was due more to altitude than exhaustion. My muscles felt strong.
After about two hours, we had crossed the ice field to Piedras Blancas, and found a scattering of tents, the inhabitants of which were preparing themselves for their own summit attempts. We passed them silently, nodding to each other. We all had the same goal, but none could do anything for each other. No amount of expressions of good luck would do any good any more. Wishes of good luck were only good at the airport of departure, here it was too late. If you didn’t have it now, no amount of good luck would give it to you.
By now the sun was fairly high over the horizon, and I began to grow warm in my heavy clothes. It was then that I began to get exasperated with the rope. In order to make a clothing change, everyone had to stop, there was to be no pausing to strip off a jacket, or shed some gloves until we came to a scheduled break. And if you did shed some of your clothes at the break, there was no telling if, crossing the next ridge and finding yourself in a sudden gust of icy wind, you’d be putting yourself in danger of hypothermia. Besides, we weren’t crossing steep or dangerous terrain. If one of us had fallen, we might slide a few feet, but certainly no farther. In addition, when roped up, a great premium is placed on maintaining an even tension on the rope, so that if someone were to slip, they couldn’t generate much momentum before the others could arrest their fall. All this takes concentration, and more importantly, precious energy, as does trying to keep warm or cold when the temperature differs from your clothing outfit. The whole idea of layered clothing is to be able to adjust to changing temperatures, and not being able to stop and change is sort of self-defeating. Lastly, I saw no one else on the mountain that day on a rope team. How could it be that only we recognized some danger that the others somehow foolishly ignored. What did we know that all the others didn’t? I began to suspect some nefarious power trip on the part of our guides, but then I am iconoclastic by nature.
We climbed ever higher, past the tiny roofless A-frame hut known as the Refugio Independencia. It had been placed there in the sixties by the Argentine military, and is supposed to be the highest man-made structure in the world. It is now completely neglected, and I doubt it would provide much refuge from spit, much less anything this mountain could dish up.
After the Refugio, we began our traverse across the wide Gran Acarreo, a gently sloping ice field which leads up to the hardest part of the climb, the thousand foot high gully of scree and boulders, known as the Canaletta. I had read many things about the Canaletta, all of them bad. One author wrote, imagine your worst nightmare, and then double it. Another said, anyone who makes it to the top of the Canaletta has earned my respect. There were accounts of climbers quitting within view of the summit, physically unable to complete the climb. Others had died there.
The Canaletta had been in the back of my mind since the beginning of the trek in. How would I do there? Would I too quit within view of my goal, retching and gasping for a few precious molecules of oxygen. Might I even die there?
Now I could see the bottom of it, and the accounts I had read seemed accurate. After the fairly gentle traverse up the Gran Acarreo, the track suddenly ends at a stone wall, and just before this wall, a fifty foot wide chute, like a pipe cut in half, climbs almost vertically to the summit, somewhere unseen up above. They said that you couldn’t see the summit from the Canaletta, so there was no point in looking up. Just keep your head down, and keep climbing, and eventually you’ll get there. Or not.
We took a break at the end of the Acarreo. We were at about 21,000 feet by now, much higher than I had ever been. I was gasping and wheezing, even when resting. And when we started to climb the Canaletta, I was having to take three or four breaths per step. We zig-zagged the first part, but as we struggled higher, the chute narrowed, and we were forced to climb almost straight up the tube. There was no pace to be kept now. Each of us stopped from time to time, on the verge of passing out, and pumped the thin air into our lungs with rapid, forceful gasps. If we could keep our balance and plant our steps without slipping, we could struggle along with only six or eight breaths a step, but if we tottered or had to scramble to maintain our foothold on the steep slope, all bets were off. We had to stop our progress until we could blast enough air into our lungs to continue upward.
In spite of instructions never to look up, I had to occasionally glance up to judge our progress. It was inevitably discouraging. For every hour of ferocious struggle, we seemed to be ascending only a few feet. We stopped for rest breaks, but the air was too thin for the rest to do any good. We’d sit there, lungs pumping, heart threatening to explode, rib cage cracking, and throat bleeding, until it was time to shoulder our packs and continue on. And still the summit wasn’t within sight.
