Aconcagua 2025–2026: 1st

First, I want to thank Rodrigo for giving me the chance to work another season for Aventuras Patagónicas.

Although in one of the emails I mentioned I wanted to work, if possible, with José Purto. In fact, I still remember when, at barely seventeen, he did his first Aconcagua with me a long time ago.

That's how this expedition began, the first of the 2025–2026 season.

The group was large, so another guide joined. Martín Campos, "El Cacho."

Cacho and I had met in previous seasons, when he was head porter at Aconcagua Visión and I was an independent guide some seasons, and in others working for Aventuras Patagónicas.

Every time I saw him, he was working at camp, or carrying a backpack twice his size.

Cacho hadn't been assisting groups for very long, and José had already spent years working at Aventuras Patagónicas as an assistant.

Alexia, meanwhile, would be the voice on the other end of the phone from Mendoza — or rather, the messages on the other end of the little screen — whenever problems, changes of plan, or emergencies came up. She'd also be the direct contact with Rodrigo, and the one who'd help solve everything that, for better or worse, had to be handled far from the mountain.

First task: shopping.

With the money Alexia gave us, Cacho, José, and I went out to buy all the food for the expedition. And since there were no celiacs, vegetarians, vegans, or people with serious allergies, we could buy the same food for the whole group.

That always simplifies things a lot. Because when you have to prepare special meals — especially at altitude — the logistics get quite a bit more complicated. A different meal means separate lists, extra checks, and having to track down products that don't always turn up where you need them.

But, as happens in the mountains and as I always try to work, sooner or later we end up finding a solution.

Second task: equipment check.

We had to check the tent guy-lines, the zippers, the seams, and any tear that could turn into a problem once we were already on the mountain.

Then came our own gear: clothing, first-aid kits, and anything that might be needed if things didn't go as planned.

Finally, once the clients arrived at the hotel, we'd need to check their equipment to make sure everyone had what they needed for the expedition.

Luckily we had Alexia for everything related to permits and paperwork at the Aconcagua Provincial Park office.

I confess paperwork, forms, and counters were never my thing. They've been, are, and will probably keep being tedious, boring, and exhausting.

I'd rather pitch or take down a tent in the middle of a storm, at six thousand meters, than be served at a government office.

When the time came, José, Cacho, and I went to check everyone's gear. We decided to go together, since by then we not only had all the shopping done, but everything packed and ready for the mules to carry.

Because packing gear is another art almost nobody talks about. And, like any art, it takes patience and attention.

Thirty eggs can seem like nothing until you try to get them there intact after several hours on a mule's back.

The group had people of different nationalities, cultures, professions, and levels of mountain experience.

Some needed to rent mittens and a few other things.

Once everything was ready, the driver, Pepe — or rather, "El Pepe" — picked us up at the hotel one Sunday at nine in the morning.

With all the gear in the van and our seatbelts on — not that El Pepe is a bad driver, he's just very strict about the rules — we set off.

But since we're in a country where you never know what might happen, you can run into a roadblock, a protest, a street vendor selling choripanes, cured ham, jugglers, or windshield washers.

That morning, though, the problem was something else.

When we got to Penitentes, they made us stop and wait for a supposed "turn."

That's why I decided to open this album with that video where we're all waiting for instructions to continue.

Nobody explained anything. Nobody gave their name. There didn't seem to be much in the way of credentials in sight either.

There were a few people in "uniform," but not much more.

According to what we were told, it was all to help traffic flow. The strange thing was that the road ahead of us was completely empty.

Now, what exactly was going on, I still don't know. And I hope it doesn't happen again.

Because people don't pay thousands of dollars to travel to one of the Seven Summits of the world only to run into something like that.

Back to our expedition.

At Confluencia, the Aconcagua Visión team welcomed us as always — with excellence. That's the company Aventuras Patagónicas hires for these services, and also the one I choose when I work independently.

Since it was a short expedition, we only spent one night at Confluencia, at an altitude of 3,390 meters. Although that same day, before dinner, we had the mandatory medical check.

The check found nothing wrong, and everyone got the green light to continue.

Time to eat, hydrate, and sleep.

But that night, during dinner, the group surprised me.

I mentioned that I liked to write, that I had a little book for sale on Amazon, and that since it was being translated into English, I had a half-finished version on my phone.

Some wanted to know what it was about, and I asked José to read. He speaks better English than I do. He began.

