Aconcagua, South Face. On February 10 our group left Laguna Horcones for Base Camp. After reconnaissance and acclimatization on the 11th and 12th we decided on the 1966 route of Aykes and Pellegrini. On the 13th we placed Camp I at 15,750 feet. After a week of route preparation—we placed 2000 feet of rope—on February 21 Gastón Oyarzún, Claudio Gálvez and I set out, supported to 17,400 feet by Juan Pardo and Gonzalo Salamanca, who then returned to the normal route. That same day we climbed another difficult 325 feet to reach a glacier at 17,725 feet. On the 22nd we climbed the glacier towards the icefall that descends from the upper glacier. It took seven hours to cross a rotten rock band. The bivouac was at 19,700 feet. The icefall was climbed in eight hours to reach the upper glacier and third bivouac at 20,675 feet. On the 24th we climbed the ice on the French spur to bivouac uncomfortably at 22,000 feet on 60° ice. It took all day on February 25 to climb the spur to the summit, which we reached at ten P.M. We descended the normal route.

Iván Vigouroux Vidal, Asociación Universitaria de

Andinismo de Chile