Images - Argentina 2003
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Casa Piedra up to Base Camp
Gallery Intro - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4
Images - Argentina 2003 Casa Piedra up to Base Camp Gallery Intro - 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 |
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Rise and Shine! Around 10am, our Mula man showed up and I was lucky enough to get some warmer clothes before he left us again. It was going to be another 8 hour hike, up to Plaza Argentina (Base Camp 13,500 feet). | ||
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Oh boy, this was the scene at 11,000. We gained 3k feet on this leg from Piedra to Base Camp. You can see the little squiggly lines of the trail we were following. Down below are our bags that couldn't be brought up by Mula - the trail had some snow and rock slides. | ||
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Dan making it to the top of one of the steep sections. We didn't get to camp until 8 pm that night. | ||
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Base Camp the next day- Plaza Argentina, about 13,500 feet. The yellow Bibler is Dan's i-Tent. It was a ghost town up there, and fairly windy. | ||
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My Green Bib - great rock wind screens up there. I think we had one rest day, and then one hell day. Hell day was going back down to 11,000 ft. to fetch the rest of our gear that the Mule couldn't bring up. Wasn't one of my best days... | ||
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Who's that in the Hut??!?!? | ||
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Great view from Base Camp - looking up towards Camp 1. You walk up through the valley. 3 stages include 1 snow/ice wall, then through what we called the "Gravel Pit", then up another but very steep ice wall. All taking approximately 6 hours hiking time. | ||
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View looking back East towards Piedra - you can see the daytime stream which we filled our nalgenes with. Up here it's all snow melt and very clean, not silty like at lower altitudes. | ||
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Looks are deceiving - it was pretty chilly at night even with a down parka. After about 9pm all you wanted was to be snuggled into your bag. | ||
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On our trip back down to pick up our gear - we had the luck of seeing a guanaco , a wild, hoofed mammal of the camel family. Dan and I looked at each other and said "What the heck is that?", haha Wish i could climb/move as fast as he could on the mountain! :-) | ||
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