Start of the hike – Sunday 11.02.2024
I woke up at the hostel in Las Vegas around 8 a.m. and packed up all my things. I had a quick coffee and then set off straight away. My destination today was one of the lower camps in the Cordon del Plata mountains, from where I could continue to climb over the next few days and tackle one of the higher peaks, Cerro Vallecitos (5475m).
At the beginning of my hike I first went along the road into the neighboring valley. The route wasn’t particularly spectacular and since I was on a relatively flat road, I made good progress.
When we arrived in the other valley, the road led straight up slightly uphill and I quickly started sweating in the warm sun. When I took a short break to drink in a shady place, I discovered that the shoelace on my right shoe had broken, which of course wasn’t a good sign for a multi-day hike in the high mountains. I sporadically covered the area with tape and hoped that it would hold somewhat. Then I continued my hike and continued uphill.
At lunchtime I took a short break at a campsite and drank an ice-cold beer, which tasted delicious in the hot temperatures.
Then I continued walking to the ranger station, where I had to register again. At least I was able to get the current weather forecast for the next few days. From the looks of it, it was supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow, but good weather was reported the following day before it was supposed to get stormy after that.
So after I added myself to the list and indicated where I would stay overnight, I made my way to the next camp.
It continued uphill and the visibility gradually got better.
When I finally reached Camp Veguitas at 3215 meters after a few hours, I was pretty exhausted and happy to finally be able to put up my tent.
By this point I had climbed over 1,400 meters in altitude. In order to get used to the new altitude, after a short break I set off again without luggage. I continued to climb 200 meters in altitude to at least do a little acclimatization.
Afterwards, I walked back down to my tent, cooked myself dinner and then went to sleep soon.
Further up – Monday 12.02.2024
Even though yesterday I thought my place to sleep was fine, I didn’t sleep particularly well tonight. Two large stones lay so stupidly under my tent that I kept turning back and forth and for once I would have been happy to have an inflatable air mattress with me. At some point during the night it started to rain and when I woke up in the morning, the outside of the tent was completely wet.
I stayed there for a few minutes and waited for the rain to lessen. Then I dismantled my wet tent and packed everything up again. Since my tent was so wet and I didn’t want to sleep in a wet tent today, I initially considered stopping the tour and climbing back down, but then decided to at least walk to the next camp and see how the weather would develop . So I made my way up in light rain and with a completely soaked tent in my backpack.
Unfortunately, since I was walking in the middle of the clouds, I could only see a few meters away most of the time and didn’t know exactly what the landscape around me actually looked like. Today too, most of the time was uphill and I reached the first camp after a short time. Since it was still early in the morning and it had at least stopped raining, I decided to hike further up.
It kept going past a stream and otherwise went up over rocks most of the time. In between, a small baby guanaco suddenly stood directly in front of me on the path, which I only recognized a few meters in front of me through the clouds. But before I could pull out my cell phone to take a picture, the little animal disappeared back into the thick clouds. Other than that, not much actually happened. I hardly met any other people and I couldn’t see much either.
Shortly before I was supposed to arrive at the next camp, two Argentinians came towards me. They told me that they had to abandon the climb to Cerro Valecitos. The weather was simply too bad and since they hadn’t included any acclimatization days, they both got headaches from the unusual altitude and so they had to descend again. They still wished me good luck and then continued the descent while I hiked further up.
Shortly after I passed the 4000m mark, I actually got a glimpse of the mountain that I would like to climb.
Unfortunately, after just a few minutes I found myself in a thick cloud again and hiked the last few meters to the camp without really being able to see anything.
After 3.5 hours I reached Camp El Salto, which was to serve as the second camp for my mountain climb. At around 4300 meters I set up my tent in one of the free places and then went on a short acclimatization hike without luggage.
I walked another 300 meters up and sat on a stone there for a few minutes. By climbing higher than I was supposed to sleep that night, I hoped that my body would acclimatize to the altitude and thus sleep better.
After a few minutes I went back down to the camp and started cooking my dinner. Other mountaineers who were dismantling their tents and descending back into the valley gave me some rice, tomato sauce and half a jar of homemade salsa, which I was very happy about.
After eating I chatted with my tent neighbor for a while. In contrast to me, he had already taken a rest day at a camp further down and would tomorrow take another rest day at a camp higher up in order to properly acclimatize and thus get used to the altitude and to counteract possible altitude sickness. Since the weather was forecast to be partly stormy the day after tomorrow and rain or thunderstorms were expected towards the evening, I wanted to attempt the climb tomorrow. He said I should allow about 8 hours for the climb and another 4 hours for the descent, which was about the same time as I had heard from other hikers and read online. So I have to set off early to reach the summit.