I resolved to tell myself, just one more step, just one more step. But after a hundred steps, the absurdity of that instruction got too real to continue. Eventually, I stopped thinking about anything, my brain was on automatic, and taking another step became as involuntary as my heart pumping, or my optic nerve sending a signal to my brain. I lost all track of time, or of my climbing partners, or what I was doing. All I was aware of was pain. Deep, unrelenting, hammering pain.
But then, I took a glance up, and saw figures, standing. They weren’t climbing higher. They seemed to be just standing. Could that be the summit, I wondered. Could there be an end to this ordeal? It gave me some heart, and I struggled higher. But, when a half an hour or so had passed, and the figures got no closer, I began to wonder, was I hallucinating? They say this sort of altitude does strange things to the brain, and I couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.
Some figures were descending down the Canaletta, and I recognized one of them as Erik, a Norwegian I had met in Puente del Inca. He was a thin man, but now he had the look of a concentration camp survivor. I couldn’t muster enough breath to greet him, but my look told him that I recognized him, and he returned my glance as he passed me, but said only, “Oh, David.” What? What did he mean, Oh, David? Did he know something terrible, and not want to tell me? Now in addition to almost total exhaustion, I was struggling with some unknown monster awaiting me. I cursed Erik bitterly.
I looked up again, and could see Robert at the head of the lead rope team. He seemed to be pausing. But more importantly, there seemed to be no more mountain above him. Had he reached the top? Could there be an end to this? After several more steps I looked up again, Bruce and Robert, the dog-beating Brit were standing there with him. Yes, it must be the top. They weren’t moving. A few more steps. The first team was on top. Then Win stopped and turned. Nate, roped in in front of me, struggled mightily, his feet slipping and his legs wobbling, but he too made it on top. And then I stepped up on the ridge. I needed to climb no higher.
Or so I thought.
We had made it to the summit ridge, which stretches for about six hundred feet between the south summit, and the higher north summit, at 22,841 feet. Directly in front of me was the south face, which plunges 7,000 feet straight down to the Horcones Glacier below. My brain didn’t really register that six feet in front of me was certain death. But it did register that the real summit, the goal of this agony, was still three hundred feet higher, and about a quarter mile to my left.
I slumped on a rock and forced the thin air into my lungs. Do I want to go any farther? Isn’t this good enough? Couldn’t I just tell everyone back home, yeah sure, there’s a little bit of rock just off the summit ridge that’s technically a bit higher, but hey, it’s the SUMMIT ridge, damn it. I made it to the SUMMIT ridge, OK?
No, I couldn’t. Not after all this.
I waited for about five minutes, and we all decided to go for it. Only Nate wanted to stay where he was. The summit ridge was good enough for him, and I understood completely. Robert led the way, and with the same slow pace, we stepped our way up to the north summit. It was no different than the last four hours or so, except that now I could see the little aluminum cross that marked the top. I could see the spot where I really could go no higher. I knew just exactly how far I had to go, and I knew that I could make it. I knew that I would summit the highest mountain in the Americas.
People have sometimes asked me what the view is like on the top of Kilimanjaro, or Whitney, or Rainier. Or how long I stayed up on the summit, basking in the view. But when they ask me about Aconcagua, I will tell them that the view was not spectacular. By the time we scrambled over that last pile of rocks and stood at the top, the clouds had long since enveloped the peak. I could see maybe five hundred feet to either side, which meant that I could see nothing at all. It didn’t matter, all that mattered was that I needn’t climb anymore. There was no euphoria, but I wasn’t disappointed, no real feeling of accomplishment, but I knew what I had managed, and it was enough. I stood at the top of that mountain, and for the rest of my life, nothing anyone can do or say can take that away from me. How many humans are that lucky?
At the Summit
I stayed on top for about five minutes, taking pictures for the others, as they did for me, and clasping each other’s hands. Then we turned and stumbled back to the summit ridge. I sat down again, waiting for the team to reassemble, and watched the snow fall, and listened to rumble of nearby thunder. Thunder? Wait a minute, I thought, we’re on a ridge. On the highest mountain in the whole fucking western hemisphere. If lightning strikes on the highest point it can find, then I’m sitting right on ground zero.
