Aconcagua, the Stone Sentinel

A detailed Summary of Aconcagua, the Stone Sentinel

Every muscle in my body seemed to relax as I rested for the first time in what felt like a week. It had only been six hours though, and we were only at base camp, 14,800 feet above sea level. As my head pounded, probably because of the altitude, I had a disturbing thought. We still had almost eight thousand vertical feet to climb until the summit. Thinking of this, my heart sank. How could I make it if I felt this bad already? My head was throbbing, the mere thought of food disgusted me, and my legs were Jell-O. However, as I sank into my sleeping bag I was filled with the peace of the near dream state I was in. Maybe I could make it; I could summit Mount Aconcagua, the highest mountain outside of the Himalayas.

After months of preparation and seeming a week of travel, it was a relief when we finally began hiking. Now it was all up to me. The plane had not crashed. The vans that brought us to the trailhead had not careened off the winding mountain roads. Surrounded by beautiful country, my only concern was putting one foot in front of the other. Soon the first day was over. My legs felt it a little, but it felt good to know that we were that much closer to our goal and still feeling

The rest of the day was not quite as depressing. Another group had just returned from high on the mountain. They looked as if they were walking dead. Their faces were tanned to the point where there was distinct line where the sunglasses had ended on their upper cheek. It appeared that it took every ounce of the their strength to keep their eyes open, not to mention hike with a fifty pound pack. Tents were put up in the quickest possible way and in a manner as if this altitude was nothing to fear. I'm not even sure if they ate dinner or dove directly into their sleeping bags. Only the guide joined us that night. Most had made the summit he said, some hadn't. Would I be one of the some that would make it or would I be turned back or even worse, quit?

As we followed the river that would eventually lead us to base camp, the trail became less and less fun. The rocks that had once been easy to avoid now jumped at my feet. Hills that had once been scaled almost without a thought now made my heart race as if I had just finished a marathon. By the end of the third day, and thirty miles from the trailhead, we had finally made it to Base Camp.

Going number two was a far less enjoyable experience. At base camp there was one bathroom, if you can call it that. Basically, it was a hole in the ground. There were cloth walls with some unfortunately placed tears from the time it had been blown over in a windstorm the week before. There was no ceiling, and those of us that were taller had the enjoyable experience of being a head taller than the top when we stood up. With the "bathroom" stationed right off the trail in the middle of base camp, this situation could have made me uncomfortable in more civilized situations. However, on the mountain, in clothes I had not changed in a week and didn't plan to for the next two, I found myself just telling those who passed by, "Hi, nice day huh?"

What? This was not good. He thought I was having serious problems. Was I? We had already lost one team member to cerebral edema. It was not my fault I was at the back of the back. My crampons had fallen off three times. All I could think about now was that he was going to turn me back. After everything, I was going to be turned back a quarter mile before the summit.

By camp three, 19,200 feet, the sister peak that had once loomed just as high as the hidden summit was below us. Like hundreds of other far off peaks, the fact that this one was now below us only made me realize how far we had actually come, and how daunting the task ahead of us was. Soon those mountains and just about everything would be gone from my view. Aconcagua would soon live up to its reputation of unforgiving winds, the Cordillea Blanca.

To help with acclimatization, the body needs all kinds of fluids so we were instructed to drink about a gallon of water a day. You can only guess how many times we had to stop along the trail to relieve ourselves. With ten guys, we quickly went from stepping about fifty feet off the trail to five, writing our names for all those who followed to see. We were forced to keep our pee, "Clear and copious," and that is what we did.

My first morning at camp three seemed calm enough. The first thing I noticed as I peeked out the tent was the cool looking cloud over the summit. I would soon realize that the "cool looking cloud" was bad news. Hearing the zipper of our other tent door, I looked over to see Willi's grizzled face: "Get out and rock down your tent, that cloud means bad winds, soon." Very quickly I would realize just how right he was.

Our storm experience had been probably the best. It came as little surprise when three of our teammates decided not to continue up with us. The storm had ruined them. One tent had been ripped to shreds as I slept twenty feet away. While they crawled to another tent, others spent the night with their backs bracing the tent from the wind in a futile attempt to hold the te

Some common words found in the essay are:
Cordillea Blanca, Summit Day, Cerebral Edema, Base Camp, I'm Special, Mount Aconcagua, Stone Sentinel, Aconcagua Everest, base camp, Camp Today, Mt Aconcagua, breath breath, step breath breath, breath breath breath, food base, head pounded, peaks below, step breath, lightly falling, breath step, food base camp, breath breath step, looking cloud, cool looking cloud, sleeping bags,

Approximate Word count = 2680
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)

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