Volcán San José

That bump in the distanc is the Volcán San José. Its the peak that Anders and I summited in January. That little black line of blurry characters says that the peak is at 5800 meters. The round-trip takes five days from the end of the road in Cajon del Maipo. The way up isn't especially challenging, but the altitude is a bitch. It was my first time at altitude like that and the only peak i've ever done. Even though it was the middle of summer we spent most of the way up on a glaciar. Ironically, it was the last part of the ascent that was over rock. Besides the altitude the wind so strong you can't breath when you're facing into it. This is the highest mountain at this latitude so the winds whipping around the (much diminished) distance around the world at what i think is about 33 degrees south, hit the face of the volcano at full-force. The cone of the volcano has caved in but still spits out a nice sulfur stink and the inside is convered in the yellow and green deposits of the sulfur.

On our way up we ran across a group of Argentines who were coming down, one of whom was obviously in bad shape. One of them was far ahead of the others and told us the guy struggling was french and had been trying to summit solo when his strength gave out. He sat down to take a rest at about 5.400 meters and woke up four days later in the tents of the argentines severly hypothermic and dehydrated. They told us they kept him in the tent for three days wrapped up in all of their clothes, and gave him sips of water and bits of food until he was strong enough to walk down. On the way down the ranger told us they had carried him out the part on horseback and that he would be fine. Goes to show what altitude can do to you. Anders and I spent the last afternoon in the tent at about 5000 meters so messed up from the altitude that we couldn't eat sleep or get up. The result was a mix of incoherent conversation, silence, and fruitless attempts to motivate the other to cook. We were only able to understand how ridiculous it was when we had come down the next day to a reasonable altitude.

I'll try and find some more shots of the trip, I'm sure I've got them somewhere...

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