Suddenly I hear Chris yell beside me, Hey Robert, that last one fried the right side of my face, I’m sizzlin.’ Robert yelled at us to rope up, and quick! It briefly crossed my mind as I struggled to clip the rope into my harness, how ironic it would be to make the summit, and then be zapped by lightning. How like a mountain. It lures you into thinking that it had let you conquer it, and just when you’re ready thank it and leave, it kills you. Ha, ha.
This time I ended up on the lead team with Robert in front, then Loren, Bruce, myself and Robert, the dog-beating Brit. We crashed down the Canaletta with the snow falling heavily all around us. There were no rest stops this time, and what had taken us four hours to ascend, took perhaps a half an hour to get down off of. Before we knew it, we were at the bottom of the Canaletta. But the snow was already a foot thick, and the track across the Gran Acarreo was completely obscured. This seemed to be something Robert had not anticipated, as he stopped and peered up and down through the now blinding snow.
We needed to find that track, if we went too high, we would wrap around the side of the peak and end up on the deadly south face. If we went too low, we would miss the traverse back to camp, and end up walking down the Normal Route all night long. And it was clear to all of us that Loren, and Mike, who were quite visibly exhausted, and who knows else, wouldn’t survive that ordeal.
Robert had to act, and he chose a direction and took us out onto the Gran Acarreo. Suddenly Loren tumbled down the slope, and Bruce, who was roped in behind him yelled, “Falling!” The training I had received on Rainier kicked in, and without thinking I flopped over onto my ice ax, as did Robert, the dog-beating Brit, behind me. The rope jerked taut, and we lay there in the snow, waiting for Loren to get back up. It seemed to take minutes, during which the snow covered us a couple of inches thick, but Loren finally got up and crawled back up the slope. We stood up, and I could see Robert talking to him, then he turned and continued on. Another few steps, then “Falling!” Loren had fallen again. Again we flopped onto our axes and waited until we were told to get back up. Once again we trudged on, and then once again, “Falling!” This was getting extremely tiresome, I thought. We were lost, hours from camp, and at this rate, we might die out here in the snow. I didn’t blame Loren, I had intimate knowledge of the level of his exhaustion. But he simply had to keep going. All of our lives depended on it.
The Canaletta from the Summit Ridge
But things got no better. The snow was now falling heavier than before, and though it wasn’t white-out conditions yet, all that was needed was for the wind to kick up, and we’d have the classic white-out disaster. A group of exhausted climbers, no shelter, not even sleeping bags, and not enough snow to dig a snow cave. If we couldn’t find our way out, and quickly, someone would be phoning Vilma and explaining the circumstances of my demise.
At length, Robert sat Loren down, and I could see him urgently explaining our situation. I couldn’t see Loren react, not even a nod. It was obvious that he was in very bad shape. Then we heard a voice from out of the snow below us and to the left. The voice was yelling something. Could this be our rescue? What was it yelling? Hello, it said. Where is Camp Berlin? Do you know how to get to Camp Berlin? No, these weren’t our rescuers, these were three guys, just as lost and desperate as we were. Well, that’s just great, I thought. How much worse can the situation get? Let’s just get all the lost people on this goddamn mountain together, and if we all huddle up, maybe the ones in the middle can survive until morning.
But now the snow was beginning to fall a little lighter, and I could distinguish some landmarks around us. I didn’t recognize any of them from this morning, but I hoped Robert could. Since by now the track was under knee-deep snow, our lives depended on Robert’s ability to recognize landmarks on a mountain he had climbed only five times. Slim hopes, but better than none.
With the slackening of the snow, we were able to see something else, however. Something very disconcerting. The sun was setting. In the mountains, with the setting of the sun, all bets are off. Sometimes the clouds clear, and you can have one of those eerily still, moonlit nights. Or the winds can come howling down off the peaks and blow you off a cliff. In either case, it will get colder and darker, neither of which enhances your chances of survival.
Robert roped Loren six feet behind him, and practically dragged him along the traverse. Loren fell down a few times, but now he could only fall as far as the rope would let him, and Robert quickly got him back on his feet and in a loud voice commanded him to keep walking. Evidently Robert did recognize some of the landmarks, for he strode purposely through the thick snow in the direction of a ridge barely visible to the front of us.