The story opened with Death sipping mate, fixing the kettle handle with a bit of wire.

Nobody spoke. Suddenly the phone passed from hand to hand, and one person kept reading, then another, and another, until the story made its way around the whole table like a round of mate.

I'd never heard it read by anyone before, let alone in English. What can I say? Even now, as I write this, I remember that moment and it moves me all over again.

The next day, early — well, not that early.

We had breakfast at Confluencia and set off on the long walk to Plaza de Mulas.

I know guides who ask for breakfast at five in the morning at Confluencia. I never got along with waking up at five, especially not at Confluencia. Breakfast at six-thirty and setting off around seven is usually more than enough.

To each their own.

But sleeping well, for me, is essential.

It was between eight and nine hours of walking to Plaza de Mulas.

This is the first day the group goes above four thousand meters, and I always keep to the rule of moving at a "talking" pace.

If someone is walking too out of breath — with the exception of summit day — that person is pushing too hard, and they're likely to end up exhausted, or worse, develop a pulmonary edema.

As I always say:

A guide can't control the forecast, but can control the pace.

I'd rather arrive in nine hours, or more, calmly, than in under eight hours showing off how strong the group is, only to have everyone exhausted a few hours later.

And once you're above four thousand meters, every mistake can cost you dearly. Sometimes, even with an edema.

Next day:

Rest day at Plaza de Mulas, at an altitude of 4,300 m.

For us it was a day to check gear, sort food, pack, and weigh loads.

Then came the less pleasant part: dividing up the weight among everyone.

That's when a lot of people need porters. Because unless you have a lot of experience — plus a genuinely strong body — carrying more than twenty kilos day after day on such a short expedition is usually a bad idea.

And twenty kilos, at that altitude, feels like some prankster slipped a small rock into your pack with every step.

Luckily, everyone used porters at some point during the expedition, saving their energy for what really mattered: summit day.

From that point on, the expedition became a string of decisions. Move, rest, or carry loads. The forecast wasn't especially favorable, though the group was feeling great.

With one exception.

A mother who had come with her two children decided, after feeling unwell, to end her expedition. Her children decided to go down with her.

Step by step we moved from Plaza de Mulas to Canadá, Camp 1, at an altitude of 5,050 meters.

The next day we moved to Nido de Cóndores, Camp 2, at an altitude of 5,560 meters.

The porters, as always, arrived on time and had the tents already pitched for us at Nido.

A real luxury.

Once settled at Nido — the camp where the magic happens, as I like to think of it — everyone was eating, sleeping, hydrating, and nobody showed anything serious enough to think about an evacuation.

There are always headaches, nausea, and even vomiting, but that's part of the game, within reason.

Nobody arrives at 5,560 meters feeling like they're in the Caribbean. Cold beer in hand, white sand, feet buried in it.

No.

Being at that altitude is uncomfortable.

But the sky is truly one of a kind.

At night the stars seem to multiply. And the silence feels... almost solid.

And the sunset... now that really is something special.

No television, no IMAX screen, no technology can reproduce those sunsets.

On the rest day at Nido, with the group feeling good, we got to play a little in the snow.

Walking with crampons, falling on purpose, and practicing how it feels to plant an ice axe in case of a fall, trying to self-arrest.

Although, to be honest, often it's enough just to feel underfoot how awkward it is to walk on snow.

That alone tends to be a good introduction to what's coming. Without setting aside something very important: crampon technique.

Explaining and working through that fell to José and Cacho. And, I'll say, they did it flawlessly.

On top of all this, there was a Japanese man in the group.

He spoke little. Not out of shyness, but because he genuinely didn't speak much English, and even less Spanish.

At times he walked so slowly and spoke so little that anyone might have thought he had altitude sickness.

Of course, there was some concern about it.

In fact, at Nido we brought him to the doctor for a routine check.

Nothing unusual showed up.

My two assistants still found the situation a bit worrying.

Either way, the real problem was something else.

The forecast.

According to the reports and various weather sites, summit day was expected to bring winds close to a hundred kilometers per hour.

Of course, with that wind, a summit attempt was out of the question.

The idea came up of moving the attempt up by a day.

But, as I said before:

A guide can't do anything about the forecast.

But can about the group's pace.

And after talking with Alexia, and even Rodrigo, I made the call not to move the group's schedule up.

They weren't experienced mountaineers, nor elite athletes, nor climbers used to moving at that altitude.

But I made that decision watching what had been happening day after day.

