Camp Nedo de Condores

It is only 4:30 but what a day. I woke up feeling good. I made myself some cocoa, ate a granola bar and I was ready. I loaded my pack and took off. I felt really good. I was making first tracks in the snow filled old tracks, set my radio to a great station, and the dogs were still by my side. I soon arrived at Camp Alaska. I passed both groups who were packing up and then took my only break just past the camp. I pushed on feeling great. Nido did not look much further. It was about 800 feet higher and up on the NW ridge of the mountain. Plainly visible above me was the trail to the summit. The top looks so close from Alaska and Nido. Soon I arrived at Nino camp. It is almost 18,000 feet high. That is the highest I have ever carried a full pack. I found a spot to ditch my gear. My huge duffle is sure nice. Only 20 bucks and the thing works wonders. I still had some energy so I trudged through the crusty snow to the edge of the ridge. For the first time I was able to look north for miles into the Andes. One deep valley was impressive and so were two large mountains. Today was another warm sunny day but the wind at times was quite strong up there. After getting all the pictures, I headed down. Not far down I talked to Boyd and Bob. Boyd was motoring but Bob said he was getting his butt whipped. Luckily he was almost there. I than ran down a good amount of the way back to Camp Canada. Canada was nice and warm so I picked up a few rays of sun. Then I went into the warm tent to sleep and write in the journal, etc. Colleen, one of the Keewees, made it here today but only stayed until Boyd came down. Rob, the 3rd Keewee arrived about the same time. He is up here to stay but Colleen is not sleeping any higher than base camp. Some rangers were heading up today with a coffin thingy. They are going to get the dead Polish guy. I guess this polish guy tried to do it in one shot. He went up in tennis shoes and a t-shirt. He may have summated, nobody knows. They found him yesterday frozen to death below the summit. The weather report is for five more good days of weather. That may be all we need in order to summit. There are some high cirrus clouds coming from the ocean but maybe they are nothing. Tomorrow we move camp up to Nido de Condores. Well, it is almost 9 p.m. now. The clouds dispersed in the distance. I awoke from a nap before dinner feeling a bit crappy. We melted snow then cooked dinner. I downed a two serving Mountain House for the first time on this trip. That and a cup of hot cocoa have made me feel 100 percent again. I am ready to take camp to Nido. Two more Seattleites pulled into camp. They are from Vashon Island. I gave a couple of packs of corn nuts to the keewees. The Keewees never tried so much of my candy. I get a kick out of them trying it. We trade a lot with Boyd and Rob. We all seem to be cracking each other up. We are just one happy camp.

Why do I suffer so much pain for these blasted mountains? Here I lay at 17,700 Nido and I experience pain so few get to feel. Actually I am doing pretty well. Its 6 p.m. I am in my bag. The sun heating inside tent to 71 degrees, 87 earlier! I feel super compared to the move to 17,200 feet on McKinley. I was ready to die then. Right now I only have the slightest headache but my body is tired. I am only writing one sentence every 30 seconds. We got up this morning once the sun hit the tent. I fired up the stove for some cocoa. We packed up and we were off with our camp to sleep at Nido 17,700. It was another perfect day. I passed several people and finally after several hours of slow climbing, arrived at Nido. I dropped my pack at our cash and looked for the best spot for camp. It was at our stash so there I waited for the others. Then over the music of my walkman, a guy comes from behind asking for water. It was one of the Americans from the big group we have been crossing paths with. We knew they were climbing fast and had spent last night in the highest camp Berlin. We also knew they were all going for the summit today. We wondered why. They all claimed they were fine but they were just flying up. Their leader was this iron man who had been on or up Everest. We think he helped push them up. They wanted to get up it this good weather. I guess this morning they went but 2 of the 4 Americans got edema real bad around 21,500 feet. They thought they would die, they could not put another foot forward. It hit them quick. Now one was down at Nido with me asking for water. The other was 30 minutes behind. Soon Bob, Nile and Boyd showed up. We set up camp and talked to George the 2nd American with altitude sickness. I gave him the rest of the water bottle his friend used. They were both pretty hammered. Both regretted going so fast. Now all they cared about was getting lower to Base Camp. After camp was up I started dinner. Had problems with MSR XGK stove so we used our backup a wisperlight. Felt pretty good after the freeze dried dinner and cocoa. Then filled water bottles and came into the tent where I am now. I took a small nap about four sentences ago. Now its 6:45 and it is back up to 84 degrees in the tent. The wind was kicking up but now it is calm again. Our tents seem to be on the path down the mountain. A couple of French guys came by earlier asking for a radio. They continued on. Another guy walked by asking two rocks, two rocks. I guess he stashed gear there. We are near the death zone and people are showing it. Boyd thought R.J. Secor just walked by asking where the water was. Secor wrote the book on Aconcagua that everyone has. He is on the mountain but supposedly doing a different route to put into his book. Boyd says he wrote about a pond up here in his book but he never did this route. Well while we were jabbing the guy next to us showed up. A tent next to us has sat empty. He is Mendoza police. He is head in charge of the body recovery. I guess they are going up tomorrow to get it. They will probably bring it to our camp here tomorrow evening.