Sure enough, as we crested the ridge, we could see the tiny Independencia hut below us. We stopped there, so that those with wet clothes could change into something drier. I had no need, for the snow had not melted through my layers of insulation, and I still felt warm and dry. We also waited for the second rope team to catch up, and when they struggled down to the hut, I could see that Mike was stumbling like a drunk, and that Nate was dragging Mike’s pack behind him on a sleeping pad. Evidently, the second team was in no better shape than we were.
By now the sun had set, and with Robert in the lead, we set off to find the traverse back to camp. I figured this wouldn’t be easy, because the wands that we had used to navigate could have been blown over or buried in the snow by now. And I was right. When we reached the ridge where the traverse began, there were no wands to be seen. Robert was faced with the same choices as before, and I could see him peering intently up and down the slope before he committed us to a course.
Loren was now barely able to stand, and though Robert had long ago taken Loren’s pack and strapped it onto his own, Bruce stepped forward now and threw one of Loren’s arms over his shoulder, helping him posthole through the knee-deep snow.
Occasionally, the clouds parted a bit, and the half moon illuminated the snowy slope. Robert would stare out into the moonlit scene, but none of us could spot any wands. We were lost, no doubt about it. I was convinced the path we were taking was too low, but I heard Bruce say he thought we were too high. I figured high was better. If we intersected the camp, it would be much easier to descend down to it, rather than climb up to it. But Robert bore on in the direction he had chosen, and I had no intention of questioning him.
Loren was still falling regularly, and on more than one occasion, I heard him weeping out loud after he had slumped to the ground. Robert and Bruce would sit down next to him and encourage him, and after a minute, would help him to his feet and we would trudge on. I wanted to help, but I could barely keep going myself, and figured that I would only impede our progress if I too got up there to shoulder part of Loren’s burden.
The moon was dipping low on the horizon by now, and I figured that we must be approaching midnight. We still hadn’t spotted any of the wands, and my faith in Robert’s sense of direction was dimming with the waning of the moonlight.
Suddenly, above us and out of the dark, three people appeared, working their way across the slope in the same direction we were. Though they were about three hundred feet above us, the fact that they were moving parallel to us made me think that at least we were heading in the right direction. But they started to shout something to us, that at first I couldn’t understand. Then it became clear. Penitentes! Robert was leading us directly into a field of penitentes! And almost immediately, I saw Robert sink up to his waist in the snow. How on earth could we get across this field, in our state of exhaustion, dragging the now virtually lifeless body of Loren? I saw Robert pull himself out of the hole, and he instructed us to get down on our hands and knees and use our ice axes as support, as we crawled across the penitentes hidden below the fresh snow. Robert, the dog-beating Brit, who until this time had been silent, exclaimed, Oh, this is fucking ridiculous. I shared his sentiment, but I saw no choice but to do exactly as Robert had instructed. I glanced up the slope to where the three strangers were, and saw that they were in the same predicament we were, and were crawling across the field on their hands and knees.
It took us about a half an hour before we managed to reach the other side. But by this time my strength was virtually gone. Loren, who had been forced to roll himself over the penitentes, because he couldn’t even crawl anymore, was a lifeless lump in the snow. I little knew nor cared how far it was to Camp 2, it seemed unlikely we would get there alive. Still, Robert and Bruce got Loren to his feet again, and we staggered on in the pitch black night. There were no camp lights to be seen, and no one to guide us, the three strangers having disappeared somewhere above and ahead of us.
At length I saw, dimly, an outcropping of rock that I thought I recognized. I hoped against hope that Camp 2 was just behind those rocks, but I was too tired to believe what my eyes saw. We staggered toward them, and though I was unwilling to pin my faith on them, I could tell that Robert was certain that those rocks hid Camp 2. And he was right. About a half an hour after I first dimly perceived it, we had made it back to camp.
That was the first time in hours that I figured I would survive. But I was just too exhausted to be relieved. All I could think about was getting out of my gear and crawling into my sleeping bag. Even though I hadn’t eaten anything except a couple of cookies since breakfast, I refused all offers of food, and could only sip a little water between gasps for air. I can say with certainty that I have never been so completely sapped of energy in my life, and pray that I never go through anything like that again. I don’t know how close I came to dying, but it was close enough for me.
I glanced at my watch as I fell into my sleeping bag, and saw that it was one thirty in the morning, twenty and a half hours since we had left camp the previous morning. That night I slept the sleep of the dead.