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Climbing the Polish Route
Monday, January 31, 2000
 Prittie | |
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Hello, this is Willi Prittie reporting again, once again, from Argentina. Mark and I are actually on the trek out, back to civilization: steaks, beer, wine, all that good stuff. Once again, it was a stormy afternoon on the mountain. Pat Timson's team actually got down to Base Camp all just fine. So, they're all appreciating the thick air of the 14,000-foot Base Camp. Right now, we're at the campsite near Casa Piedra down at Las Cuevas and kind of sitting here with our sleeping bags thrown out on the ground, expecting a really wonderful star display and also looking at the full glory of Aconcagua, right now. It's cleared off the last half an hour or so.
Mark and I were discussing a little bit today and we thought it might be appropriate to talk a little bit about the Polish direct route, which we had done — for those that are interested in that route. Your base of operations is generally the camp at 19.2, which is traditionally known as Camp II. From 19,200ft to about 20,000ft, it's...[transmission fails].
Yeah, let's try this again. Anyway, there are three trails that go up the right-hand side of the trail, almost to 20,000ft. So you can pick the place where you actually get on to the side of the Polish direct. Often it's a very smart move, to avoid the penitentes that form later in the season down below. From that point on, the middle third of the mountain is a moderate angle in the 25-35° range. It's very good for French technique, flatfooting with crampons. We had very good conditions, some snow that you could kick steps in. For the most part it was mainly kind of soft, Styrofoam ice. Once you get above the very, very long, prominent rock band at about two-thirds height, which is called Piedra Bandera, the route steepens significantly and it's 45-50+ for large sections. That area we found was very hard, classic Styrofoam, alpine ice — kind of the perfect, one swing axe and crampon placements. We enjoyed that immensely and generally used two tools for security and also mixed, or American foot, technique – one foot in front pulling, one foot in flatfoot. That type of ice is generally too soft to accept ice screws, so the screws which we had were of marginal use and we made very, very good use of the pickets that we had, although it's a great deal of effort to drive a picket in, in those kinds of conditions.
It is very, very steep and exposed up there and definitely you want to...[Unintelligible]...at the beginning of the expedition there had been a tragedy with four Argentineans, who actually died on that route because they were not...[Unintelligible]...and came off on the final ice slopes above. So, we were determined not to repeat any kind of a tragedy like that and...[Unintelligible]...pretty well for us. The Polish direct route is actually very, very scenic, very beautiful, very pure route and it's a climb up here. But be advised it is also very tough due to the altitude. If you come and try it, make sure you try it and be well acclimated, as well as be very strong for it.
So, right now we are just kind of enjoying the last of evening light here in the main Vacas Valley. We are going to take a leisurely time and walk three days out and we're going to enjoy some steaks and beer and wine in Mendoza. But for now, that's all from Argentina.
—Alpine Ascents Guide Willi Prittie, MountainZone.com Correspondent
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