Travel Forum 3 years ago
| Name | Todd |
| Home Country | Australia |
| Contact Trooper | Send Message |
A traveller, reader, writer, runner and citizen of the world.
Raymond lol.... been and done. If you want to know what it looks like then just watch the new karate kid film. On the bit where they go up the mountain to drink some water..... thas the mountain.
I set off from the base at 7pm.... walked up till about 9.30pm..... the rain just got harder and harder..... thats when i stopped. By 11pm it wasnt going to stop so i had no choice but to carry on..... by 3.30am i got to a peak.... sat down on a rock thinking it was the east peak. As my eyes adjusted to the scenery of a cloud base (looking down) stars (looking up) then on the left hand side i can just make out a higher peak..... F**k!!! Packed all the stuff and carried on climbing...... 5am...... reach east peak. 5.30am...... see sunrise....... glorious..... speechless...... time to climb down at 6am....... then it hit me....... words can not describe how sh*t scared i was...... my knees started to tremble....... turned to jelly and i was stuck to the ground....... no way was i going to climb back down those bloody steps!!!!
Going up in the middle night with only a torch had hidden all the dangers...... come daylight...... i just realised how stupid i had been. I grabbed the iron handles bars and chain links and gritted my teeth and climbed down. All in all....... as much as i cursed and sweared and wish the earth would swallow me up........ thinking back i enjoyed every minute of it. I went to other peaks before cathcing the cable car down at 4pm........ 21 hours up a mountain..... 2 hours rest and the rest was walking up down.... up down.... up down....... how i survived all the walking i have no idea to this day........ but i want to go back and suffer more. The highlight is the sunrise on east peak....... and the plank walk....... or the chain link rock face climb. Hell even the steep 200m or so single file step up the mountain with sheer drop on either side is a eye popper. If anyone wants to see the pictures on my facebook drop me a line and i'll send you the link.
Todd Hi Skylar, apologies for the lack of updates. I'm heading to Peru this Saturday, then to Argentina a couple of weeks later. I haven't mentioned anything yet because I've been a little unsure of timing.
We're planning to live for 2-3 months in a city called Bariloche, which is pretty mountainous but far south of Aconcagua. We need to train for a desert expedition in May 2011, which is why we tried to find somewhere where we could train *safely* outdoors.
Anyway, we only decided to move to Argentina a couple of days ago, so let me get back to you in the next couple of days. I know we're running out of time, but I have to check the schedule and discuss with Lauren.
How interested are you?
Matt Hardy HI Todd,
The training is going well. If you want some advice on training im glad to help. Since the trip is about 3 months away I feel like this is the best time to start training hard. This will allow you to peak in fitness during your trip. Right now im trying to train 5 times a week. I usually bike twice a week for 40-60 miles and rock climb the remaining 3 days of training. Since it's starting to get cold here in Colorado I'm trying to hike more with a pack. It's going to be a damn slog up that mountain so the better prepared I am to carry a heavy pack the better off i'll be. If your just looking to get in good cardio shape, try wearing a pack and running with it uphill for 1 minute than try 5 minutes off just walking. This will get you in great shape in no time.....do it for one hour.
Todd Thanks for the tips Matt. We're currently living in Cusco at 3,300m. We're debating whether to stay here or go to lower altitude. It's great to be up this high beforehand, but it's difficult to give our muscles the same length of endurance workout as if we were at sea level. Headaches or chest pains set in before muscle fatigue, but that's fading away slowly. I think we'll stay another month and see how it goes.
Yeah, we'll start with the packs this week too. That's the bit that has me the most concerned about Aconcagua. It's one thing to trek to almost 7k, and another to do it hauling 15-20kg of gear (of course not all the way to the summit, but still...). I'll definitely give your running uphill strategy a go. There is no flat ground in this whole city, except a few square meters in the plaza. You see visitors bent over around ever corner from the steep hills. I wonder how many visitors have heart attacks here; it's a real slog to just buy water, which is great for our training.
Anyway, good luck with the training. We'll try to keep in touch. And if you need any coverage on this site, just let us know.
