Hola Friends, Family & Loved Ones,
A Tejas Rest Day it was. This morning after breakfast we went on a short ramble around basecamp. In addition to a number of other expeditions, there were tents advertising an art gallery, craft beer, porters and mule services and the like. It’s an entire small community up here at 14,000 feet.
We then walked over to an abandoned Refugio located West of camp, where we were able to get a really good view of our climbing route and see basecamp from afar.
On the way back to camp, we detoured to see some really big penitentes, which are snow formations formed by a process called sublimation and are rarer and rarer these days.
After a lunch of an Argentinian style quiche/calzone (which was delicious by the way), we started sorting gear and lunch food for the upper mountain.Vern gave a detailed demonstration of how to use a wag bag (don’t ask) which was both entertaining AND informative.
Just after 5 pm, the weather changed to icy snow, which is coming down as we write. Better to have inclement weather down here at Base Camp than up high!
The team is doing really well. We are looking forward to celebrating Jason’s birthday tonight.
Our plan for tomorrow might change based on the weather- we’ll keep you posted. Apologies, but the weather is interfering with the internet and we have no ability to send photos at the moment— we tried!
Vern & Carole
