Wild Times at Ameghino Col Camp

Wes and Dan are at the Ameghino Col Camp at 17,700 feet. They arrived there yesterday. It was about a 2 to 2 1/2 hour climb from Camp I. He said they spent about two hours building an ice wall to protect their tent from the wind. Wes was busy melting snow when he called (1:40 pm Argentina time). Dan was a little way off taking pictures. They got hit pretty hard yesterday and this morning with lots of wind and snow. They had about 35 mph winds last night with some gusts as high as 50 mph. A lot of teams are pulling out and going down today. They met four guys from Colorado who are heading down. One of their members has the early signs of HAPE (high altitude pulmonary edema - the lungs fill with fluid). Wes said there have been a lot of cases of HAPE and HACE (high altitude cerebral edema - swelling of the brain tissue) on the mountain. It seems that a lot of climbers are just going too fast up the mountain. That is one of the reasons why Dan and Wes chose to stay at the Col Camp instead of going straight to Camp II at around 19,000 feet. They are taking a rest day today. Last night it was so cold that they cooked inside their tent. That is really not a good thing to do but they had all the air vents open while the stove was on. Due to cooking inside the tent, the walls got all iced up. They woke up in an "ice cave." The sun is out right now but it is still really cold. There are some puffy clouds but it looks like the weather is getting better. Yesterday there were some lenticular clouds hanging over the mountain which looked pretty ominous. Earlier today Wes said there was a plume about 1,000 feet long coming off the summit from the wind. He said it was pretty spectacular. There is only one other group at the Col Camp right now. A team of eight from Alpine Ascents. The guides apparently weren't too happy to see Dan and Wes because they said most people don't stay at the Col Camp. I guess they expected to have it to themselves. One of the guides even told Wes to move his tent. He said that he would move it a little bit but that was it. He said their team seemed dazed - they attempted to build a wall but only moved a couple of rocks around. After that initial encounter, Wes said the group is really nice. The guys are still feeling great. They said they are mostly hungry. They have about two days more of food at this camp and could stretch it to three if they had to. They have eight days of food and fuel cached at Camp II. Wes said they were planning on eating an early dinner of Ramen and chicken (they have one bun left to share) and relaxing the rest of the day. Wes and Dan plan to move up to Camp II tomorrow if the weather holds.