While every forecast site showed winds close to fifty kilometers per hour for Nido de Cóndores, the reality was we barely had a breeze.

And so, comparing the forecast data against what was actually happening on the mountain each day, I noticed a pattern.

The models were overestimating the wind by thirty to fifty kilometers per hour.

With that decision hanging over my head like a sword of Damocles, there wasn't a moment I didn't second-guess whether I'd made the right call. We had no second chances.

The day came to move to Berlín, at an altitude of 5,940 m, and everyone arrived in great shape. Our Japanese friend in particular surprised everyone with his strength, his pace, and how meticulous he was about hydrating... even though at times it seemed like he wasn't.

I watched him out of the corner of my eye: hydrating without being asked, eating down to the last noodle, sleeping straight through. He met every basic requirement for altitude.

At Berlín we had dinner at six in the evening. The next day everything was set to start around three-thirty, four, with breakfast. And what followed... is one of the hardest days in a person's life. I'm not exaggerating.

Breakfast time came, still dark out. And only a breeze kept us company.

Everyone ready, we set off.

A few minutes in, one of them decided to turn back to his tent. He just wanted to feel good, and walking with crampons, mittens, a down jacket, and a pack above six thousand meters wasn't his idea of feeling good.

Cacho walked him back to the tent, and caught up with us a while later.

The group was doing well. Everyone at a good pace, maybe a bit slow, but the day was clear, there was no wind, and we had the whole mountain to ourselves. For me, that's a blessing. Of course, if something goes wrong that solitude makes everything harder, but it also makes everything feel more real. Every step doesn't just leave a print in the snow — it feels like it leaves a print in the present moment.

We kept moving, but José had to head down with part of the group. He went down from Piedras Blancas, at an altitude of 6,200 m, but then had to climb back up to rejoin the group. A tough task for him, but that's the job.

Hours later, with Cacho and the rest of the group, we kept climbing. Once at El Dedo, around 6,450 m, the wind picked up. Normal, I'd say. It gets cold, of course. We all had ice on our faces.

Far behind us, we saw a thin silhouette. It was José. Advancing steadily, until a few minutes later he caught up with us.

The wind was blowing. Even shouting, it was hard to communicate, but I kept heading up, slowly. I knew it was a summit day.

There was "not much" left — maybe two hours — to reach what's called La Cueva, at an altitude of 6,650 m. The Japanese climber was still with us.

But that section gets genuinely hard. Not technically complicated, just steeper.

That's when I told Cacho I'd go on with Richard, because at that pace we'd lose any chance of summiting.

Unfortunately, there are schedules you have to respect. You don't want to reach the summit at night on a commercial expedition.

Safety: that's what a guide is. Safety, above all.

When people talk about a sport expedition, a personal one, or whatever you want to call it... anything goes, and that wonderful word comes into play: "freedom."

But... most of the time that beautiful word doesn't go hand in hand with safety. In fact... if we think about mountaineering itself, it doesn't go hand in hand with safety either... but it's beautiful, and that's enough.

Back to the expedition — Cacho went down with part of the group. José went with them. Richard and I kept going.

That day, around 5 p.m., late, we reached the summit. The day was still completely clear. No wind, and it was overwhelming to be up there once again, with no one else around, in the vastness of the range at nearly seven thousand meters.

There are no words.

We were on the summit for about 40 minutes. And the descent took only three hours.

More than twelve hours climbing and only three going down. Another luxury.

"My legs aren't the problem for me. Altitude is," Richard told me on the way down. Of course: every meter was a meter lower, and his strength seemed to come back.

And since the descent is usually the most dangerous part, in this case it was a walk down at a steady pace.

Once back at Berlín, the rest of the group greeted us with a huge hug, but all I wanted was to eat and drink liters of something hot. And in the foul mood of a cat caught in the rain, when José handed me a plate of noodles, all I said was: "It's cold!"

Or something like that, or worse. I don't remember exactly.

José hadn't stopped working since 3 in the morning. And there I was, thanking him for that plate with an "it's cold," serious, almost annoyed.

For a couple of hours, we were two grumpy brothers. The poor guy grumbled every time he saw me.

The next day we woke up and the wind really made itself felt. We practically fled Berlín, reached Plaza de Mulas, and today... it's a wonderful memory printed into our hippocampus. No algorithms, no little screens. Just the cold, the night, the stars, the wind that seems to cut your face, and laughter. Always... laughter in the mountains.