My knee isn't hurting, but I know that it's still vulnerable. It's not going to have miraculously recovered overnight. But I'll worry about that in the morning. In the meantime...
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We wake up to find that the tent is partially buried. About two feet of snow have fallen overnight and we need to be careful opening the tent not to let too much in and get our gear wet. I am feeling surprisingly well-refreshed, considering the state I was in yesterday afternoon. I'm a little worried about managing my knee on the way down. I know how treacherous the ground was with just a light dusting of snow, and I don't know how it will be with a proper snowfall on it. It's not even as if the snow is old and consolidated enough that we can use crampons to get down; it's loose and powdery, so we'll be trudging through it rather than walking on it.
A couple of things help. Jeremy and Carlos, at Tomi's recommendation, have booked a couple of porters to bring our gear down to base camp. Under normal circumstances, that would feel like an easy way out, but right now it seems like a very sensible plan. We pack up our gear and pass as much to the porters as they will accept, leaving us with little more than our water, cameras and snacks to carry. Tomi supplies some more painkillers, and Yacob gives me a pair of tubular bandages. I put one on each knee, conscious that the good knee will be taking more than usual strain. My walking poles can take some of the pressure, but I am not sure how effectively I will use them. I've been able to adjust them so that the splintered part is inside the section above it, but as a result they are now much shorter.
The scramble down from Colera is doubly difficult in the snow, and I slip at the end - though I am relieved that I am not the only one. I set out carefully, testing the ground and trying to go at a pace I am comfortable with, rather than keep up with the group. However, it turns out that the snow is having a positive effect on the ground. As it gets mixed in with the scree, the material gets damper and moves more slowly and predictably. Pretty soon I have caught up with the group and we are making good progress. The exception is George, who has had a recurrence of a back condition overnight and can only move slowly. Tomi takes responsibility for him and keeps him moving using a combination of cajoling and encouragement.
The snow extends down the mountain as far as Camp Canada; Aconcagua's north and west faces have gone from being dry and dusty to covered in snow in less than a day. The mountain looks very different and it is hard to identify landmarks from the way up that you would have expected to be easy to spot under any conditions short of fog or driving snow. Below Canada, we take an unfamiliar route anyway, as traversing across to the Grajales enclave would be an unnecessary detour. The ground here is still in its usual dry and dusty state. Fortunately, I have gained enough confidence from the earlier sections to be able to use my escalator-walking technique. Because we are taking the more direct paths down the mountain, we make rapid progress and walk into camp in the early afternoon to a hearty greeting from the base camp staff.
We're assigned a different meal tent, which we're sharing with three Americans on their way up. One is a money manager who has climbed five of the Seven Summits, turning back 300m from the top of Everest when he discovered he couldn't breathe. Sensible. The second lives in Chelsea (that is, the original Chelsea in London) because she is married to a Brit. But he travels a lot for work, and her quid pro quo is that she goes off and climbs mountains. Aconcagua will be the last in her Seven Summits. Pizza starts to arrive in large quantities, and we wolf it down. Appetites are fully restored.
Later in the afternoon, having watched the ebb and flow of the queue outside the hut, George, Tomi and I go down to the medical hut to have our ailments checked out. George's back is still very bad and we are all only half-joking when we tell him to ask to be evacuated by helicopter. No such luck; helicopters are for emergencies only. George gets and injection of diclofenac into his back. Meanwhile, the doctor is looking at my knee. I explain the situation and she prods and twists my knee from various angles. The question is always the same - "Does it hurt here?" and the answer is an equally consistent, "Erm, no." She diagnoses a "slight hyperextension", gives me two diclofenac ("One now and one in the morning").
Back at the sleeping tent, I have a great idea and put my self-inflating mattress on top of the mattress on the bunk. For the first time, I'm insulated from the lumpy supports under the bed as well as the cold. While there, I get chatting to our new tentmate, an indepdendent guide called Wesley who's come over the mountain after guiding a new-ish route known as the False Guanacos 360 (because you go all the way around the mountain). He is almost a caricature of a US mountain guide - tall, skinny, weatherbeaten and surf-bum-blonde. He's also very good to talk to. He's disappointed that he only managed to get 4 of his 8 clients to the top ("Usually, if you can get 'em to base camp, you can get 'em up."), and says the "odd" conditions were partly to blame. Apparently the main problem on La Traversa is normally cold, but if you wrap up like you were on the higher slopes of Everest it's a pretty easy journey. Yesterday, it was warm and that made the footing loose. A lot of climbers were defeated by the sheer level of effort required. I think that makes Jeremy and Yacob feel better about it. Jeremy is very interested in Wesley's description of his route, and resolves to give it ago at some point in the future. He has unfinished business with Aconcagua. One attraction of the route, apart from the more varied terrain, is that it takes a couple of days longer; since we're fairly convinced that an extra day of acclimatisation would have enabled Jeremy and Yacob to get to the top.
The charge for our porters is US$240 for each one. The porters are independent of Grajales and organised via some kind of trade body. We haven't paid them yet, arguing that most of our US$ cash is back at Penitentes. They are OK with this, but Carlos and Jeremy are a bit worried that some of our gear will go missing on the way down until we pay up. I'm not so worried - the muleteers have their own association and I doubt there is some kind of reciprocal fee enforcement arrangement. Besides, looked at rationally, we hold most of the bargaining chips since our gear is insured and if it does go missing it should only be an inconvenience to replace it. Since we're back off to Mendoza, via Penitentes, tomorrow, Jeremy is planning to hold out on paying up for the porterage until we speak to Nicolas back in Mendoza. We've paid more for our permits than we expected, and we also have to negotiate the cost of two additional nights' accommodation in Mendoza. Since our schedule included a couple of weather days (i.e. spare days so that you can wait for a weather window if there isn't one on your target date) that we haven't used, we'll be arriving back early. Vicky is going back to work as soon as she can get a flight to Buenos Aires - having slightly mismanaged expectations as to when she would be back. George also plans to bring his flight forward. Carlos and Yacob are hoping to take a bus to Santiago and spend a couple of days there before flying home.
Jeremy and I will be hanging around the city for a couple of days. Given that we're flying with both Aerolineas Argentinas and BA, we have no confidence of successfully being able to co-ordinate moving both flights, so we're not even going to try. Since Mendoza is the wine capital of Argentina, Jeremy doesn't anticipate having any difficulty finding something to do. I am inclined to agree.
And so, on that happy thought, to bed.
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