Aconcagua, Ecuador Season Coming To Close

With spring just around the bend here in the U.S., weath­er is chang­ing in South Amer­i­ca as well, bring­ing a close to the win­ter sea­son for Aconcagua and Ecuador. 

Our last Aconcagua Pol­ish Tra­verse team reached the sum­mit of the high­est peak in South Amer­i­ca on Sun­day, ahead of sched­ule as pre­dict­ed! They depart­ed from their high camp, or Cholera Camp, and reached the 22,841 foot sum­mit at 11:30 in the morn­ing. Ossy reports, it was a ​“100% suc­cess­ful expe­di­tion!” They were lucky to have reached the sum­mit dur­ing a 10 minute clear win­dow before the snow start­ed to move in. They are rest­ing in Base Camp today and will head out tomor­row. Con­grat­u­la­tions to Ossy, Ryan, Jeroen and Ed! 

Clouds above Aconcagua. Moun­tain Mad­ness photo

As I am sure every­one is home rest­ing up from their excit­ing adven­ture in Ecuador, Sebas­t­ian fol­lows up with the last update of the Ecuador Glac­i­er Moun­taineer­ing School and their sum­mit on Chimborazo:

“After Cotopaxi, we drove south to Urbina, where we spent the night. The next day, we moved to Chimb­o­ra­zo’s sec­ond hut at 16,400 feet. Our first sum­mit attempt was can­celled by bad weath­er, a cou­ple inch­es of new snow and wind! The next day, we stayed at the same hut to rest, read and play games. That night, we got up at 11 p.m. to the wind blow­ing out­side but luck­i­ly clear skies. As we climbed up the moun­tain, the wind decreased but the pre­cip­i­ta­tion start­ed, form­ing an ice lay­er on top of us. Luck­i­ly, this did­n’t last very long.

“At 5:19 a.m. myself, Bryce and Bar­bara reached the Ven­timil­la sum­mit. As we start­ed walk­ing towards the Whym­per sum­mit, we watched as the moon set and turned a vibrant orange. We reached the high­est sum­mit of Ecuador at 5:55 a.m. and were back in the hut by 8:30!!

“I want to thank the whole group for such a great trip, even if the weath­er was not the best. I hope to see you in the moun­tains again!”

~ MM Guide Sebas­t­ian Carrasco

Chimb­o­ra­zo. Moun­tain Mad­ness photo

One last Ecuador School and Vol­ca­noes Expe­di­tion to depart lat­er this Feb­ru­ary. But have no fear! The Ecuador climb­ing sea­son returns in July! Get your spot on one of our schools or expe­di­tions and see the beau­ty that the Ecuado­ri­an Andes have to offer.