ACONCAGUA 2006

At 6,959 meters, Cerro Aconcagua is the highest point on the South American Continent. It is located on the border between Argentina and Chile. The first recorded ascent was in 1897 by an expedition led by the Briton Edward Fitzgerald. The summit was reached by Swiss Mathias Zurbriggen on January 14, and by two other expedition members a few days later.

In 1934, four members of the polish expedition opened a new chapter in the history of the mountain. Returning from a very successful exploration of the Ramada and Mercedario Ranges, the group decided to attack Aconcagua from the east side. After a long trip up the Relinchos Valley, they finally arrived at the bottom of a long glacier falling directly from the main summit. Two days later Konstanty Narkiewicz-Jodko, Wiktor Ostrowski, Stefan Daszynski and Stefan Osiecki reached the summit.

After the return to base camp they unanimously decided to call the new route The Polish Glacier.

The summer of 2005 was one of the worst in my life. The failure on Everest seriously affected my confidence. Perhaps I was too old to try such challenging tasks. I was busy with my work trying to recover the time lost during the two and a half month long expedition. The Seven Summits Quest looked more and more like a dream not to be fulfilled. But no matter how hard I tried to forget, I could not get over the events in the spring. Finally I realized that the only way to regain the peace would be to continue with the project. In November 2005, I joined Aventuras Patagonicas for an expedition to Aconcagua. The normal route to the summit did not present a real mountaineering challenge. I decided to follow in the footsteps of the Polish Four and climb via The Polish Glacier.

The Aconcagua 2006 expedition is organized by Aventuras Patagonicas. I will be leaving Toronto on January 3, 2006 and will fly to Mendoza, Argentina. For more details about the expedition please refer to Aventuras Patagonicas web site. This web site will contain the latest dispatches and photographs.

Click here to view the latest dispatches.