He slept out in the snow

How I was conquered by America’s tallest mountain

“Cumple la meta!”

The words my housemate said to me as I left our ground floor apartment in Santiago, headed for the top of the highest mountain on the American continent, Mount Aconcagua. 

They would echo through my mind at each stage of the challenge. 

Achieve the goal. 

Or in this case, get to the top. 

But there were a lot of steps between la Calle Ramón Carnicer and the peak of the mountain. A bus to Mendoza. A border crossing. A hostel to check into. Equipment to hire. A mule to load. A tour group to join. A guide to share maté with.

The group had a single night together in a building with walls, which we spent drinking beer and exchanging the obligatory “where are you from? / where are you going?”s that typify hostel common room conversations. We would be hiking companions for the next three weeks. Our fates were intertwined. There were six of us, all strangers, to come under the expert guidance of the sprightly, though somewhat green Alberto, and Marcello, his assistant and our official chef. 

• Asif, Israeli fighter pilot, fresh out of military service. 

• Jesse, American hiking buff and the youngest of the group at 21. Keen to do all the world’s major peaks.

• Gerald, another American, and the oldest, in his fifties or sixties. He wasn’t too bothered whether he got to the top or not, he said. Was just there for the views. 

• Eduardo, native to Buenos Aires. Tall. Cocky. He worked in a bank and spent his evenings at the gym then went home to his fiancé. 

• Daniele, the smiling Italian who ran up the Alps in his spare time for fun. 

• And me, la chica. 

I’d been to the gym too. A few times. At least once a week. Though just as often to dance the salsa as to count thigh presses. But everyone who knew anything about it said that at the end of the day, it wouldn’t matter how fit you were. What mattered was how well you coped with altitude. And that, you couldn’t know until you were up there. The Alps wouldn’t prepare you. The highest peak is less than 5 km high. We’d be almost that high at the main base camp, Plaza de Mulas. The peak of Aconcagua is 6,961 m above sea level. Even the highest peak in North America is several hundred meters lower, and that’s in Alaska. Jesse’s main training ground was in the contiguous states, where the highest peak is Mount Whitney - only 4,421 m at its peak.

Confluencia, base camp number one, sits at around 3,500 m, an easy and gorgeous day trip, if you’re so inclined. We took the fact that we made it without so much as a blister as a positive, and would have happily moved on the next day, but guide Alberto insisted we spend three nights there. Each day we walked to gain a little height, then returned to sleep lower down. When we could finally move on to Plaza de Mulas, we were raring to go. The mules went on ahead in convoy, carrying our crampons, heavier cold-weather gear, and Marcello.

It would take around 9 hours if we didn’t take too much time to smell the bushes. We hadn’t seen a tree for some time.

As the day wore on, the group separated by pace. Gerald assured us he was fine; don’t wait, he’d meet us there. Alberto stayed by his side. Jesse, Asif, and I chatted comfortably, temporarily freed from the need to translate and act out our conversations. 

“So, you threw up every time?”

Asif’s experience with G forces was of huge interest. We’d all seen Top Gun. Only the fittest soldiers made the ranks.

“At first.” He sized up the tributary he was preparing to leap across. “Everyone does. If you’re lucky you pass out so you don’t have to deal with it in your helmet.”

Jesse and I couldn’t tell if he was joking. But when he missed the edge of the river and slipped in, soaking his boot through with the glacial water, splashing and swearing, we pissed ourselves anyway.

Calming down, we looked at each other in resignation, then bent down to remove our shoes and socks. We inhaled sharply as our tender feet touched the icy liquid and tried to find purchase on the stones. 

Looking back, we saw Eduardo take a great leap and clear the stream with relative ease.

The day grew long. The open plain gave way to more tricky sections of rock and eventually I found myself alone, the weight of my pack becoming less noticeable and then more, depending on where my attention drifted. I tried to keep it away from the stinging pain in my feet and ache in my legs.

One foot in front of the other.

The face of the mighty mountain loomed overhead casting a long shadow. 

“Cumple la meta.” It seemed to say. “Come get me.”

Some people climb that sheer face, we’d been told; lots of Japanese climbers. This more common route requires less expertise. And less equipment. I thought of my hastily chosen crampons on the back of the poor mule carrying all my excess shit.

I could just see Daniele towards the top of this steep final section. The battery-powered rabbit had at least twenty minutes on me. Every day that we’d gone out, he was first there and first back again. Always laughing, always cracking jokes in Italian that Eduardo and I tried valiantly to figure out between us and pass to the rest of the group. It didn’t matter. Each day exhausted us more than the last, so everything was funny. We didn’t need the exact words. 

