Summit view Photo: Diana Reid

PHASE 4: THE SUMMIT BID

Morning came quickly and with much chaos. Isolina and I awoke to hear Tom yelling "Girls, we're walking in 10 minutes!" Shit, shit, shit were my only thoughts and words. What the heck happened to waking up at 5am and leaving at 6am? Apparently Mike & Ana had called us - but "breakfast!" from 100 yards away, in the gusting winds, doesn't always reach you, we found. Of course we hadn't heard them. Dammit. We quickly scrambled out of our tent, grumpy and groggy. I threw on my gear as quickly as humanly possible, and was still pulling on my down mittens and backpack as our team headed out of camp. We didn't have time to eat breakfast or drink anything. This was NOT how I wanted to start the biggest day of the journey.

The walk out of camp in the early morning light more than compensated for the frazzled way we began. The sky was painted shades of purple, pink and blue, and the sun rose, first slowly and then with lightning speed, rising up from behind the mountains and shining fiercely in the cloud-free blue sky. Climbing higher, we could see parts of the Andes we'd not yet seen, and the valleys from which we'd come.

We slowly, slowly trudged up the mountain, sandwiched between several other expeditions. I ate some Gu and gummi bears, pulled my hat and hoods tight to keep the cold out, and focused on watching Tom's boots ahead of me. Step, step, step. "Hey Tom, what's the song for today?" I asked. I needed distraction. Tom was of no help at all other than his "One little, two little, three little Indians" favorite, so I took to counting my own footsteps to keep myself company. Oddly enough, I never seemed to start at one, I always just found myself at 32, or 15, or some other random number. And, being at 21,000' at the time, it seemed entirely logical to my oxygen-starved brain. We stopped briefly here, at a tiny little hut called Independencia, and put on crampons and grabbed our ice axes for the next part of the journey.

By now Isolina, struggling with some knee pain and not able to keep Mike's determined and steady pace, had turned back. It was just Tom, G and me, along with Ana and Mike (David had decided not to attempt the summit after feeling quite ill on the way to Camp 4). We continued on; G & Mike zipping up the trail, and me continuing to use Tom's boots as my singular focus in life. I felt surprisingly good. Despite earlier difficulties on the trip, I was not sick, nor tired, and was ready to go the distance.

Tom said, "Well, we may not make it up as fast as those two, but I seriously think we're going to summit!" I said, "I think you're right!" and was thrilled. We climbed our way up a steep snow field, carefully navigating with ice axe and ski pole, and trying hard not to think about how high we really were, lest our lungs hear us. The wind howled with the most amazing ferocity imaginable. My hands were freezing, my face was freezing, my feet were freezing. But I felt so good - no headache, no nausea, good low heart rate - and really strong. Then, after a fairly flat and narrow traverse - using our ice axes not for traction in the snow, but to stay upright in the wind's furor - we ducked behind some protective boulders.

"Oh god Diana, I think you just frostbit your face!" Then, "Where is your balaclava?" Not really understanding what he'd just told me, I didn't think much of it - I simply said, "Oh, it's in my backpack, I'll put it on now," through a very frozen chin and jaw. I quickly put it on and readied myself to continue upwards. Mike turned to me quietly and said, "Diana, I'm sorry. Ana's going to take you down now." Wait! What? But I'm fine! I'm strong! I feel good. This is where the mountain's most important lesson was really hammered home:

Lesson #6: Mountaineering is really only 20% about strength or skill. The remaining 80% is comprised of 50% sheer mental and emotional willpower (when your mind makes your body go when it says it can't), and about 30% uncontrollable elements (the weather, the altitude, your body's reactions). You can plan for everything, be physically ready, yet there are ever the unseen obstacles.

I stood stunned, unable to register what had just happened. Go down? Then tears came to my eyes and I realized, it's over. I numbly put my sunglasses on and struggled with my mittens. I lost the will to dress myself, and Ana had to help me with pack, coat and gloves. I asked Tom quietly, "What does your altimeter say?" "21,500'," he answered, looking sympathetic. So close, but yet so far. I slowly trailed behind Ana, sniffling like a kid and fogging up my glasses, stumbling down the mountain. Back at 21,000', I took off my crampons and Ana took my photo and I somehow managed to smile, and then we continued our descent, picking up several other would-be-but-now-turned-back summiteers along the way. Once back at our tent, Isolina and I briefly consoled each other, and then began to realize feelings of great relief. We had finished the hardest part.

