Mount Aconcagua and Route 7 - The Andes
They really don’t make it easy!
When I got to Cordoba, I looked west. I wanted to see the biggest mountain in Argentina. Aconcagua. It’s not only the biggest mountain in Argentina – it’s the highest in both the southern and western hemispheres. Only the Himalayas have bigger mountains. Aconcagua’s peak is at 6961 meters. It’s also one of the Seven Summits – the highest mountains of each continent. So, I wanted to see it!
What I really wanted to do was trek through the Vacas valley route and camp a couple of times along the way. It looked really interesting with relatively short day hikes between camps. But you need a permit. I tried to get a permit in Mendoza, but they wouldn’t sell me one. In order to get a permit, you need to register for a guided trek with a certified company. I checked the prices, and they were in the $1000 USD range for a few days of trekking. Super expensive, but also somewhat uncomfortable to me. I prefer some independence when it comes to trekking. I like my gear, I like my freedom, I like to go my own pace and do things my own way.
There was no way I was paying $1000, especially when it meant losing my independence. So, I tried to get a permit for a day hike to the first camp. No camping, just there and back in a day. Again, they said no. In order to get a permit for a day hike, I still needed to hire a certified tour company. And a day hike was $500 USD. For a day hike!!! Seriously???
Okay. FINE. I asked them what hike I could do on my own, and they said I could hike in the valley for free. That didn’t sound right to me, because I’d read you needed a permit just to go to the viewing point. But they still wouldn’t sell me a permit. To be fair, there may have been a language barrier. Nobody at the permit office spoke any English, and my Argentinian Spanish still sucks. But we were looking at a map, and I told them I wanted a permit to hike in the Horcones valley, and they repeated that it was free. Ugh. Whatever. I gave up trying.
I took a bus to Uspallata (pronounced kind of like uh-piez-yatta). It’s a town in the mountains. I was able to camp there for just a few dollars a night. It got me closer to big mountains and it got me out of the city.
I saw a lot of trucks parked along the highway in several places. There were also trucks driving around Mendoza honking their horns. Apparently, the truckers are protesting Covid protocols at the Chilean border. They must test negative before getting to the border, then get another test at the border and isolate until the test comes back negative. But it's Chile that has been very strict with Covid protocols, so I’m not sure what the point of protesting is… Maybe I'm missing something.
When I got to Cordoba, I looked west. I wanted to see the biggest mountain in Argentina. Aconcagua. It’s not only the biggest mountain in Argentina – it’s the highest in both the southern and western hemispheres. Only the Himalayas have bigger mountains. Aconcagua’s peak is at 6961 meters. It’s also one of the Seven Summits – the highest mountains of each continent. So, I wanted to see it!
What I really wanted to do was trek through the Vacas valley route and camp a couple of times along the way. It looked really interesting with relatively short day hikes between camps. But you need a permit. I tried to get a permit in Mendoza, but they wouldn’t sell me one. In order to get a permit, you need to register for a guided trek with a certified company. I checked the prices, and they were in the $1000 USD range for a few days of trekking. Super expensive, but also somewhat uncomfortable to me. I prefer some independence when it comes to trekking. I like my gear, I like my freedom, I like to go my own pace and do things my own way.
There was no way I was paying $1000, especially when it meant losing my independence. So, I tried to get a permit for a day hike to the first camp. No camping, just there and back in a day. Again, they said no. In order to get a permit for a day hike, I still needed to hire a certified tour company. And a day hike was $500 USD. For a day hike!!! Seriously???
Okay. FINE. I asked them what hike I could do on my own, and they said I could hike in the valley for free. That didn’t sound right to me, because I’d read you needed a permit just to go to the viewing point. But they still wouldn’t sell me a permit. To be fair, there may have been a language barrier. Nobody at the permit office spoke any English, and my Argentinian Spanish still sucks. But we were looking at a map, and I told them I wanted a permit to hike in the Horcones valley, and they repeated that it was free. Ugh. Whatever. I gave up trying.
I took a bus to Uspallata (pronounced kind of like uh-piez-yatta). It’s a town in the mountains. I was able to camp there for just a few dollars a night. It got me closer to big mountains and it got me out of the city.
I saw a lot of trucks parked along the highway in several places. There were also trucks driving around Mendoza honking their horns. Apparently, the truckers are protesting Covid protocols at the Chilean border. They must test negative before getting to the border, then get another test at the border and isolate until the test comes back negative. But it's Chile that has been very strict with Covid protocols, so I’m not sure what the point of protesting is… Maybe I'm missing something.
The next morning, I jumped on a bus heading west from Uspallata. It was only about $3 and I got as seat in the front, upstairs! I had a 270 degree view. It was beautiful. I saw some of the best of the Andes along route 7.
I stopped at Puente del Inca, which is a neat Incan ruin beside a natural rock arch. Unfortunately, you can only view from a distance. Mostly, it’s a tourist trap with overpriced chocolate and various trinkets for sale. I even paid 30 pesos to use a toilet with pee all over the seat. Twice, actually, while I was there. Sigh.
I stopped at Puente del Inca, which is a neat Incan ruin beside a natural rock arch. Unfortunately, you can only view from a distance. Mostly, it’s a tourist trap with overpriced chocolate and various trinkets for sale. I even paid 30 pesos to use a toilet with pee all over the seat. Twice, actually, while I was there. Sigh.
