Andes vs. Nick: 1 - 1

We woke up bundled in our sleeping bags, much colder than we expected. 3 degrees, we were later told the first hours of the morning, between 7 and 8, are the coldest in the mountain.
Thankfully the rental shop had run out of light sleeping bags, which is what we had initially asked for, and had given us some suitable for -15°C.
Nick thankfully didn't have a headache anymore (despite us both having oxygen saturations of 80% overnight)! He decided he was ok sticking with the original plan, an 8 hours hike to Plaza Francia, at 4,200 metres.
We set off at 8:20 am, with the sun still behind the peaks. We wore all the layers we had and missed all the spare ones we had left in Mendoza, thinking it wouldn't get that cold in the Confluencia camp.
The hike is a gental incline following the Horcones stream. The little frozen stream is fed from the glacier, and Silvia told us it would eventually become a small river by the end of the day as the sun melted the ice. Silvia explained that the lower glaciers in Mendoza are covered in rocks and sand - and we quickly realised we were walking alongside one. As we went on, we started seeing lagunas, areas where the glacier had caved in and exposed pools of freezing water. These pools are connected by underground rivers, which make the glaciers extremely dangerous and unstable.
The East Wall approach to Aconcagua was closed just a few weeks ago as a 3km wide laguna opened up, and the rangers said the river flowing underneath made the whole area too risky to walk on.
The plants around the path were quite unique, nothing like what we are used to in Europe. Small bushes with really thick roots which seem to run deep between the rocks dot the landscape until 3,600 - 3,700m, where all life seems to stop. We stopped with Silvia in silence for 5 minutes and couldn't hear anything. Not a bird or insect, nor the stream which was, at that point, running underground. The sun was now high and it was very hot and, when the wind stopped, it felt like we were on Mars. Just red sand and rocks, towering mountains, and silence. And obviously, on the horizon, Aconcagua.
The walk led to a viewpoint of the South Wall, which is one of the steepest and largest in the world. 3km tall and wide enough to contain the whole city of Mendoza, it has many glaciers hanging from its steep cliffs, including the impressive Ventisquero Horcones, which runs from the superior glacier and is over 10km long.
The walk was hard but we really enjoyed it. The more we walked, the more Aconcagua came into view, and it's fascinating to chase the view of such a colossal mountain. 
From the viewpoint at 4,200m it was still the biggest mountain we've ever seen. As we stared at it during lunch, we witnessed an avalanche from one of the top glaciers. The speed and size of the cloud of snow toppling down was impressive to see.
Silvia told us that, even though the typical summit route is via the north, there are also many routes up the South Wall. They all require sleeping up vertical walls of either rock, or ice, or both. To make things even harder, if you zoom into the pictures of the glaciers, you will see a lot of icy pinnacles, the so called "penitentes". The ice in Aconcagua is pierced by the blazing sun, and shaped by the strong winds into razer sharp pinnacles, some 2 meters high. It really takes some kind of madness to want to go up something like that.
The walk back to Confluencia camp was faster and the landscape kept on surprising us with views which we had not noticed going up. When you go up, your eyes are constantly drawn to the Aconcagua, so we missed some of the more colorful rocks along the path. The frozen stream had indeed turned into a small river and the sound of the water kept us company for most of the way.
We were tired and glad we weren't going any further after 32,000 steps! We had more food at camp and chilled for the rest of the day, getting to know Silvia and enjoying some more food.Leia mais