Today we carried our first load to Camp 3 at just over 6000m – the final camp before summit day.  We were so close to summiting by now, just a couple of sleeps to go and we would have achieved our goal for this trip.  All our hard work would be rewarded by that amazing sense of achievement of having climbed our first high altitude mountain.  Success was imminent! 

By now all of us were experiencing symptoms of altitude to some degree or another.  I woke to find I had quite a lot of swelling to my face and I didn’t feel quite right somehow.  I couldn’t put a finger on why I didn’t feel right, just knew that something wasn’t as it normally is.  But then I was at altitude and therefore was not going to feel great (or look particularly good! – mountaineering goes hand in hand with bad hair days and body odour!), especially as I had not slept at all well.  I had experienced a slight swelling in my face lower down on the mountain and it had gone down after a couple of hours and so I expected the same to happen today.  Altitude symptoms often get worse over night but improve as you get up and move around during the day.  An extra rest day to acclimatise would have been ideal at this point and a number of groups were doing exactly that.  However, our guide was worried about the weather window and so we pushed on.  

I found this day the hardest one yet and wished I had given myself a lighter load.  Our logic had been to carry the heaviest load on the first day so that when you were tired on the second day it would be easier to manage.  In hindsight, it may have been wiser to have carried the lighter load whilst acclimatising and the heavier load the second day.  But that was what this trip was all about – learning what works best for us (and as usual we learnt the hard way! – Doh!). 

The weather wasn’t great and hid any views, giving us snow, winds and greyness (new word but it totally describes everything about the day – like a dull grey Sunday – looked grey, felt grey, was grey!).  One point of interest was passing the site where a fatal helicopter crash had occurred a few years earlier, the twisted remains of the propellers reminding us not to forget those who lost their lives during a daring yet fatal rescue attempt and a stark reminder of how dangerous it can be up here and how rescue is often impossible.  I was slower than usual today and really felt the hours drag on – but there was no doubt in my mind that I could make it.  I would get up there no matter how tired I felt.  And I did.  I managed to keep up with the group and make it to Camp 3 at around 6000m. 

Now for the science bit…..The pressure is lower on Aconcagua (which means the air is thinner) than it is in the Himalayas due to its relative distance from the equator.  The further away from the equator you are, the lower the pressure.  What this basically means is that when you are at 6000m on Aconcagua it feels the same as being at 7000m in the Himalayas!  Strange but true!  

It was a relief to reach Camp 3 after a tough day’s climbing.  As I had struggled all day I found that every time I reached a rest stop everyone else would get up and move and not wanting to drop too far behind I had pushed on.  I therefore did not have time to recover and to eat properly.  However, catch up with the group I did and we all made it to Camp 3 together.  By then I was tired and hungry and had hoped for a few minutes to rest and eat.  It was of course at this point that the weather decided to make a turn for the worse and near white out conditions swept over the mountain disorientating us and bringing with it cold and precarious winds. 

It was not the time to hang around and our guides set off down the mountain at break neck speed (again!).  I still wasn’t feeling myself at all and felt somewhat spaced out, I was also stumbling a lot and Stevie, Pierre and Elianna kept me company, supporting me all the way down and teasing me about my inability to make my legs go any faster!  Whilst I knew I would make it down just fine I was frustrated that once again the effects of the altitude seemed to hit me harder coming down!  Mind you, most mountaineering statistics cite that approximately 80% of fatalities and serious accidents occur on the descent so I’m certainly not the only one!  But we got there and after about an hour I felt fine again.  We had some dinner (no loss of appetite for us!) and then it was to bed before our last carry to Camp 3 the following morning.