I share with you some sections of my recent reading about Mount Aconcagua; it is not wasted. They left that last tent there and, with callous feet and kneeling in the snow every 20 minutes to catch their breath, they all reached the summit together around 7:20 p.m. on February 25. The guide stops to write their names in the summit book while the rest begin their descent along the normal route to Plaza de Mulas.
Darkness and lousy weather add uncertainty to a descent already compromised by extreme fatigue and freezing. The guides managed to reach the Presidente Perón refuge (currently Independencia, 6,500 m). Further down the mountain, a group of Chilean mountaineers and Argentine soldiers who were in the Eva Perón refuge (6,100 m) manage to find the two lost Frenchmen and help them reach Plaza de Mulas, where they all meet the next day in Cerro Aconcagua base camp
The expedition was described as heroic, although as with the summit of Annapurna, its protagonists had to suffer it forever in their flesh: all except one suffered amputations of their toes due to frostbite, and another climber also suffered from the hand. Climb Aconcagua carries a lot of risks, and it is necessary to assume it.
I suffered an injury a few days to ascend while trying to discover how to climb Aconcagua cheap.
My hobby began when I was a child, frequenting a family home in La Pedriza, north of Madrid. “Seeing mountaineers who were hanging from impossible walls, I ended up imitating them.” Eleven years ago, on a trek through the Moroccan Atlas, I climbed the M’Goun (4,071 m.). At that moment, I discovered height climbing: “It fascinated me.”
Any mountaineer fears suffering an injury at height, where medical attention takes longer than desired. I was about to experience this distressing situation when he perceived that something was not going well: “I noticed a click in my knee, and I discovered that my meniscus was torn. At that moment, I realized that, despite all the preparation, I would not be able to ascend Aconcagua because something happening to you at an altitude of 7,000 kilometers is a handicap. He suffered a posterior horn longitudinal injury that involved part of the medial meniscus body, limiting his activity on the mountain. After the failure of conservative treatment and the idea that I would recover the conditions for alpine sport, the Traumatology Department of the University of Navarra Clinic in Madrid, led by Dr. José MarÃa Silberberg, opted to perform an arthroscopy. With internal partial meniscectomy. There was no other option: it was to operate or operate. But true to my mountain passion, I decided not to throw in the towel and resume the truncated dream. Thus, thanks to the work of the specialists, I recovered in a short period the physical conditions that I needed for the expedition. “Aconcagua was the goal, and I had to do it. Without passion, you cannot go high mountains”.