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Reflections from a truck...
Hi!!
Summit co-ord of Cerro Plomo is Lat South 33deg, 14mins, 13.1secs, Long West 70deg, 12mins, 50.0secs. Height = 5,426m.
The weather socked us in with 5m visibility on the descent from Plomo, and heavy cloud cover. The thing that saved our butts that day was my GPS - navigating in horrid weather and slippery terrain. It normally takes 1 minute or so to fix the GPS co-ords. Luckily, we managed to find the right road and direction to the car park in the nick of time. Anyway, my Contax is now sunning in the hot sun - hoping to drive out the water that has got inside. It is going to cost me $$$$ to fix the G1 (sob, sob).
My usual rate of acclimatisation is slower than most people. So, when David and Gil wanted to push from the carpark up on the first day, I practically went "ka-put". (The carpark is at 2,880m). This explains why I needed Gil's help (thanks Gil!) to carry my backpack uphill twice - there was no way I could climb under those conditions. Luckily, I was able to acclimatise in time for the return trip - from Cerro Plomo base camp back to carpark.
Right now, this place - Laguna Verde is 4,330m (GPS height) and I don't have any more problems with altitude. Tomorrow (Sunday), we are going up to 5,200m (the highest drive-able campsite on Ojos del Salado. This will be my "base camp".
My impressions of Gil - extremely friendly, helpful and very fit. He is easily the strongest of the lot. Jorge can be slightly more difficult - maybe the language barrier (he does not speak English). Overall, this is a nice bunch of people that I don't mind working with.
Looking at Laguna Verde from our campsite. In the distance is Cerro Laguna Verde, 5,872m
Since this is my first "unsupported" expedition after 20 years of having it good and easy - it does bring back memories of the hardships of climbing Mt McKinley (Alaska) in 1981 and the Greenland & Ellesmere Island trip in 1980. Maybe that's the reason why I said "no more unsupported trips !!!" But memories does fad with time.
Right now, I am sending this note inside the Mazda "truck" - using the solar panel as the sun shield, covering the windscreen. Pretty neat ...
Signing off,
TS ...zzzzz....zz