An 8 Mile Start to Keep Us Honest
After breakfast, and many snoring jokes complete with response reactions, the group was itching to hit the trail. Unfortunately, the 16 member starting crew plus guides needed to be split in two. So one crowd went ahead to the entrance gate, some 8 kilometers away or 300 meters lower in altitude, and waited for an hour for the second group to join up.
Once we were all together the splintered start commenced. In a matter of moments the group was fractured into fast pacers and plodders. This of course led to speculation as to who was wise and who was demonstrating weakness. (Did I happen to mention that this is a group of 16 men, with an over-examining pension for finding the weakest link.) It was interesting to track the overt support of one another, followed by an undercurrent of skepticism.
After hitting a pace, the gaps in the group allowed for some of the wildlife to re-emerge. The lizards were especially interesting in their ability to mimic surroundings.
The day was just long enough to keep us honest. The crew raced, walked, and plodded up the Vacas Valley. The greatest enemy is the sun. Blistering rays attack any exposed skin, heat pushes dehydration limits and water is an unsure quantity in volume and quality. Generally, two liters of water a day while hiking should be plenty, but with temperatures approaching 100 degrees Fehrenheit this would be a bare minimum, while loosing total hydration levels.
The mood in the first camp was cheerfully reserved. Very few were willing to admit the challenge of the day. Total elevation change was only 100 meters higher from the hostel and 400 meters from the entrance, over 8 miles of rough cobbled trails. The ongoing joke is that the Seven Summits is just an exercise in climbing different scree slopes and that would be a fair description thus far. Fittingly, our first camp was settled at the base of a slide rock slope.
After hitting a pace, the gaps in the group allowed for some of the wildlife to re-emerge. The lizards were especially interesting in their ability to mimic surroundings.
The day was just long enough to keep us honest. The crew raced, walked, and plodded up the Vacas Valley. The greatest enemy is the sun. Blistering rays attack any exposed skin, heat pushes dehydration limits and water is an unsure quantity in volume and quality. Generally, two liters of water a day while hiking should be plenty, but with temperatures approaching 100 degrees Fehrenheit this would be a bare minimum, while loosing total hydration levels.
The mood in the first camp was cheerfully reserved. Very few were willing to admit the challenge of the day. Total elevation change was only 100 meters higher from the hostel and 400 meters from the entrance, over 8 miles of rough cobbled trails. The ongoing joke is that the Seven Summits is just an exercise in climbing different scree slopes and that would be a fair description thus far. Fittingly, our first camp was settled at the base of a slide rock slope.
We all have North Face tents and will need to become expert in setting them up in every temperature and wind condition. In the calm of this evening, installation a piece of cake.
We also got our first baptism into the dust bowl of the Vacas Valley, with everything covered in silt, especially the bags straight from the mules.
At night we were serenaded by wine drinking, barbeque eating, gauchos until well after 1:30am. The curious cultural interest wore off as the hours progressed and the songs became more sloppy, typically closed with a yipping gaucho yell. I waited for a repeat of Jim's “snoring salutation outcry” of the previous night, in the direction of the gauchos, but it never came.
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