FIAMBALA, ARGENTINA - We thought that the expedition was over. My husband's altitude sickness left only three of us to climb Ojos del Salado, make our way up the mountain in the thin air, find the lake, collect the biological samples and get back down safely. It wasn't feasible.
On what we thought would be our last day in Catamarca, Francisco Seufferheld, his wife, Jeannine Koninckx, and I decided to make the long trip from Fiambala to Ojos del Salado base camp – just to see it.
With an experienced driver behind the wheel of a rented four-wheel drive truck, we left Fiambala before dawn on January 10, drove 90 km on paved road and another 90 km over rough terrain, across wide, rocky plains, over stream beds and around and over low mountain passes.
The territory was vast and beautiful, but the ride rattled our brains and bones. The trip took nine hours – one way. We stopped a few times to help the driver amend the ad hoc truck path with flat rocks collected near the path. The effort in the thin air left me gasping.
Base camp of Ojos del Salado is a rocky outpost surrounded by volcanic domes. We saw two climbers inching along the trail leading up from base camp to Camp 1, which is only about 300 meters higher than base camp. Camp 1 is about 1,000 meters below the summit. Most climbers attack the summit from an even higher camp, first moving their gear up in stages.
"Look at how slowly those hikers are moving," Jeannine said. "And they're young and strong."
Even from a distance, we could see how the hikers were laboring up the slope. They paused every few minutes.
Jeannine wanted to explore the territory at a slightly higher elevation than base camp before we left, but I could only walk around near the truck, looking at the variety of volcanic rocks and collecting a few. The tiny rocks weighed me down. The effort exhausted me.
The trip back was no less jarring, and we rejoiced when we finally reached the paved highway. Then, just as we saw the feeble lights of Fiambala on the horizon, the truck blew a tire.
The next day, we learned that the highest lake in the world faced yet another threat. A team of French divers plans to set a world record by diving in the lake in mid-February! This dangerous feat also would contaminate the lake with low-altitude microbes, disrupting an ecosystem that has had hundreds, perhaps even thousands or hundreds of thousands of years to develop in isolation. This would seriously complicate – and perhaps even put an end to – scientific efforts to study the lake.
We decided to try to find a way to salvage the expedition – to get to the lake before the divers do. Francisco called on all his mountaineering contacts – in Fiambala and Mendoza – to try to find a mountain guide or someone else with high-altitude experience to join the expedition.
But this is high season for mountain guides, who are paid as much as $150 per day to lead people up Aconcagua, Ojos del Salado or any of the many other 6,000-plus meter mountains or volcanoes in Argentina. The search was unsuccessful.
With heavy hearts, we loaded our gear into our rented truck and found a place to sleep for the night, prepared for the long trip back to Mendoza and an end to the expedition.
The next morning, Francisco announced that he had found someone to go with us to Ojos: a young man, Nicholas Aguirre, who had recently received his certification as a mountain guide.
We decided to return to the La Gruta Refugio at 4,000 meters and continue our acclimatization hikes. My husband, Jeff Hoover, would get another shot at acclimatization, and we would attempt to reach 5,500 meters before returning to Ojos del Salado for the final effort to reach the lake.
OTHER POSTS
Blog Introduction
On the Road
Day 1
Day 2
Climbing Higher
The Why
Expect the Unexpected