Hello -
Our team has officially arrived at Aconcagua Base Camp, Plaza Argentina at 14,000 feet. It was a beautiful day trekking today. Actually, it was our nicest day so far as we lathered up in sunscreen.
Everyone is doing well. Base Camp is quiet. It almost feels like we are the only ones here. Gotta love that! We have set up personal tents and we are now being spoiled with delicious snacks from our Base Camp staff.
Everyone deserves a break so stay tuned to find out what we are up to tomorrow here at Plaza Argentina!
RMI Guides JJ Justman and Christina von Mertens
Hola from Ecuador!
After some very long flights and a little bit of sleep the team is doing well. We started our day with a team meeting where we did our usual round of introductions and discussed the game plan for our upcoming adventure.
After the meeting we headed out on the town to explore this beautiful historical city with our tour guide Foulsto. We first headed north to visit the Equator from which Ecuador gets its name, then headed to the older part of town where we visited several old cathedrals, and the colonial town square. Next we headed up to a small hill called La Panacia that over looks this beautiful city before returning to the hotel for a little break.
We wrapped up the day with a quick gear check to make sure everyone has all the gear needed for our climbs. Then it was off to dinner at a nice restaurant where we enjoyed getting to know each other better.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and crew
Hey, everyone. This is the Aconcagua team with Christina and JJ. Everyone's doing great. We woke up early this morning and began our hike to our second trekking camp, which is Casa de Piedra. We're in a little bit of an argument as to what Casa de Piedra means. I said it means house of Piedra, but they don't believe me. If any of you know what Casa de Piedra means, if you could, just write in the comment section what it means so I can settle this with the team. Other than that, we're doing great. Good walk up to about 11,000 feet. We set up camp. We weren't able to get a look at Aconcagua. It was a little cloudy today, but down here the weather is really nice. So we're just relaxing, acclimatizing, drinking water and just hanging out. Tomorrow we will be trekking to Base Camp of Aconcagua at 14,000 feet. We're hoping for a good day. It was definitely a littler blustery up at Base Camp today. We're glad we're down a little lower. The team says hi to all their family and friends. Stay tuned and we'll touch base from Base Camp tomorrow.
RMI Guide JJ Justman
Casa de Piedra means House of Stone; sounds like everyone had a great trip!
Posted by: John Boicourt on 12/10/2015 at 5:35 am
I bet you guys all wish you had your cell phones to ponder over the meaning of “Casa de Piedra”. The internet came of no help after 20 minutes of searching. Only the lonely planet had a snippet saying that it was a beautiful stone….something since the page no longer existed. Perhaps you will find the answer down the road or more like up the road.
Hoping you guys are having a blast and absorbing all the beauties of mother nature.
Ava saw Tibor’s photos and says “That’s my Daddy!” She, myself, and the entire Kelemen Clan is very happy to see these post. We miss you Aps and be safe!
Hey everyone this is JJ Justman and Christina. We are at Pampa de Las Lenas, our first trekking camp. Today, was one heck of an adventure. Everything's great, the team is great. Everyone's doing well. But the rain fall and the snow accumulation that they had in this area was definitely prevalent today. There was a lot of water that we never encountered here before. Typically you can step across these tiny little creeks and today we had to full on wade through them almost to our waists. it was actually a lot of fun, but it was a big surprise and it took a little longer than normal. We had a great asado dinner with the cowboys here and we're enjoying the first evening out on the trail. It's a beautiful evening. As I mentioned the entire team is doing really great and having a lot of fun. So stay tuned tomorrow. We're going to see what's in store for us. I hope it's not as interesting as it was today. But, if it is, that's why we're here to have a great adventure. So stay tuned, and we'll see how things go tomorrow. Take care from Argentina. Bye.
RMI Guide JJ Justman
RMI Guide JJ Justman checks in after reaching Pampa de Las Lenas at 9,000 ft en route to Aconcagua Base Camp.
See! I told you so! Good news from Aconcagua. Our team member's missing bags are here! We left Mendoza early this afternoon and are now in "The Aspen" of the Mendoza region, named Penitentes.
We had to stop at Estancia de Elias, a great restaurant for their famous empanadas. The team organized our gear while Christina and I packed all the expedition food and gear. We are lucky that we get to have the cowboys help by packing the majority of gear on mules.
However, it's getting late, we are having dinner and one of the team members is eyeing my bacon and cheese stuffed chicken so I need to go before Stephanie takes a bite!
Chau from Argentina,
RMI Guides JJ Justman and Christina von Mertens
Team Aconcagua signing in from Mendoza, Argentina. Our first team has arrived and I have said it many times, the hardest part of the trip is getting started.
We have missing bags and other adversities. However, that's not getting us down or holding us back. After all, we are in Argentina! Its time to relax, enjoy and everything will come together.
So as we solve these roadblocks today, we are reliving a great dinner last night. The team is getting to know one another and its all smiles in the land of sun!
Stay tuned as our adventure unfolds. Will the bags show up? Will JJ actually grow hair only to have it go grey? Which team member will finish the 96-ounce steak challenge?
RMI Guides JJ Justman and Christina von Mertens
Looks like one heck of a game crew - not sure the mountain is ready for all that energy. Wishing you perfect weather and friendly mules. And save room for pizza at base camp!