In the evening I packed a light backpack for tomorrow’s climb and then went to bed early to give my body enough time to regenerate and be reasonably fit tomorrow.
The climb to Cerro Vallecitos (5475m) – Thuesday 13.02.2024
In fact, I was able to sleep reasonably well even at this altitude and in very low temperatures. The sleep itself was very restless, but at least I didn’t develop any headaches, nausea or other signs of altitude sickness. So today I wanted to attempt the climb to the 5475 meter high Cerro Vallecitos.
At 5:15 a.m. my alarm went off and I could already sense the freezing temperatures outside my tent.
While two days ago I was wearing shorts, today I put on an extra layer of clothing and set off with a headlamp and gloves.
In fact, it was freezing outside and despite wearing gloves, I had to keep warming my hands. According to the weather forecast, it is probably around 0° here at the moment and further up the temperature should drop a little due to the altitude. Behind me I could see the lights of the cities below, but in front of me it was pitch black. Only the light from my headlamp allowed me to see the way. I could also see a few more headlamps in front of me, which had obviously set off well in front of me.
At the beginning it was fairly flat further back. I filled up my bottle at a small stream and then the actual climb began.
After a few meters of altitude, a hiker came towards me. He told me that he had a bad headache due to the altitude and that his liver also hurt, so unfortunately he had to stop the climb and go back down to the camp. He asked me if I could bring a small package with chocolate, nuts and other things to one of his colleagues further up. Apparently the colleague shouldn’t be too far ahead of me and I should still be able to catch up with him. So while I was putting the package in my backpack, he told his colleague José over his radio that I was bringing him something. Afterwards I wished the man a speedy recovery and while he descended to the camp, I continued up the steep slope.
After a few more strenuous minutes, I reached the last camp, La Hoyada, where there were no tents visible, which may have been because there was no drinking water in the immediate vicinity at this time of year.
From here, I went through the area a little flatter for a few minutes and had to cross two smaller snow fields, which were still completely frozen in the icy temperatures and were therefore easy to hike through.
As time passed, the sun slowly rose behind me and it became brighter and brighter. When I reached the next slope with another big climb, I was able to take off my headlamp and continue climbing without additional light.
Halfway up I caught up with two Argentinians who had already started at 4 a.m. and therefore almost 1.5 hours before me. As it turned out, there was no José there, so I had to go further to get to the next group. So I quickly left the two of them behind me and continued up the steep slope.
When I finally reached the ridge, I saw the rising morning sun on the other side, which was a beautiful sight.
I could also see the next group further up and when they saw me, they waved straight to me. So I knew that José had to be one of them, to whom I should deliver the package. By now the mountain air was really getting to me. While I didn’t have a headache or other symptoms of altitude sickness, I was panting like crazy and realized I hadn’t adapted well to the altitude. Nevertheless, I soon reached the last hiker in the group and it turned out to be José. I handed him his package. He thanked me very much for the delivery and, as a small thank you, gave me half a bar of chocolate that I could eat at the summit. A few minutes later we both reached the other hikers in the group who were taking a break in a place sheltered from the wind. I stood next to them and we chatted for a few minutes while I tried to drink some water, which unfortunately wasn’t that easy. Due to the low temperatures at this altitude, a small layer of ice had formed in my bottle, which I had to break open before I could drink the ice-cold water. The mountaineers were surprised that I was traveling so quickly and had caught up with them, even though I had set off almost 1.5 hours later. When I then told them that I had never been above 5,000 meters and that today was only my third day on the mountain, which meant I didn’t have a break to acclimatize, they were even more amazed. When I started to feel cold, I set off again.
When I reached the last pass, I caught up with the third group, who had already set off at 3 a.m. But they turned left to Cerro El Plata, a mountain almost 6,000 meters high.
Since the additional 5 hours of climbing were too far for my first 5000m, I turned right and continued on a ridge towards Cerro Vallecitos.
Here I was able to walk in the warm sun, but the freezing wind made it still damn cold. I made quick progress on the flat and easy-to-walk section without much effort and soon reached the final section of the climb. On the back of the mountain we went uphill again to the actual summit.
