Aconcagua Dispatch 12/31/2008

Happy New Year from Aconcagua! We are still at first camp. After a day of rest we made a carry to second camp, and it went really well. The trip only took us five hours and twenty minutes round trip! Our team is healthy and strong. We had a nice bit of weather while making the carry, not a breath of wind and the sun was shining.

We are now back in camp making hot water and the clouds are rolling in. We are all feeling strong and plan to move to second camp tomorrow with some help from a porter. We hope that everyone has a great new year and will call in another dispatch in a few days!

Aconcagua Dispatch 12/29/2008

Hello friends and family! I am calling from first camp at 16,400ft. It took our team about five hours from base camp to arrive here, and we will stay at first camp for three days. Tomorrow we will enjoy a rest day and then we will carry to second camp the day after. If the weather allows, we will move to second camp the day after.

The weather is pleasantly clear at this moment, but during the past three days we have had snow showers and thunderstorms in the afternoons. Everyone on the team is doing a great job. All are healthy and happy! Now I must go cook a chicken quesadilla dinner, so please send on our love to our friends and families back home! Cheers!

Aconcagua Dispatch 12/27/08

Hello Mountain Madness. This is Pablo calling from Plaza Argentina. We have been here for a couple of days now and doing well. We had a move day from Casa de Piedra on Christmas day, followed by a full rest day on the 26th. We had a chance to arrange our gear and our food that we will be carrying to Camp 2 today. We also had a chance to check in with the doctor here at basecamp and everyone is healthy and ready to move on up. Again, we will be doing a carry up to Camp 2 today and return to basecamp for the night. Tomorrow we will have another rest day and then move up to Camp 2 to stay on the following day,December 29th. Everyone is feeling good and happy to be on our way. We all want to say hello to our families and we will be checking in with you again before New Years. That is all for now. Ciao!

Aconcagua Christmas Eve Dispatch 12/24/08

Hello Mountain Madness. This is Pablo Puruncajas, Jason Brown and David Gilliland calling from Casa de Piedra on Aconcagua to say Feliz Navidad to all of you! We have had two great days of hiking toward our basecamp, Plaza Argentina. Tomorrow we are going to Plaza Argentina and I will try to call with another update. Tonight for Christmas eve, we are going to have an Asado. This is a big barbecue with the gauchos, the local cowboys. They are going to do a proper Argentinian asado for us and we will have a big Christmas feast with bbq meats, champagne and all of the fixings. We just want to wish a happy holiday to our families and let you know that we are all well. We have a beautiful day on the mountain today. I will call with updates again soon. Merry Christmas!

Carstensz Pyramid Final Wrap-Up 12/16/08

Mark Ryman here, back in Seattle after several days of flights on a variety of aircraft. After some fairly complicated travel logistics, I finally have word that everyone has arrived home safe and sound. Following the departure of the first helicopter, which took Pablo, Joe and Bill to Nabire, the rest of us played the waiting game for another 48 hours in basecamp. We later learned that there was a problem with getting another qualified pilot back to Nabire in order to have a second flight to get the rest of us out. Adriaan, Sylvia and I were prepared to begin the long trek out if a chopper didn't show by mid-morning on December 12th, though this would have meant all of us would miss our return flights out of Bali by a long shot and potentially be stuck in Indonesia during peak holiday season with very little availability for standby flights to get home for Christmas. Fortunately we heard the chopper blades cutting through the thin air at around 11:00 a.m. and we were all very excited and relieved to see it land on the heli-pad above base camp to whisk us away to Nabire. Our cook, Steve, also flew out with us and we knew we were near max payload capacity for flying at that altitude. We also had to make a fairly exciting re-fuel stop in the town of Enoratali about half way to Nabire. Once on the ground in Nabire, we figured things would be smooth for the rest of the journey home. This wasn't the case as we watched through the airport windows for nearly 6 hours as several mechanics disassembled and reassembled one engine on the Merpati Airlines twin otter that was supposed to take us away. Eventually they said it could not be repaired until morning and we ended up in a hotel in Nabire for the night. The next morning we went back to the airstrip at 6:00 a.m. and spent the day hopping amongst several Indonesian airports on increasingly larger (and more confidence-inspiring) commercial aircraft. Our stops included Biak and Makassar before finally arriving back in Denpasar, Bali. We landed in Bali around 6:00 p.m. on December 13 and there was a Singapore Airlines flight leaving at 8:00 p.m. Unfortunately, we all had bags stored back at the Padma hotel on the other side of town. A very frantic cross town shuttle van ride (with us barking "faster, faster" at the driver the whole time)got us to the hotel and back to the airport just in the nick of time. So much for Christmas shopping in Bali. Our two extra days turned into less than two hours on the island. Adriaan and I somehow got on the flight, but Sylvia was delayed one night. I found out on Monday that she got a seat the following day and is now home in Victoria. This trip turned out to be quite an adventure, a bit more than expected in some respects. With a successful summit and everyone back safe and in time for Christmas, we are now happy to relive the journey through photos and stories in the comfort of home.