Puente del Inca
From Puente del Inca, the tourist info office said it was 2 kilometers to get to the Aconcagua Park entrance where I could hike to the “mirador” or viewing point for Aconcagua. So, I started walking along the highway – but I didn’t get far. The wind was insane! My trekking poles were completely useless because they were flopping around in the wind. It was impossible to control them and plant them in the ground. And I nearly got blown over onto my butt twice. Every gust picked up dust and gravel and shot it at my face. I also noticed that google maps said it was more like 4.5 kilometers to the park. I just didn’t think I could hike that far into that kind of wind. But I tried. I even tried hiking along the old railroad tracks which seem to serve as a path for people in the area. I didn’t even get a kilometer and had to turn back. The back of my eyelids felt like sandpaper.
I went back to Puente del Inca and thought maybe I could get a taxi to take me up the highway. But I didn’t see any taxis. So, I had some lunch, some chocolate, some beer. I wandered where I could out of the wind. I read a bunch. I waited for the bus to pick me up and take me back to Uspallata.
And then I took the bus again the next day, but this time I got the first bus at 8 AM and I got off AT the park entrance. And finally, I saw the mountain! And it was a beautiful day. There was no wind at 10 AM when I arrived at the park entrance. It was sunny and clear.
I went to the ticket office and told them I wanted to hike in the valley. There was a woman there that spoke great English and she asked if I had a permit. Sigh. I said no. I told her I’d been to the office to purchase a permit and that they had said hiking in the valley was free. She just handed me a ticket and I was confused. She explained that yes, I needed to pay for a permit in Mendoza, but that it was okay. They couldn’t accept payment at the park. It’s just a really stupid system, if you ask me. I emphasized to her that I had tried.
And I wasn’t the only person that was confused. There were other people there asking to hike to the base camps that were denied. There were also people asking to hike in the valley that had been unable to get permits, and many that weren’t aware that permits were necessary. I spoke to a couple from France that seemed to have gone through the same process as me – hoping to hike to base camps, unwilling to pay the ridiculous prices and then settling for whatever hike they could do now that they were there.
At that point, I was told it was 1 kilometer to the next parking lot. From there I could hike to the lookout and then continue hiking for 2 hours to the end of the valley. I was just happy to be there and so glad to have a permit – paid or not. I walked about half an hour and got to the lookout. From there, the hike wasn’t well marked. Rather, it wasn’t marked at all. But I just kept going. I had something like 6 hours to kill before catching the bus to return to town, and I was going to make the best of it.
The air was thin. I was at about 3000 meters and breathing twice as fast as normal. But the hike wasn’t difficult. There were mice and little birds that hopped more than they flew. I don’t think I saw a single insect for 2 hours.
The valley was amazing. I took a lot of photos, but they’re disappointing. The colors in the rock really didn’t come through. The photos are so washed out. The rocks were a mix of incredible reds, yellows, and oranges and various shades of grays and earthy greens. The shrubs were bright gold in the sunlight.
Eventually, I hit a suspension bridge across the river. There I found signs saying that I couldn’t go any farther without a trekking permit. So, I guess I had stayed within the permitted day hiking area after all. I think, based on the maps I have, I was nearly half-way to the first base camp, Confluencia. It would have been so easy to hike there and back in a day. Maybe they just don’t want a lot of people roaming around out there?
I had a snack at the river surrounded by birds hoping I’d drop some crumbs. They were all small birds, a few of them incredibly yellow. And they weren’t shy. If I had fed them, I bet they would have eaten right out of my hand.
While I was chilling out at the river, I noticed a few pairs of people coming from the base camps with a lot of gear. They definitely had tents and sleeping bags and NO guide. And that ticked me off. I don’t understand how they were able to hike to the base camps. Maybe they didn’t have permits? It just made me jealous and angry. And confused.
In the early afternoon, the wind started to pick up. I had a feeling it was only going to get worse (and I wasn’t wrong). So, I started to head back to the highway. I took my time and walked a slightly different path. I walked past the lagoon and saw some fossils in a boulder in the valley.
The wind got really, really bad by the time I got back to the highway in the early afternoon. I tried to flag down a bus headed for the Chilean border, thinking I could sightsee from the bus rather than sit in the wind. But the bus didn’t stop for me. So… I found a spot behind the building where I could sit on the ground and read for a couple of hours. It sucked because even where I was out of the wind, the wind found me every now and then, and I got blasted by dust. I think it’s windy like that every day. There aren’t any accommodations for people traveling by bus – no place to wait inside, no bus shelter. Most of the people come by car, and another large chunk through guided tours. There were only two other people waiting for the bus with me. One of them nearly lost his hat in the wind, but fortunately, the hat turned back in a whirlwind, and he managed to catch it.
I was very glad to get on the bus and out of the wind. I loved the hike through the valley, but that last couple of hours waiting in the wind was rough. When I got back to camp, I had a shower and watched the dust in my hair turn to mud as it circled the drain.
Camping in Uspallata wasn’t bad, but a lot of campers are just there to party and that means loud music. Generally, the noise quieted down around midnight, but on my last night, there were a few guys without tents, just drinking very late into the night, laughing and singing rather loudly. In the morning, they were passed out on old mattresses with blankets pulled over their heads. They were still there, passed out at 10:30 AM when I left the campground. Maybe just a night away from the family?
So, I’m back in Mendoza for a couple of nights. I needed to get some laundry done. ALL of it, actually, except for what I was wearing. I even took my boots off at the laundry service and added the socks I was wearing to the pile.
I’m heading north to San Juan tomorrow.