As I made my way over the final few meters into the base camp, he emerged, his signature smile plastered across his stubbly face. 

“En forma, la chica,” he said. I turned around, but the route lay empty. I’d come in second. I raised my eyebrows and grinned.

“Supongo.”

After we’d dumped our gear in our tents, we made the obligatory visit to the medical hut to put our index finger into a little plastic clamp. His blood oxygen was 99%. You could be at the beach, they told him. We rewarded ourselves with warm tea while we waited for the rest of the group to stagger in in various states of satisfied exhaustion. 

I felt amazing. 

A visit to the toilets revealed them to be on the mountain side away from the main camp, so people left the door open to stare at the endless Andes while taking a shit. A fancy hotel a short (half hour) walk away was rumored to offer the possibility of a hot shower for just US$10, but I was happy enough to use the water that trickled off the side of a glacier. After rinsing my pits and bracing to splash my face, I put my tops back on and grabbed the discman I had gleefully retrieved from the mule’s back, hit play on Shakira, then wandered out of sight to dance across the rocks in splendid solitude. 

That night I felt slight regret when my breath was short and my head was light and I wondered if I may have overdone it. 

But never mind. We had several nights at Plaza de Mulas. Some days we rested and others we walked. We all made it to the top of a nearby peak, and spent time on patches of snow, practicing using the crampons without falling off the mountain. 

We met other climbers, some in organized groups like ours, and some doing it on their own. The camp was lively and cheerful. Everything was funny.

Until Alberto got sick.

We could hear him coughing and spluttering in his tent. No chance to say goodbye or thanks. Strict instructions to stay away, only vaguely aware he’d been bundled onto the back of a mule. In two days, we were due to start the climb. There were no more permanent bases. No more mules. Three big days to the top.

Then Daniele got sick. We couldn’t believe it. The fittest, funnest of us all, struck down not by altitude, but a common virus. He too took to his tent and didn’t emerge.

So we were five. A new lead guide, Ricardo, arrived. He was seasoned. Skinny and tired-looking. An ascent wasn’t in his plans for this week. 

After a cold and restless night, we launched. The punishment to the thighs that day made me regret some of those salsa classes. Up over the 5,000 m mark we went. Set up tents in the blistering wind, which finally died down in time for the most magnificent sunset I’ve ever seen, brilliant red and orange over a carpet of massive mountain peaks. We weren’t the only ones trying for the summit over those few days. Like sailors, all had waited for the weather window and jumped through it.

The next morning, as we packed the tents and prepared to climb another thousand meters, Gerald made an announcement. That’s enough, he said. I’ve done more than I thought I could.

Jesse, Asif, Eduardo, and I looked at each other in dismay. From five down to four.

But we accepted his choice and turned our faces upwards. Ricardo was stoic. Calm. Stayed back with Eduardo, who struggled with each breath, but wouldn’t give up. If altitude sickness hit, the only option was to descend, we all knew this. There was no medicine. Marcello bounded between them and Jesse up front, full of his own importance and energy. Our crampons were proving more than decorative now. When they weren’t strapped to our boots, gripping the snow with each kick, they hung on the outside of our packs. 

Arriving at the final base camp, the mood was somber. It was almost dark when Eduardo finally came in, and the wind was too strong to sit outside for any extended period. We huddled close to eat our pasta and drink our boiled snow. We still cracked jokes. I translated between the Spanish and the English and we chuckled, but it just wasn’t as funny as it had been a few days earlier. When the group was intact.

The next day was it. No time to acclimatize. No walks to nearby mountains or valleys with endemic flowering bushes. Shoot for the summit. Now or never. Lying in my duck-down sleeping bag, I listened to the wind whistle across the barren land. There was another 1000 meters to ascend. At sea level, it would be at most a day’s pleasant trek. Here, at 5,900 m above the level of the sea, it promised to be a grueling day-long test of stamina, will-power, and lung capacity. Even walking to the toilet left us breathless. And not from the views.

We set off just after dawn. Looking up at Eduardo’s gaunt, bearded face emerge from his tent, I suddenly felt like my problems were insignificant. I shot him an encouraging smile. He set his jaw, pulled on beanie and sunglasses and gripped his poles tightly through thick gloves. 

And we marched. One foot in front of the other. We weren’t alone. When the path narrowed to a single line in the snow, the rhythm of each set of boots revealed the comfort of the wearer. Some managed a regular beat, while others pulled one foot painfully on after every other.

