January is always a busy time and 2012 is no exception. While John is ice guiding in Ouray and Olivia is heading up our ski program in Washington Jared Bonea will be leading a small group on the 360 traverse and summit of Aconcagua.
Meg, Jared & David
Jared met up with Meg K. and David C. in Mendoza yesterday. After a picking up their climbing permits, fresh food items and a night in the city the team departed for Penitentes this morning. It is about a 3 hour drive from Mendoza to Penitentes.
The hotel at Penitentes as marked by the Spot Beacon
Penitentes (8,642') is a ski area during the winter and is now a quiet outpost where many teams pack for their trip into Aconcagua. In the map above you can see Aconcagua towards the top left of the screen. The team will be approaching the mountain by the Vacas Valley which is the major N-S drainage toward the right side of the screen. On the morning of day 3 of their trek they will take a left out of the Vacas Valley and head up the Relinchos Valley (E-W valley in the top center of this map) towards the mountain.
Jared, Meg and David are packing now - organizing gear into items they will carry, mule loads that they will access on the trek into base camp and mule loads with gear/food & supplies that will be sent straight to base camp. Once they are all packed up the team will enjoy one last restaurant meal and a night spent in a bed before beginning the trek into the mountain tomorrow.
The local time on Aconcagua is 5 hours ahead of Pacific time. Jared will be checking in by Satellite phone on most evenings and we will be posting his updates on the blog here so stay tuned...
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