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Going for the Polish Route
Thursday, January 27, 2000
 Prittie | |
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Hi, this is Willi Prittie reporting from Argentina on Aconcagua, with the Alpine Ascents program. Things got a little busy yesterday, coming down, we had a little bit of wind, which came in on us. There was some east side buildup and it created some fog-out conditions, a little bit of blowing snow, and poor visibility. We also had several people who were quite tired after — understandably — climbing to almost 23,000 feet. We did get back to High Camp fine and there we split the party in two, and decided that, one person who was particularly tired and getting dinged by altitude a bit, continued on down with several of the other members to our Camp III at 19.2; where the rest of us stayed at Camp IV at 20,600 to rest a little before we came down today.
So everybody is down now, safe and sound at Base Camp. Probably, as I speak, enjoying a nice wonderful meal, with the exception of Mark and myself. We are still at Camp III at 19.2. This is mostly a rest day for us because we'll be leaving at about 2am in the morning to attempt the Polish direct route. So, we're both really looking forward to that. As I am speaking, I'm actually at about 20,000ft on the side of the Polish Glacier. I decided to take an evening stroll up to check out the access route this year, see what things look like. It's about an hour before sunset, an absolutely gorgeous evening with intermittent fog cover, but also beautiful sunlight — golden sunlight — on all of the peaks and glaciers in my view here.
So, we're really looking forward to tomorrow...[transmission fails].
—Alpine Ascents Guide Willi Prittie, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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