I had a secret weapon. When I felt fatigue, I just had to glance out at the view and I was renewed. The mountains literally brought me to life, over and over. By the middle of the day, Jesse and I stopped to wait for Asif and Eduardo, unsure if they were coming, and rejoicing when they scrambled around the corner and settled down to eat. Each was as determined as the other, but neither had enough oxygen reaching their brain to make wise decisions. 

It was around 3pm when Marcello returned from one of his infuriating forays down and back up again and informed us they had turned back.

We were painfully aware that we needed enough time to get back to the camp before nightfall, but we could see the top now. Most groups that had made it were already on their way down. We couldn’t walk anymore, so we crawled, but the soft ground kept giving way beneath us. It felt like we were slipping back more than moving forward.

Then Marcello started to complain. His fingers were cold. It was getting late. We could come back another time.

I looked from him to Jesse and out at the beautiful, beautiful mountains behind us. What was so good about seeing what was certainly a very similar view blocked by just a few more meters of rocks and snow?

“What should we do?” I looked at Jesse again.

“I want to see the other side,” he said.

He crawled on his hands and knees a few more meters where he could peer over. Then he slumped. That’d do.

I looked at Marcello. Beseeching. It’s too late. It’s too far. Let’s go back, he kept saying.

And I made a promise to myself. If I give up now, I thought, I won’t blame him. It will be on me. This is a choice I’m making.

I was breathing but almost nothing was reaching the bottom of my lungs. Every movement was painful.

“De acuerdo,” I said. “Volvemos.”

Jesse stumbled back to us and we started the long journey down.

Only 1000 m vertically but a long, long trek, back through the snow. If the climb hurt the thighs, the descent turned the knees to jelly. Turning back, I saw the top, so close I could almost touch it. Two hikers marched on the crest, about to step onto that final ground. Making it look easy.

When the base camp came into sight, Jesse began to speed up. I slowed down.

There it is, what do a few minutes more or less matter?

“I’m not waiting anymore,” he said.

“Go ahead.”

He saved me from the heart wrenching moment of walking into camp to meet the upturned faces of everyone waiting on the good news, only to see them turn to disappointment. We’d taken all that time. Arrived back after dark. Empty handed. No tale of glory to share.

Ricardo had some stern words with Marcello in private, some of which I overheard. 

The next morning, as we warmed our disappointed fingers around cups of coffee, a figure stepped into the clearing, large as a bear.

Where did you come from? We all asked.

“I got lost,” he said. “I slept out in the snow.”

“What?”

“How?”

“Are you OK?”

We stared up at him, as if he might topple over, like one of the horror stories the mountain guides were constantly throwing at us. 

But he seemed fine.

“Did you get to the top?” Someone asked the question on all of our chapped lips.

He shook his head. “I was lost.”

“Come back to Mulas with us,” said Ricardo in a tone that invited no discussion. “You’ll need to see the médicos.”

He nodded obediently. Even though he had no guide. Even though Ricardo was half his size. The snow had done something to him. I don’t know who he was the day before, but now he was someone else. Someone who had slept outside in subzero temperatures at over 6000 m altitude and survived.

Daniele was smiling again when we got back. Strong enough to walk down but still too weak to go up. The air at Plaza de Mulas felt thick and full and invigorating. That night I decided to fuck one of the guys. I’ll leave you to guess which one.

Ricardo asked us if we wanted to try again. Jesse, Asif, and I said yes. We’d do it in two days this time. No more acclimatization. At 5am on the second day we sat in our tiny tent and listened to the wild whistling of the wind outside.

“If we go out in that,” said Ricardo, matter-of-factly, “we’ll die.”

I don’t know if we all wanted to believe it so bad because it gave us a free ticket not to get back on that incline, but no one argued. The weather window had slammed shut.

Back at Mulas, everything was funny again. At Confluencia, even more so. We were drunk on oxygen.

I didn’t return to Mendoza. I wanted to go home. Back out on the main road, I said goodbye to the guys forever, taking a mental picture of each of their dirty, bearded, wonderful faces.

I hitch-hiked back to Santiago. I was expecting my housemate to ask if I had indeed achieved the all-important goal. ¿Cumpliste la meta hueón? he would ask. What would I say? How could I explain that I’d failed?

But he didn’t say anything about it. The minute he opened the front door, he exclaimed: “Tírate a la ducha, mujer!”

Get in the fkn shower!

If you get the chance to attempt Aconcagua, I’d highly recommend it. The views are spectacular!!