Aconcagua calling — are you ready for it?

By any mea­sure Aconcagua is a huge moun­tain. At 22,841-feet it is the high­est peak in South Amer­i­ca and a wor­thy goal for climbers. The stan­dard route offers non-tech­ni­cal paths to the sum­mit, but there­in lies the conun­drum. Although non-tech­ni­cal, Aconcagua is a very chal­leng­ing moun­tain. High alti­tudes, cold and windy con­di­tions, a long approach and mul­ti­ple camps above base camp, cold weath­er equip­ment, and the rig­ors of expe­di­tion life all com­bine to make an attempt of Aconcagua a major undertaking. 

Is Aconcagua a trek or a climb?

Many peo­ple view the Nor­mal Route on Aconcagua as a log­i­cal ​“next-step” after Kil­i­man­jaro. Some believe that because it is a non-tech­ni­cal climb it is just a trek, as it is often described. They are, how­ev­er, very dif­fer­ent experiences.

A trek on Kil­i­man­jaro is sup­port­ed by a team of porters, kitchen staff, and guides. Trekkers have three meals a day cooked for them and are served in a com­fort­able din­ing tent. After a day of walk­ing, car­ry­ing just a light day-pack, you arrive at camp with snacks pre­pared, warm water to wash with, and tents are set up for you. In the morn­ing you are offered tea in your tent and after break­fast your tent is tak­en down and your gear is car­ried to the next camp. Kil­i­man­jaro is phys­i­cal­ly dif­fi­cult but the sup­port of a car­ing staff and the com­forts of the camps makes for a tir­ing but pleas­ant trek that requires no cram­pons or use of ice axe.

On the oth­er hand, although non-tech­ni­cal and non-glaciat­ed, con­di­tions on Aconcagua can vary between hard­packed dirt and scree to snow and ice requir­ing the use of cram­pons and ice axe. The phys­i­cal demands for Aconcagua, which stands about 3,500-feet high­er than Kil­i­man­jaro, can­not be under­stat­ed, along with the need for basic moun­taineer­ing skills. The sum­mit day is extreme­ly chal­leng­ing and can take 12 hours or more from camp and back. Many expe­ri­enced climbers have stat­ed that sum­mit day on Aconcagua is no eas­i­er than a Denali sum­mit day. Still, although Aconcagua is high, cold, windy, huge, exhaust­ing, it’s worth the effort to reach the high­est point in the West­ern Hemi­sphere and a Sev­en Summit!

Expectations and how to lessen the load

Blog resource: The Road to the Summit

Aconcagua by con­trast to Kil­i­man­jaro is a full-blown climb­ing expe­di­tion. Where Kil­i­man­jaro has a large sup­port staff to help with all the dai­ly rig­ors of expe­di­tions, Aconcagua requires the climb­ing team to do all those things along with the hik­ing. Above base camp the team will move loads between camps and set up camps togeth­er, melt snow for water and cook meals.

Some of this work can be less­ened by hir­ing porters to car­ry loads between camps, which means you car­ry a pack in the 25 – 35 pound range — more than 80% or more of our team mem­bers do this. And while base camp life is good on the moun­tain, with a mess tent, piz­za, and oth­er lux­u­ries, things change as you move up the moun­tain. Your guides will work extreme­ly hard try­ing to min­i­mize the amount of work you do, but, at the end of the day, it’s best to view this expe­di­tion as more of a par­tic­i­pa­to­ry trip than a ful­ly-ser­viced expe­di­tion with your bed roll laid out for you with a choco­late on a fluffy pillow. 

An expe­di­tion to Aconcagua, as well as any big moun­tain, requires com­mit­ment, ded­i­ca­tion to phys­i­cal train­ing and con­di­tion­ing, and an hon­est appraisal of your abilities. 

To help answer the ques­tion, ​“Am I ready for Aconcagua”, below is a series of ques­tions to answer yourself: 

• Do you under­stand the rig­ors of an Aconcagua expedition?
• Do I train reg­u­lar­ly, and in a way that would pre­pare me for the climb?
• Do I know what it is like to car­ry a 25 – 50 pound pack uphill, for hours and con­sec­u­tive days?
• Do I have expe­ri­ence in camp­ing in the moun­tains in a poten­tial­ly harsh environment?
• Am I will­ing to become part of a team and work with a group of diverse peo­ple to achieve our goals?
• Do I expect to be pampered?
• Is this a real­is­tic goal for me?

With these ques­tions more may sur­face as you explore what it means to climb the moun­tain. Anoth­er great resource and one that answers many ques­tion you may have and that adds lots of details about the Aconcagua expe­ri­ence is the FAQ page on our web site in the overview sec­tion.

Suggested pre-requisites

Step 1: Take a climb­ing course; even bet­ter, take a climb­ing course in Ecuador or Bolivia to gain skills and some high alti­tude experience.

Step 2: Get addi­tion­al expe­ri­ence with a high alti­tude climb; some­thing like Kil­i­man­jaro would work, but even bet­ter would be trips to the Mex­i­co Vol­ca­noes or our Cotopaxi Climb in Ecuador, both only nine day trips from the U.S. If these steps go well for you, start pack­ing! Or;

Step 3: Go on a trip that has some gen­uine expe­di­­tion-type climb­ing, which means mul­ti­ple camps at high­er ele­va­tions, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of storms, and some cold-weath­­er con­di­tions. Some exam­ples of such trips could include: the Ecuador Vol­ca­noes Expe­di­tion, Huay­na Poto­si and Illi­mani expe­di­tion in Bolivia or Island Peak in Nepal.

Training for Aconcagua

You’ve just put in more than a week mov­ing loads up Aconcagua, we’re talk­ing 40 – 50 pounds of gear up 2,000+ feet, up to ele­va­tions over 19,00-feet. These are days that you are work­ing hard at alti­tude for 5 – 8 hours. There are a cou­ple of rest days in the itin­er­ary to recov­er, but at alti­tude your body nev­er recov­ers ful­ly. Next up sum­mit day! Are you ready for the near­ly 4,000-foot climb, 10 – 15 hour day on the go at almost 23,000-feet? We can ensure you will be oxy­gen deprived, slight­ly dehy­drat­ed, super excit­ed, and tired. Are you ready for this? If you’ve been endurance train­ing, have your gear dialed and are men­tal­ly strong, you will be.

If you are unsure where to start your train­ing pro­gram, we rec­om­mend get­ting in touch with Alpine Ath­let­ics. Lisa, the own­er of the com­pa­ny, has reached the sum­mit of Ever­est and K2, among oth­er big moun­tains, has climbed the Sev­en Sum­mits and has exten­sive expe­ri­ence in the Cas­cades — she knows what it takes to get ready. If you decide to work with Lisa, she will con­tact you and gath­er infor­ma­tion and com­plete a fit­ness assess­ment to devel­op the best plan based on your objec­tive. Read an inter­view with Lisa here.

Moun­tain Mad­ness climbers receive 25 % off of Alpine Ath­let­ics services!

We look for­ward to shar­ing the expe­ri­ence with you. 

If you have ques­tions about Aconcagua, or want to dis­cuss the trip in greater detail, please call Steve or Mark at the Moun­tain Mad­ness office at 800−328−5925 or email Mark at markg@​mountainmadness.​com

See you on the top of South America!