Greetings from the Relincho Valley, Camp One on the trail into Aconcagua. This is the January Rainier Mountaineering Inc. expedition attempting to climb the "False Polish Glacier". We converged on this mountain by way of Santiago and Buenos Aeries, with the whole team meeting for the first time in Mendoza. Peter Whittaker, Ed Viesturs and Melissa Arnot guide the clients on our team along with me -Dave Hahn, I'm guiding... but I am the rookie on this climb having never been to Aconcagua before and am wide-eyed and excited to see a new place. So to are our four climbers: Clark Vautier, Tim Sohn, Kelley Maybo and Andrew Turner. Additionally we have a camera team and still photography team attempting to capture quality footage and images for RMI. The videographers are Gerry Moffet and Kent Harvey, along with Thom Pollard. Jake Norton is shooting digital stills and Rachel Rosengarten is overseeing the collection of both video and stills. Seth Waterfall and Chad Peele are guiding the production team. Poor Seth is still back in Mendoza as of tonight, waiting for slow luggage to fly in on a fast plane. He'll catch up with us in no time flat when the gear arrives. Last night we stayed in Penitentes... a small settlement built around a ski area high in the Andes, perhaps 12 miles from the Argentine border with Chile. We were at 9000 ft above sea level, but passed the night in relative comfort with steak dinners and comfy beds. Fernando Grajales Expeditions of Mendoza is our capable outfitter, and this morning they organized our loads onto 20 mule backs and got us to our trailhead for a journey into the Vacas Valley. We started walking at around 10:40 AM under blue skies and bright sunshine. The mules carry up to 60 kilos each... we carried slightly less for what will be a three-day trek into basecamp. The Vacas River was churning along in a series of rapids next to the trail and we gained altitude slowly on easy terrain. The terrain is stark and bare, with towering cliffs and scree slopes limiting the views. At first we had a few trees along the path, but before long, we were down to small shrubs, grass and the odd flower patch. Most wore shorts and T-shirts for the first few hours, but as afternoon came on the sky filled with clouds and we endured brief showers from time to time. We did pass over a couple of old and dirty snowbanks that had obviously become the final remnants of great avalanche debris piles that were deposited during the last Austral Winter. Peter -a veteran of 7 previous Aconcagua expeditions- views such evidence of a heavy winter positively, pointing out that our climb to the summit will be easier if there is more snow and less dirt and rock up high. Our camp tonight at Las Lenas is situated at 9400 ft. The gang put down a big pot of Chad's famous spiral pasta with red sauce and chicken chucked in for dinner. The clouds are now clearing, the sun is down and the light is fading. We can see new snow left by the afternoon showers on the high rock slopes above us. We'll call it a day for now... the first of potentially 18 on the mountain.