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The Aconcagua cybercasts continue with Wally Berg and Al Hanna. This climb has special significance both for Alpine Ascents' guide Wally Berg, who is attempting his seventh of the Seven Summits, and Al Hanna, a 69-year-old, Chicago climber who will make an attempt on Mount Everest later this spring.

Strong Winds Deny Second Summit
Friday, February 11, 2000
"The next day turned out to be really windy. I went back to 19.2, with one person, and we tried to summit and meet the guides at 20,600..."

Summit Made in High Winds
Tuesday, February 8, 2000
"So we started out early in the morning and we faced these hard, hard winds and they were high up — high winds up high yesterday too — but I made the summit. To date, my second summit of Aconcagua..."

Wrap Up from Willi
Thursday, February 3, 2000
"We've been enjoying steak for lunch, steak for dinner, consuming numerous quantities of beers and also red wines to celebrate our return back here to civilization..."

Magnificent Views
Thursday, February 3, 2000
"We're going to take a rest day here tomorrow and probably hike up the route a ways and check out the area. It's the first time I've climbed from this side, so it's kind of exciting...."

High Winds Continue
Wednesday, February 2, 2000
"...we carried up high and it was beautiful until we got up about 17.5 and started hitting some pretty high winds on the ridge....."

Winds and Snow
Tuesday, February 1, 2000
"We're at Camp I right now, kind of in a blizzard but not too bad. It's been blowing snow and probably around 30-40mph gusts...."

Climbing the Polish Route
Monday, January 31, 2000
"Mark and I were discussing, a little bit today, and we thought it might be appropriate to talk a little bit about the Polish direct route..."

Expedition Recap
Sunday, January 30, 2000
"I wanted to do a bit of a recap of what had actually occurred with our expedition and the one that is currently on the mountain..."

Champagne Toasts
Sunday, January 30, 2000
"...we'll be having fresh cooked pizza tonight along with champagne and cheesecake to kind of solidify the celebration for having summitted the Polish Glacier — both Mark and I...."

Second Summit in Three Days
Saturday, January 29, 2000
"We ended up having a pretty long day of it, about a 15-hour day round trip, and we did climb and top out on the Polish direct route...."

Going for the Polish Route
Thursday, January 27, 2000
"This is mostly a rest day for us [Willi and Mark] because we'll be leaving at about 2am in the morning to attempt the Polish direct route...."

Atop Aconcagua
Wednesday, January 26, 2000
"I'd just like to inform everybody that we're actually, at this moment, the entire party, sitting on the summit of Aconcagua...."

Ready to Go
Wednesday, January 26, 2000
"...we're doing our final preparations and should be starting on our climb to the summit in the just the next few minutes here..."

Taxed by the Sun Cups
Tuesday, January 25, 2000
"We are at about 20,600ft on Aconcagua, somewhat established in our Camp IV, our High Camp, for our summit bid. It was a good carry up here. People were quite tired, a few headaches here and there, but in general people were doing very well..."

The Groans and The Cracks
Tuesday, January 25, 2000
"Our position here at Camp III, at 19,200ft, which is often traditionally considered Camp II, is rather interesting. We're actually camped on an active glacier..."

Great Day at the Office
Monday, January 24, 2000
"Virtually no wind, an occasional, little east wind gust, but it is very nice, warm and sunny. A very nice day to be here, Monday, at the office..."

Resting at Camp III
Sunday, January 23, 2000
"In order to have a good camp site that will resist the predatory winds that we were talking about last night, requires actually carrying a lot of rocks and constructing some pretty good-sized anchors up here for the tents and what not, and that is brutal work at 19,200 feet..."

An Interesting Night
Saturday, January 22, 2000
"...we had an interesting evening last night. Everybody did very well on the descent, had a great dinner last night, went to bed. Then the wind started to rise a little bit...."

What a Bunch of Animals!
Friday, January 21, 2000
"We moved up to Camp I in very good time yesterday, and had a really nice dinner and a nice evening down there. And did a carry today, dropped some things off at our Camp II at 17,600ft...."

Looking Forward to Move Up
Wednesday, January 19, 2000
"So we're pretty well rested up and the acclimation is doing really well. Definitely looking forward to heading up the mountain first thing tomorrow morning. And we'll actually be doing a move up to Camp I at 16,100 feet..."

Blue Skies and T-Shirts
Tuesday, January 18, 2000
"We had beautiful, T-shirt weather at Camp I, too, which was very enjoyable. We actually spent about an hour and a half hanging out, breathing the high-altitude air..."

Carry to Camp I
Tuesday, January 18, 2000
"This morning we are looking at some beautiful weather here, just about ready to leave Base Camp for our first carry up to Camp I...."

Frigid River Crossing
Sunday, January 16, 2000
"...we started this morning with a very cold river crossing of the Vacas River...There was definitely ice along the sides of the river, so we all put our Tevas on and grimaced and kind of went for it...."

Sobering News
Friday, January 14, 2000
"About five days ago, there was a pretty serious accident — I should say very serious accident — on the Polish Route. An Argentinean group of four actually fell down and went about 2,000 feet..."