Once again, I slept pretty well, and very late. Having awoken with a headache, I realized that I needed to make a high priority of forcing myself to drink enough liquids – I was almost certainly dehydrated. After chatting a while with some other climbers, I made my biggest mistake so far. It seemed like an innocent-enough idea – I would walk up a trail to get above the base camp, just for fun, to get a bit of an overview of the immediate area. I set off and only climbed 550 feet above camp, and was I ever going slowly!

I got my view all right, but at what cost. I felt awful, totally wasted, almost dizzy. It was all I could do to stumble back into camp and lie down in my tent. Resting for several hours made me feel a bit better. Later, I slowly walked around camp – there were two areas, an upper and a lower, the upper with 75 tents and the lower with 25. Some of these were large and housed several climbers, but I decided there were three per tent on average. Plaza de Mulas had a population of three hundred souls!

The next day, Dave and Laurie, two Americans I had met, carried loads all the way up to Nido, a full 3,600 feet higher, and returned to P de M. Toby, a Brit who hung out with them, moved up to Nido and stayed there.

An Argentine who stays here with the Red Cross group went all the way to the summit yesterday in 6 hours! It was exciting to hear stories like that one, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I now felt like I had a cold – runny nose, cough, headache. My doctor back home had given me a prescription for Diamox, reputed to help you acclimate better to altitude, so I started taking it. Maybe too little too late. I made a firm resolution to increase my fluid intake to four litres a day, and started by eating a lot of hot soup and hot chocolate for supper.

Even going to the glacier for water tired me out, so I decided I wouldn’t do a carry to Nido until I feel 100% for at least one full day. It seemed like a good idea to try to summit from Nido, as too many have problems sleeping higher than that, but time will tell. The sun rises here at camp at 10:45 a.m. and sets at 8:45 p.m.

The next morning, I got up pretty late once again. My fourth day here at base camp. Climbers are coming and going, many summitting, and I still sit here, feeling lethargic. My headache is still present, but is mild. A Hungarian doctor camped nearby checked me and said my blood pressure was 110 over 70, which is okay, but my resting pulse was 92, which seems high. I busy myself by repairing clothing and my stove, and trying to eat and drink enough. It seems at this rate that I’ll need at least two more days here until I attempt a carry to Nido.

The next morning, I learned that Matt and Perry, two Americans I had met earlier, had returned at 11:00 p.m. the previous night after an amazing 20-hour round-trip push from base camp to the summit. They had picked up Toby at Nido and all three of them had summitted together.

I was jealous, yet happy for them for their success. As the day progressed, I realized that I had a sore throat and a cough, which worsened as time passed – I felt awful. The medic at the Red Cross tent checked me out and said I had a throat infection. I showed him the antibiotic I had in my first-aid kit, and he said to take one every eight hours. He also said to keep my nose and mouth covered at night when I sleep – that sounded like a good idea, so I did that from that point on. I went to bed early.

The next day was February 1st, two weeks since I had left home and one week since I walked out of Puente del Inca. Most of the day was spent resting and socializing. I had some supper with the very boisterous Argentine group camped next to me – they are very likable guys, but they party until an ungodly hour every night. The next photo shows a small part of the base camp. The three large white tents are the Red Cross; the small yellow tent at 8 o’clock from theirs is mine; the four tents near mine were Bulgarians; the group of small tents at 2 o’clock were Chilean military; the three tents at 3 o’clock with the men standing beside them are Argentines.

The next day saw several climbers I had already met leave base camp to walk back out to Puente del Inca. As for me, it seemed like I was in some kind of a time-warp, just killing time while I tried to get better. This evening, a Chilean soldier gave me some nice grapes, and the Red Cross medic gave me a green pepper, two tomatoes and a cucumber. Eating some nice fresh food like that can only help. The effort of going to get water today was the easiest so far.

Saturday, February 3rd. I saw the medic – he said to finish up with the antibiotic today. Tomorrow, I will carry a load to Nido for sure, no more excuses. I spent the day packing up the items I wanted to carry up to Nido. Here is what I assembled: cheese, cookies, oatmeal, chocolate bars, canned fish; double boots, camera, film, stove, fuel, first aid kit, a cooking pot.

A woman named Deb, with whom I had been talking a lot during the past few days, had been waiting for her husband, Rick, who finally arrived with a German. They had both summitted, and I was happy for them. I was convinced I could do it too. Before arriving at Plaza de Mulas, Rick and Deb had both climbed Cerro Mercedario, at 22,047 feet the eighth-highest peak in the Andes.

I woke up early the next morning to sort and pack my stuff for the carry. Deb and her friends dropped by to say goodbye, and headed out. By 11:30 a.m. I left camp, after having spent a full eight days there at 14,000 feet. I felt like I had really paid my dues, and it was now time to actually start climbing again. The summit was still 9,000 vertical feet above me.

The trail consisted of a series of switchbacks up the scree slopes. I was going very slowly, so much so that a large group of paying clients with Mountain Travel caught up to and passed me – a nice friendly group. That was okay, all I cared about was that I kept moving uphill. The weather was cool and windy, with snow flurries.

There were times when I was going so slowly that the only way I could continue was to use a rest-step. At other times, I would get a second wind and go at a reasonably steady rate. However, one thing became glaringly apparent to me, and that was that there was no way I was going all the way up to Nido that day. It turned out that the Mountain Travel group and a pair of Canadians were all doing a drop at a spot called Plaza Canada. Somehow, after a full five and a half hours, I arrived there too, at 16,000 feet – it was a spectacular spot. I stayed only a few minutes, just long enough to drop my pack and turn around. The return trip to Plaza de Mulas only took one hour.

Once back, I moved my camp from the lower area to the upper, mainly to get away from my boisterous Argentine neighbors – I needed to get a better sleep! Once moved, I was exhausted. I was determined to eat and drink a lot the next day –  it was obvious that I was dehydrated.

Monday, February 5th. Other than some fatigue, I felt no effects of altitude yesterday or today. I slept in late. The Mountain Travel group moved on up to Plaza Canada. I washed my hair and a few clothes. Around 5:00 p.m., an electrical storm moved in for a bit of excitement, and it snowed steadily for three hours. As of tomorrow, Plaza de Mulas will no longer be my home on this mountain. Camped next to me are four Americans who traversed over from the Polish Glacier, spent two nights at the Independencia hut and summited from there. Really nice guys.

The next day, I spent hours sorting out all my gear. I gave away some food, fuel and a water jug to the arrieros, and they agreed to look after my duffle bag (filled with all the gear I didn’t need for a while) while I’m gone up the mountain. My pack was huge, much larger than the one I had dropped at Plaza Canada. Even so, it only took me 4 1/2 hours to carry it up to PC, compared to 5 1/2 for the smaller pack two days earlier. When I arrived at PC,  it was snowing hard and everyone else in the camp was holed up in their tents.

By the time I had put up my tent, my hands were really cold – I had a bit of frost-nip on my fingertips. I put all of my gear inside the tent and crawled inside my sleeping-bag to thaw out.

Here I was with the two Canadians and the Mountain Travel group, and I was about to spend my highest night sleeping ever, at 16,000 feet. It was still snowing hard when I turned in, and I really hoped the weather would improve, but I felt like I was really on my way.

To be continued………………………………….

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