We made it!
It was a tough day on Cayambe today to say the least. We managed to hit the trail shortly after midnight as planned. Unfortunately the wind had picked up through the night and made the hour climb to the start of the glacier a chilly one. The team did a great job of keeping themselves protected from the wind as we climbed higher up the mountain. About two hours into the climb the weather slowly turned from clear skies with nice views of the towns below, into a think cloud obscuring nearly everything. Luckily for us the route was still visible and we continued upward. It wasn't long before we were fully enveloped in this wet cloud and had to put on nearly all of our clothing to stay dry. Sadly the weather didn't change for the remainder of the climb, but everyone remained positive and we eventually made it to the summit. There were no beautiful views as we had hoped, and we only stayed at the summit for a few minutes before descending back down the mountain.
All in all it was a great adventure and we are now all smiling after hot showers and a warm meal. We are currently relaxing at the oldest Hacienda in Ecuador, Guachala.
RMI Guide Casey Grom and the Cayambe crew
Hello everyone.
All is well here in Ecuador.
The team got a decent night of sleep here on Cayambe at 15,000'. We got up at 6 am and had a nice breakfast before hiking up to the start of the glacier. We took our time on the hike and enjoyed the beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. It was pretty windy this morning so we kept things brief on our review of glacier travel, then made our way back to the hut for a nice lunch.
Currently the team is taking naps or resting outside in the always warming Ecuadorian sun. Our plan is to have an early dinner tonight and try to get a little more shut-eye before our alpine start. We'll most likely get up at 11pm, have a quick breakfast and coffee, then start climbing around midnight to make use of the cooler temps. If all goes according to plan we hope to summit around 7 am give or take a few.
As per usual, I'm going to have a mountain trivia challenge where one lucky winner will receive a summit phone call from the Satellite phone. So everyone back home keep your phones nearby, you might be receiving a call from a strange number.
Wish us luck!
RMI Guide Casey Grom and the Cayambe crew
Hey, everybody, this is Casey Grom checking in from Ecuador. Today we had a nice leisurely morning. Woke up at the wonderful Casa del Sol, had a nice breakfast with scrambled eggs and some home-baked bread and some fresh marmalade they made for us. We got packed up and left our wonderful hacienda and headed into the center of Otavalo. Otavalo is a northern city in Ecuador that is famous for being one of the largest outdoor markets in all of South America. We spent a good hour walking around sightseeing and doing a little bartering to purchase a few trinkets. Everyone had a nice day. The weather was pretty nice all day. We had to wear plenty of sunscreen because it's obviously a lot of UV exposure here on the equator. After we spent some time at Otavalo, we headed over to the town of Cayambe, which is at the base of the mountain that we are here to climb, and had a nice lunch. After we wrapped up lunch, we got back into our bus and we slowly made our way up the flanks of Cayambe. We get out of the city and get onto these cobblestone roads and slowly zigzag our way up grassy hillsides and vegetation that is up here near the base of Cayambe. We made it up to about 14,000 feet where we got out and loaded our stuff into a four-wheel drive vehicle and sent our gear up to the hut. Then we continued on foot, to help with our acclimatization, we hiked the last remaining thousand feet, which took about an hour, up to the refugio or the hut that is at the base of the mountain. We just finished a wonderful meal of trout and potatoes and some soup. Everyone's doing great, We are heading to bed here pretty soon. Game plan is to get up and do a little training tomorrow, so thanks for following. We'll check in again sometime tomorrow afternoon.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
RMI Guide Casey Grom calls in from Cayambe Climber's Hut.
Cool blog and some awesome pics already! Good luck to all on your climb.
Mark and Shawn, shoooooooooo muck dooooooo eeeet!!! Rock ‘em, Sock ‘em!! How how!!
Posted by: Bo on 12/4/2015 at 12:13 pm
Hey Mark,
Love this website, as we sit by the fire watching Netflix…..not much of an adventure for us! So take lots of notes and bring back your stories. Be safe, enjoy each moment.
Xxx ooo
Doug and Ann
December 1, 2015 - 6:48 pm PT
Hello again everyone!
Today the team left behind the hustle and bustle of Quito and moved just north of the Equator to the comfortable and quite rural countryside. Once outside the city limits the landscape quickly turned into rolling hills with farms pitched on steep slopes and dozens of small eucalyptus forest.
Our plan was to visit a smaller mountain called Fuya Fuya where we stretched our legs on a nice steep and short acclimatization hike. Thankfully the weather was nice which allowed us to see some amazing views of the beautiful surrounding landscape.
We are just on the outskirts of a town call Otavalo, which is known for its massive market and we are currently relaxing at a wonderful Hacienda called "La Casa Sol". The team is doing great and looking forward to nice quite night here.
RMI Guide Casey Grom
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Good news - rest and recover for the big work ahead. Glad to hear the group is doing well.
Posted by: Peter Rogers on 12/10/2015 at 8:30 pm
Thanks for info from the Base Camp.Happy to know that you had a great day.
Wish you all the best!
Huge hug to our son,Tibor!
Katie Kelemen from California
Posted by: Katie Kelemen on 12/10/2015 at 3:15 pm
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