Special thanks to some people who helped us get the right equipment to make this trip a success: Outdoor Research for the awesome Exped Andromeda tents, Helly Hansen for the base layers and shell gear, and Tim at Iridium for the new 9555 satellite phones for reliable communications throughout the trip.

I'll be posting a full photo gallery folder from the trip on our flickr page soon at this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24847416@N07/

Carstensz Pyramid Dispatch December 10, 2008

Hello Blog readers, we received word last night that Joe, Bill, and Pablo have arrived in Nabire by helicopter. The weather closed in so the rest of the group will fly on Dec. 11 local time. All is well and the creature comforts will soon be enjoyed by all after a successful climb of the mountain!

Carstensz Pyramid Dispatch December 8 2008 Summit Reached!

Good Morning Mountain Madness, Mark here calling in with an update! Our team arrived into base camp December 4th around 4:00pm. We started out with a beautiful day, climbing through the technical part of the trek to base camp; but the weather didn’t hold. Just before we arrived in camp it started to rain and kept raining many hours into the night. The team enjoyed a great dinner after getting warm and dry!

On December 5^th our team took a well deserved rest day. It was a pristine day and we all enjoyed the scenery at base camp, staring out at the small turquoise lakes that surround the camp. Once again we saw a change in the weather and it proceeded to rain for the next 36 hours!

At 1:00am on December 6^th we had a break in the weather and decided to make a summit push! After getting some hot cereal down we headed toward the wall to make our summit attempt.

Our team was so fortunate to have perfect weather during the climb! The route was in good condition and we all enjoyed the climbing including the spectacular Tyrolean Traverse on the summit ridge. We reached the summit and took photos under perfect clear skies. Our team had plenty of time to make a safe decent down to base camp, it was a great day.

Now we are all back at base camp recuperating from our adventure. Everyone is happy and healthy and sends their love to friends and family!

Carstensz Pyramid Dispatch December 3, 2008

Hello Mountain Madness, this is Mark calling in with December 4th’s dispatch. Yesterday we had a really big day. Our team dropped down off the ridge that we had camped on and crossed the big valley to a pretty exciting river crossing!

Our porters set up a zip line across the river and in no time were working to get our gear across. Three porters stood on each side of the line holding it up as we sent our large duffels across the river. The rest of us followed stripping down to one light layer and wading the chest deep river barefoot while clinging to the line to reach the other side.

We plan to have a well-deserved rest day tomorrow and then try for the summit on December 5th. The team is feeling good, a bit tired but everyone is healthy! We are looking forward to getting to the mountain and making our summit push!

Carstensz Pyramid Dispatch December 1, 2008

Hello everyone! After a wet and often intense jungle battle, we were happy to be established on dry ground at our third camp at 10,500 feet! The tents are up, all of our critical gear is dry, and last night we had another great dinner.

The last three days have been harder than anticipated. Steep, dense brush; jungle mud often up to our calves; and general “wetness” have been the name of the game. We’ve had a couple of rather challenging river crossings on the route that required balancing on skinny, wet logs over raging torrents. The team has had a number of rather tense standoffs during the first few days as we encounter local tribesmen demanding bribes in exchange for passage along our intended route. Romy, the head of our local guide staff, handled these negotiations smoothly – apparently it is not uncommon for local police and military to become involved in this process – and we were thankful to have a “show of force” backing us up in the face of the locals. While there was a lot of posturing during these negotiations, our group was able to carry on without incident once the price of passage was agreed upon - par for the course in this type of adventure travel! We are psyched that these bribes will see us through on the return hike - or so we have been told!

Our Moni porters are extremely attentive and incredibly tough. Only half of the staff chose to use the rubber boots that we provided. Instead they travel barefoot; their powerful bare toes clutching the mud and roots as they porter 20 kilo loads. In all we have around 20 porters hauling group food, fuel, cooking gear, technical climbing gear, tents and a generator. We are fortunate to work with this amazing group!

The team is happy to report that everyone is in good spirits, healthy, and feeling fit. Now that we are out of the jungle and going higher, we should be given a break from the pressures of the approach. Today we climb to the beautiful New Zealand Pass, and tomorrow on to Carstensz Base Camp! Everyone extends a warm hello to their families and Pablo wants to say a special hello to his wife, Karis!