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Thursday, February 17, 2000
 Berg | |
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Hey Mountain Zone, it's Wally Berg again. The whole team's up here now, at 17,000ft. It's really beautiful in the early evening. I thought it might be interesting if I described to you, though — we live with a lot of wind on this route and it was a pretty interesting scene getting these North Face VE-25 tents up. By the way, that tent, the VE-25 is a superb tent; the best tent for this route. You know, these tents in these winds, though, it requires equal parts preparation and technique, frustration, coordination and a comedy of movement that I ought to try to get on videotape some day, but, of course, that would be hard to do in the wind, too.
It took four of us per tent. We had them rigged just the way we wanted them and loaded into stuff sacks just the way we wanted them. If you ever do Aconcagua, and your guide is looking or acting somewhat like a drill instructor down on the trek into Base Camp as he shows you just how to rig your tent, and just how he wants you to set up, hang with that approach; you'll appreciate when you get up on the mountain just how important all that is. But still, when it comes down to it, it involves getting slapped in the face with nylon, one guy laying under the tent while everybody else tries to figure out the poles, and it's quite the scene.
But once these tents are up, behind the rock walls we use up here, we're really secure, and that's a great feeling in the mountains. We're setting up here tonight: Mike's getting the MSR stoves going, Al and Sal are next door, content doing the "hang" as all good mountaineers are, and these guys are pros at that. And we're looking out our windows, the vestibules of our tents, at a beautiful evening sky. So life is still good on our climb of Aconcagua here at the Col camp, and we'll check in with you tomorrow.
—Alpine Ascents Guide Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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