Image by: Neeti Singhal
I’ve loved walking in the footsteps of these giant men in history and feeling the many feelings they felt as they carved out a route on this crumbling mountain of dust and rock. There are one too many reasons why you should climb this peak, but here are a select few of its highlights that made it an exciting mountain for me to climb – and one of great significance.
1. The Andes Are a Class Apart
Aconcagua is the highest point of the Andes range of mountains – the longest mountain range in the world! If you are into numbers, the Andean range is a whooping 8,900 kms long which is more than THREE AND A HALF TIMES longer than the Himalayan Range (2,500 kms). That should help you imagine the scale of this massive range which stretches through SEVEN countries in South America: Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Venezuela.
The range has the widest collection of volcanic mountains. Climbing Aconcagua gives you the right flavour of this fascinating mountain range. In fact, Aconcagua is also a volcanic landform which has originated from volcanic activity; that explains it’s dry, smoky terrain. The climb puts you at the crown of this volcanic rubble, to get a bird’s eye view of the desert-like Andes stretching wide in all directions for as far as your eye can see. When you get to the top, you’ll see it is an entire city of mountains – all shapes and sizes – blocking the existence of the world beyond its borders.
Here's another interesting fact about the Andes which for me, makes them a winner in the category of the most interesting range of mountains in the world:
The entire Andean range is part of the Pacific Ring of Fire which is a 40,235 km horseshoe-shaped chain of volcanoes and seismically active sites that outline the Pacific Ocean. The Central Andes between Chile and Argentina are dominated by volcanoes. The region has over 200 potentially active volcanoes and at least 12 giant caldera systems. The Andes have more volcanoes that have been active during the Holocene (past 10,000 years) than any other volcanic region in the world.
If you are looking to feel the sheer expanse of this mountain range, I’d suggest you watch Society of the Snow which is the story of the survivors of a plane crash in 1972 – the crash forced the plane’s occupants to become mountaineers and find their way out of this jigsaw puzzle that is the Andean range. Watching this movie makes the realization of the magnanimity of this mountain range hit you in the chest like a gushing wave.
2. Seven Summits and Many More Titles
Getting its name rolling off your tongue may take a few dozen attempts, Aconcagua is one name on the tip of every mountaineer’s tongue nonetheless. Apart from being the tallest mountain in the longest mountain range in the world, Aconcagua also has itself a sizeable collection of lofty titles that makes it an attractive mountain for climbers of all skill levels:
Oh! And since it is such a popular mountain, here is where you will brush shoulders with climbers from across the globe and are sure to bump into some big names from the field of mountaineering.
3. Strange Topography: Very Distinct from the Himalayas
Climbing in the Andes is so different from climbing in the Himalayas; it demands different skills and as non-technical as the Normal Route may be, Aconcagua is still very high which makes it a challenging mountain to climb. Its dry, dusty, completely barren terrain is unique when compared to mountains of its height in other ranges.
I have climbed a fair bit in the Himalayas – and personally, I have never seen a mountain that is dry as a bone with no snow all the way up to its crown which is as high as 6,961M. No snow at that height, that’s absurd, right? Just something you can expect in the Andes. In fact, it is so dry that water is one of the biggest challenges on the mountain even in higher camps.
The other geographically strange feature of Aconcagua is Nieves Penitentes. They are sharp, long, needle-like protrusions of snow clumped together closely in small pockets on the mountain. In fact, these are what one uses as a source of water in the absence of a spread of snow on the mountain. These strange things stand misshapen but tall in an otherwise brown terrain – standing stubbornly even under the harsh afternoon sun. In fact, they are like the sunflowers of high-altitude - these elongated, thin blades of hardened ice are usually found pointing in the general direction of the sun, as if offering a prayer. This is actually where they get their name from as well – their close resemblance to a crowd of penitentes (or a holy practitioner) kneeling for penance.