Here I was somewhat protected from the wind, but since I had to walk in the shade, it was still freezing cold again and I had to keep warming my hands because my light gloves were not suitable for this cold.
On the last few meters to the summit, the thin mountain air bothered me so much that I stopped about every 20 meters and had to take a breather. So I still needed a lot of time for the last climb, which didn’t look particularly steep or difficult.
Nevertheless, I soon reached the end of the path. From here I had to climb another 10 meters up a rock.
Then I actually reached the top of the mountain at 5475 meters above sea level. What a great feeling!
Overall, I was much quicker than planned and instead of 8 hours for the climb, I reached the summit after less than 3.5 hours.
At the top I even found a place sheltered from the wind where the morning sun warmed me up enough.
Here I unwrapped half the chocolate bar that José had given me and ate most of it. Meanwhile I looked at the beautiful landscape. In front of me I could see the lake and the mountain range behind it, with Cerro Baños, which seemed very small from up here.
Next to me I had a good view of the highest mountain in the range, Cerro del Plata.
On the other side I was able to take a look at some even higher mountains in the Andes and even see Cerro Aconcagua, which was not even 1500 meters higher than where I was at the moment.
Here’s another panoramic view.
After enjoying the view for a few minutes and my body slowly starting to cool down, I started the descent from the magnificent summit again. I climbed down the rock, picked up my hiking poles again and walked down the first slope to the ridge.
On the way I met the group from before again. They informed me that they had lost one of their rented radios and that if I found it, I should put it on the trail so they could pack it up later. Then I told them how long it was until the summit and how best to get up the rock. Afterwards I wished them good luck and continued down the mountain. I actually found her radio on the upper ridge. I quickly built a small tower out of stones and put it on top so they couldn’t miss it. Then I quickly ran further down.
The descent was quite steep, but I still made quick progress and the warming morning sun soon made me so warm that I was able to take off my extra long underpants and also do without gloves. So as I descended further and further down, I took a closer look at the surroundings that I couldn’t really see in the darkness this morning.
After 5.5 hours I arrived back at my tent and it didn’t even take half as long as I had planned. Since it was lunchtime, I cooked a pot full of pasta and stirred in the homemade salsa that I had received as a gift yesterday.
After eating, I lay down for 20 minutes and rested after successfully climbing Cerro Vallecitos.
But since it was still early in the day and I was fairly fit, I dismantled my tent, put everything back in my backpack and then started the descent in order to possibly get back to Mendoza today.
So with a full backpack I walked back down to the previous camp. Since today was perfect weather, I was able to see the landscape around me and enjoyed it very much.
After a few more hours I reached Camp Veguitas again, which had served as the first camp on my hike. By this point I had already descended over 2000 meters in altitude and was slowly becoming exhausted. But since it wasn’t too far to the ranger station and I was hoping to find a ride there today, I just kept walking down.
I noticed the exertion of the day more and more and after another 500 meters downhill I got a small cramp in my left calf for the first time. I quickly stretched the muscle a bit and then set off to complete the remaining meters down to the ranger station. Luckily, from here we continued on a slightly sloping road, which wasn’t particularly scenic, but was quite pleasant for the overworked muscles and joints.
After leaving at 5:30 this morning, I finally reached the ranger station after over 10 hours of hiking. I reported back there and checked out. Then I started looking for a ride back to Mendoza. Since there were no buses or other public transport from here, I had to hitchhike back. Luckily there was already a space available for me in the second car or they were willing to take me with them. A few minutes later I was sitting in the small Polo with 4 other hikers and since everyone had a large backpack with a tent etc. and not everything fit in the trunk, we were pretty much squeezed in. But I was happy to have gotten a place and to be able to return to Mendoza today. As we drove further down the gravel road for a long time and then continued for almost 2 hours to Mendoza, I slowly became more and more tired and I noticed the exhaustion of the day.
In Mendoza the nice couple let me out at the bus terminal. Since I was too exhausted to walk anymore, I had a quick dinner at McDonalds and then ran to the nearest accommodation I could find. There I took a soothing shower and then collapsed onto my bed, where I fell asleep a little later, exhausted but happy.
Overall, it was a very nice 3-day tour during which I was able to climb my first 5000m peak, Cerro Vallecitos (5475m). Although it was three very strenuous days in which I climbed more than 1000 meters a day, descended almost 3000 meters on the last day and didn’t know whether I would even be able to do it due to the lack of acclimatization, but the effort was definitely worth it and I would do it again at any time.
Leave a Reply