Altitude Adjustment: The Andes and Mt. Aconcagua

No doubt about it, I'm an outdoorsy kind of girl. More specifically, a mountain girl. There has never in my life been a single solitary vacation or adventure of mine that didn't have some sort of outdoor element to it, even if that just meant a walk on a beach. If I don't get out into the open air and visit with Mother Nature at regular intervals, there is a void in my life.

So, it was absolutely no surprise to me that after leaving the mega-city that is Buenos Aires, arriving in Mendoza with the snow-capped peaks of the Andes in the distance was just what I needed. I stepped off the plane, took a deep, cleansing breath of that sparkling mountain air, and all was right in the world.


Of course, it's not just enough to SEE the mountains; I had to get up in them as well. Since this trip wasn't going to afford me the luxury of spending time hiking or camping, a day trip with a guide was going to be the most efficient way to hit the highlights. Patty, Windsor and I booked the "A Day in the Andes" tour with the Mendoza guide service "Trout & Wine." Let me be honest: I chose that particular company strictly on the sheer principle of its name. I figured that there was no way we could go wrong with a name like that - and I was right. Trout & Wine is an incredible guide service, start to finish. We couldn't have asked for better experiences in our two days with them (we also booked a wine tour). From our copious amount of pre-trip email communications with the owner, Charlie, to last minute changes and requests, to our absolutely hands-down best guide ever (hi Juan!), Trout & Wine exceeded our every expectation.

So back to the mountains. My main goal was to catch a glimpse of Mt. Aconcagua. If you're of the "Acon-wha?" group (most people are, I've since discovered), it is the highest point on the globe outside of the Himalaya. At 22,841 feet, it's more than 2,500 feet taller than North America's highest peak, Mt. Denali (20, 335). Aconcagua means "stone sentinel" in Quechen; the indigenous Huarpe Indians regarded it as the gate to heaven. Its first recorded ascent was by a British expedition in 1897, but had been explored by none other than Charles Darwin himself in the 1830s. Fossil evidence proves that it was once beneath the sea, pushed up to the sky through tectonic plate activity (it is not a volcano, although there are volcanoes within the Andes range).

Mt. Aconcagua

Mt. Aconcagua

The mountains in this stretch of the Andes are remarkably stark. I had no idea. They are not forested, but rather, rocky and dry. It's a landscape that is beautiful in its subtlety of color. Our day's journey took us through the Pre-Cordillera (foothills, barren of snow), to the Cordillera Central (the snow-capped peaks surrounding Mt. Aconcagua), and finally, to the base of Aconcagua herself, right at the border between Argentina and Chile. Surprisingly, Mt. Aconcagua is not a national park. Rather, it is a Parque Provincial, run by the province of Mendoza. Chock it up to crazy politics; Mendoza beat the nation to it, so that's how it stands.


An Aconcagua mountaineering guide I met shed some light on perhaps why my draw to the mountain was so strong. He explained that as home to the Andean Condor (the largest flying bird in the Western hemisphere, and a species that lives off of carrion), Mt. Aconcagua has an energy that honors what is dead. People come to climb it or admire it, and consciously or not, it is a place where you can leave the past behind - or anything that is dead, literally or figuratively - to find some resolution, perhaps peace. Since I had already vowed to make 2011 my best year alive yet, and discard some of my baggage from the previous year, I'm buying into his theory.

Horcones Pond

Horcones Pond

Guide extraordinaire, Juan.

Cerro El Plata (Silver Mountain)