Moving on up in the world

We arrived in Cordon del Plata and stayed at a small refugio for a few nights. Each day we hiked higher and higher following the dog "El Perro" who lived at the refugio. After acclimitazing for three days, we felt very prepared and ready to climb some big peaks in Cordon del Plata. We took more time to acclimatize than most people we met. Surely we would not experience typical altitude sickness symptoms such as loss of appetite, nausea, or headaches now.

Day 1: Trundle to our camp 1 with very very very heavy packs. Pass out exhausted. El perro follows us up, can't shake him. We decided not to feed him to encourage him to leave us.

Day 2: Make our way to camp 2, Janice got sick in the morning, but we managed to make it by late afternoon. El perro is still there after spending a miserable night, broke down and gave him some food. Hope he goes home soon.

Day 3: Rest day, do nada. El perro shivers as the snow starts to fall. Luckily some climbers that know him finally convince him to leave our sides and head back down. We are so thankfull that he is gone, not a fun place for a dog.


Day 4: Summit attempt on Vallecitos, start at 4 am. Janice gets sick on the way up, has to turn around. Jason summits without her. Make it back before it starts to snow.

Day 5: Rest day, move camp 400 m higher to keep summit attempt #2 short. Got to Hoyada, and winded ourselves building a huge rock wall.


Day 6: Summit attempt #2, near success. Janice feels unwell and turns around about 5 meters from the summit. Good enough.


Day 7: Winds become very strong in the valley. We were considering climbing Plata, but decided to call it quits. Janice had been sick for most of days and had had enough. Celebrate Christmass eve, Janice made Jason hot chocolate, Jason made Janice a fire with the only fuel in abudance, cow patties.

Day 8: Get down to the Refugio and enjoy a hot shower. Eat the remainder of our left over food for Christmas. It was so good that Janice fed half of hers to the dogs.

Now we are in Mendoza, recovering, eating gigantic quantities and Jason is sick .... again, but he is on the mend : )

Janice was so excited about being able to eat that she often ate more than Jason and made sure her diet included lots of ice cream, steak, and fresh fruits and vegetables!