Once I had decided to attempt to climb Aconcagua, the most immediate problem seemed to be the lack of any potential companions.  Nearly 7 years had gone by since I had hatched my rather naïve plan to include an ascent of Aconcagua in my round-the-world trip : the idea of just packing a backpack and heading off alone to attempt to climb the highest mountain in the Andes now seemed rather ridiculous.  Accordingly, in November 1997 I made a serious attempt to find someone else who was interested.  I went along to a couple of the Santiago mountaineering clubs, and asked if anyone knew of anyone who was thinking about trying the easiest route (the “Normal” Route) on Aconcagua the following January.

While in Santiago, I found one person who was planning to at least go to the base camp at Plaza de Mulas in January, with some Austrian friends of hers who were flying over specially.  The Austrians had apparently talked about doing the Normal Route and then trying one of the more difficult routes.  I stayed in contact with her, to see how their plans developed.  I also contacted a couple of the companies in Santiago that organise guided groups to Aconcagua.  The most promising one was called Azimut – they seemed well organised and were planning to have a trip leaving around the time that I had calculated that I wanted to go.  I decided that this would be a sensible, if more expensive, option if there were no other alternative.

However, more than one person who I had spoken to in the mountaineering clubs had said that a number of people do go on their own to Aconcagua, because there are always other people with whom it is possible to team up at Base Camp.  In the end I made the decision that if the Austrian group did not materialise or had other plans, then I would go alone, and take potluck on finding companions later at Base Camp.  Not having to depend on other people simplified matters enormously, and meant that the only things I had to do before January were get myself fit, buy a climbing permit, and spend some money on the extra equipment that I would need.

In terms of the budget, at no stage did I really decide how much money I expected, or indeed wished, to spend on the trip to Aconcagua.  However, as it turned out, an alternative title to this account could be “Aconcagua on a Shoestring”.  In terms of the ratio of  “altitude reached”  to “cash spent”, or even in terms of dollars per day, the trip was exceptionally good value.  It cost me an order of magnitude less than it cost virtually all the other people who I met on the mountain.  This wasn’t as a result of any decision by me to be tight-fisted : for a while I was seriously thinking of going with the Azimut guided group from Santiago, at an extra cost of $1200, simply because I didn’t have anyone to go with.  But having subsequently realised that it was, after all, a feasible proposition for me to go independently, I couldn’t then resist the challenge of attempting the ascent with minimal assistance and use of resources. 

Some of the people who I was to meet on the mountain had spent fortunes on buying equipment specially for the trip – my 2 Berlin Camp companions, in particular, seemed to have spent over $6000 on the latest brand new gear.   Luckily in my case the only equipment that I didn’t already have, and therefore had to buy, was : a pair of double high altitude plastic boots (Koflach Clima Montanas), a down jacket, some down-filled overmitts, an extra one litre fuel bottle, a two litre water bag, and a long sleeved thermal vest.   Apart from that, I just used my existing camping and winter mountain walking gear, much of which was fifteen or more years old.  The cost of the gear I had to buy was about $400.  Actually in terms of the total cost of the trip, I had an extra advantage over the other non Argentineans – the climbing permit normally cost $120, but being a resident of Argentina it only cost me $40.  A work colleague, Hector, kindly obtained this for me in Mendoza where he lives, and give it to me in December once we were both back working at the WesternGeophysical camp in southern Patagonia.

Apart from buying the gear and the permit, the only preparation I did before the beginning of January 1998 was to try to run between seven and ten km every day during the month of December, including between two and four hundred metres of ascent and descent.  The very remote location of the seismic exploration camp made these evening training runs quite adventurous in their own right! By Christmas, when I departed from the camp to start my period of leave, I felt that I was as fit as I had ever been in my life.  Between Christmas and the 8th January, when I was travelling around in southern Chile, I hardly did anything in the way of exercise and unfortunately lost some fitness.  

During this time I had made some telephone calls to Santiago to find out the status of the Austrian group.  As it turned out, only one of the Austrians had come, and he did not want to do the Normal Route.  It seemed I would be going to Aconcagua alone.

I arrived in my apartment in Santiago on the night of the 5th January, and spent the next two days buying a few more items of equipment that I was still missing, together with sixteen days worth of food.  On the morning of the 7th January I spent $100 in the local supermarket, and staggered back to my 10th floor apartment carrying about fifteen kilos of dried and tinned food. 

I subsequently discovered that what with all the other things I had to take, there was not going to be room for any food whatsoever in my large (75 litre) rucksack.  I decided I would have to cut down.  In the end, I took about $75 worth of food, having ditched a few superfluous bulky items and resigning myself to less culinary variety than I might have liked.  A last minute addition was three packets of “charqui” – a Chilean delicacy consisting of strips of dried meat – which were intended to replace three tins of fish that I had been going to take.  In the end, the charqui was quite tasty when dry, but utterly revolting when I tried to rehydrate it (it didn’t help matters that half way through trying to chew my way through the revolting soggy rehydrated lumps, I read the packet and established that it was not dried beef but dried horsemeat!).