I´m in Chile right now, climbing together with my friend Lotta Hintsa for a few days before I´m guiding my All Women Expedition on Aconcagua.
We are doing two mini-expeditions here and we just came back from the first one where we climbed Cerro El Plomo via Iver glacier. Cerro El Plomo is the highest mountain in the Santiago area and you can see it from the city, 5424 m high. The normal route is popular & easy and perfect as introduction to high altitude.
Day 1
We started by renting a driver that took us to Valle Nevado. We did not know that you could go to La Parva and there is a lift that is opened on weekends so we walked 3,5 hours extra with our super heavy backpacks. That was tough! We made it to our camp Piedra Numerada at 3400 m after 7 hours. Since we came straight from sea level we wanted to spend a few nights on this altitude to acclimatise.
Day 2
We made a carry round up to camp Federation at 4100 m to boost our acclimatisation and to carry up some gear so when we moved there our backpacks would be less heavy. It´s 700 m ascent from Piedra Numerada and it took us around 3 hours with easier backpacks. Up in the camp I ate some snacks and chatted with some other people that were up there. Cerro El Plomo is a very popular peak and right now it´s high season. Lotta continued up on a trail, she wanted to do a training session so I went back down to our camp by myself.
Day 3
When we woke up in the morning Lotta told me she was feeling unwell. She probably got something from the flight over here, it´s pretty common. So we decided to take a rest day and just relax in camp. I spent the day brainstorming and taking notes of my ideas. I always get a lot of ideas when I´m on an expedition and off wifi for a few days and have time to think.
Day 4
Time to move up to camp Federation! We packed everything we needed and then left a little stash under some rocks with things we did not need that we were going to pick up after the climb. It was around 45 min slower to go up there with heavy backpacks but it was a beautiful day and when we arrived we pitched our tents in a nice spot, not too far from the water source (pro tip to not have to walk too long to get water). We scouted the start of the route before it got dark and then we went to bed early.
Day 5
The alarm rang at 04:00 and it was as usual very hard to get up from the warm sleeping bag. I had already made my water the night before so I just ate a bar and packed my backpack and before 05:00 we were on our way. The first part is quite steep uphill in scree. You take one step up and slide a half step down. It´s desert climate so it´s pretty cold in the nights and hot during the days. I had La Sportiva Aequilibriums with a foot warmer inside and that was perfect. Still my legs and hands were a little bit cold so I could not wait for the sun to rise. Just as we reached the glacier the first rays of sunshine came on us and it was so nice.
We climbed the glacier solo. First we had to battle penitentes (but I loved it, was so much fun) and then it became more icy with hard ice so you had to do a good route finding to avoid the blank spots of ice. Conditions were overall very good but you still had to be careful and make sure every step was good because a fall would mean big consequences. Lotta is very strong and fast in the mountains so she climbed ahead of me. I catched up with another person halfway up that started from camp at midnight and climbed passed her and continued up alone.
It´s very hard to secure a face climb like this: There is not enough ice for screws and the snow is a little bit too hard for snow pickets. And to just climb roped up makes no sense since if one fall, both will go down. Maybe you could short rope the whole thing. I guess if it´s guided that´s the way you would do it but in our case it made most sense to just solo and climb in our own speed. I felt comfortable but at the same time I had a big focus during the climb.
The face is long, about 600 m high and in the end it was never ending. But I finally made it up to the col where the normal route goes to the summit and Lotta was waiting for me there. It was another 200 meters uphill from there to the summit and the altitude really made you slow up here. We finally made it and enjoyed the views, ate a little snack and talked about JP Mohr (a local climber who died on winter K2 a few years ago) who had a memory plaque on the summit. From camp to summit via the glacier it took us 7:45 hours.
The clouds started to build up from the valley and it was time to go down. We slided down the scree on the normal route and halfway down it started snowing and there was thunder in the distance. It was nice to get back to camp and my 1€ noodles have never tasted better.
Day 6
Time to pack up the camp and head back down to La Parva where our driver Carlos picked us up and drove us back to Santiago. It was so nice to sleep in a hotel bed and take a shower. I ordered some room service and spent the evening eating snacks and watching Netflix. Tomorrow Lottas boyfriend arrives and we will go on another little mini-expedition here in Chile before I take the bus to Mendoza in Argentina.
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