Wherefore Aconcagua?

So. Aconcagua. Not the world's most famous, most difficult, or most deadly mountain, or even its biggest. Most people have never heard of it and fewer still can pronounce it. It's a long way away and it takes a long time to climb. You're almost guaranteed headaches, sleepless nights, digestive unrest and some kind of cold-related injury. At the end of all of which, you have about a 30% chance of coming back home and saying "I made it to the summit of Aconcagua" followed by a 95% chance having your friends go "Eh?".

So why do it?

Well, in mountaineering terms, and specifically the sort of lay mountaineering that I go in for, it has a lot going for it. By "lay mountaineering" I mean the an activity that delivers you the views, memories and sense of achievement of real mountaineering but with less of the expense, discomfort and risk of death or hideous injury. In those very specific terms, Aconcagua is pretty much the daddy.

Despite (probably) having once been the Highest Mountain in the World (until those awful nouveau-haut johnnie-come-latelys on the edge of the Tibetan plateau sprung up), Aconcagua's "Normal Route" can be completed without climbing, ropes or ice-axes. You might need crampons if it's snowy on top, and it's sensible to carry an ice axe for emergencies, but when it boils down to it it's a Very Hard Trek rather than a Bona Fide Mountain Climb.

At the same time, while avoiding the technical climbing stuff and the risks that go with it, you can't get to 6,962m (which, by the way, is the amount I'm trying to raise for the NDCS) without encountering a lot of the conditions of really serious mountaineering. The air at the summit is about one-third the pressure of the air at sea level and, as the mountain stands several hundred metres proud of its neighbours, it is buffeted by strong winds off the Pacific. The wind chill can take the temperature on the summit down to -30 celsius. In fact, many climbers use Aconcagua as a way to prepare for climbing in the Himalayas, precisely because you can experience high altitude separately from all the technical climbing.

So, for someone who wants the slog, discomfort and misery of mountaineering without the full complement of bowel-loosening danger, Aconcagua is ideal.

Anyway, that's the post-rationalisation out of the way. The real reason I'm doing it? I blame Harlequins. But more on that next time.