An hour or so later we heard Tom's voice at camp. He had encountered significant altitude sickness at around 22,000' and couldn't tell the snow from the sky, which, appropriately enough, scared the crap out of him, and he descended. Streams of people continued to come down the mountain, dejected and exhausted. The wind, Ana said, was too much. The weather was just too cold. I checked my chin, nose and cheeks, and was lucky to find only minor redness. Mike had noticed the frostbite so early that, in the end, after a few days of numbness and discomfort, the worst I faced was a small patch of skin peeling off my nose. I was incredibly lucky.

"Coming down the Normal Route we were thrilled to have a new set of territory to cover, but horrified to realize we were now atop the world's biggest gravel pile..."

Around 4pm Mike and Gernot descended. They, along with one climber from our sister expedition, were the only summiteers amongst our two groups and 20 climbers that day. And of course, G being G, had summited not once, but twice. He had marched ahead of Mike at one point and made it to the summit, and then, when on the way down, he ran into Mike, who was now guiding Sarah to the top, and decided well hell, I'll go up again. So he did. We cheered his arrival into camp, and all fell exhausted into a very long sleep.

PHASE 5: THE DESCENT

The next day began the best and perhaps, the worst part of the trip. Coming down the Normal Route we were thrilled to have a new set of territory to cover, but horrified to realize we were now atop the world's biggest gravel pile. Words really cannot describe just how hideous it is to try to walk when there is no solid ground under your feet, you are at 10-40% grades AND, you are now carrying about 75lbs on your back. We scrambled around like Bambi learning how to walk; sliding, skiing, and falling (well, mostly just falling). For 6,000 vertical feet we cursed the mountain, the Normal Route, and mentally derided anyone who would willingly choose to climb UP this particular hideous rock pile of a route.

As we continued to fall, we became more and more tired, quads screaming, ankles rolling, and it became harder and harder to get up. I felt like an up-ended turtle at times, my pack so huge and heavy that I couldn't manage to right myself even after five or six tries. Isolina informed us she'd fallen 16 times. I fell so hard at one point I landed right on the back of my own boots and clubbed my tailbone, making walking (and eventually sitting) unfathomably uncomfortable. Oh God, I almost want to go back up.

After six hours of this we arrived at Plaza de las Mulas (14,000'); Base Camp and the most amazing tent city you could imagine. Oh, I see now. HERE is where all the cool stuff is. There were massive tents with wooden floors, restaurants and full stocked bars. A tent that held an Internet cafe. Solar showers. Enviro toilets. Music. It was like walking into Oz. We gratefully abandoned our packs - for the muleteers to take down the next day - and ate our way through five hot-and-oh-so-blissful pizzas served up by muleteer friends of Ana's, and finally breathed a sigh of relief. We were off the mountain.

We spent the night, joy of joys, at the Refugio at Base Camp. While the building was unheated and the beds were hard wooden bunks, we had a roof over our heads, food that didn't consist of dried pasta, and the sound of the gusting wind was far away. The next day we trekked the remaining, and at times exhausting, 20 miles and 6,000' down the valley to the park entrance. The weather became summer-hot again and the landscape greener and more lush. We slogged through more rivers and more gravel, but the knowledge that our journey would soon be complete - and the ability to finally breathe without effort - spurred us onward.

I spent much of the day walking on my own, trying to find closure for the trip and sort things out in my head. Was I sad about not summiting? Was this a successful journey? Was the result worth the toll my body had taken? What had I learned - about the mountain, the country, my team, myself? As I crossed the suspension bridge over the Horcones river, which signaled the end of the trek, I took one last look at Aconcagua. And I had no regrets. I may not have summited, but I didn't back down, and I think the mountain and I respected each other for that.

Arriving home, many people have asked me how my trip was, and each time I struggled a bit to find the right words. On one hand it was painful, exhausting, and in general, just tremendously hard on my body and my mind. It was also one of the biggest challenges I've ever undertaken in my life. I was inspired, thrilled, awed by the beauty, and overcome with a sense of tremendous personal accomplishment. Nothing seems unattainable, not possible. An amazing gift, if you ask me.

"Would I do it again?" many have asked. Yes, absolutely I would repeat this adventure. How could I miss out on something that challenged every part of my being and tested limits I didn't even know existed? Now, "Will I do it again?" is a whole other ballgame though. I think perhaps not, as I sit cozily at home in San Francisco, enjoying a mild winter and the luxury of daily showers. But, then again, who knows? The human mind is blissfully and naively forgetful, and the body resilient and strong - I am sure I will be back in the mountains soon.

"To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive."
- Robert Louis Stevenson