The day was clear and crisp and our spirits were high. We were loaded down like pack mules. Miguel carried two full packs, one lashed to the other. The base camp for climbers lay eighteen miles away—a two-day hike.

Soon after departing, we entered the narrow Valley of Horcones, named after a fork-tailed bird found in the region. The valley continued all the way to the base camp, called Plaza de Mulas, the place where the pack mules gather while the soldiers unload the supplies.

 

Endless rows of mountains loomed around us in all directions. The awe-inspiring landscape was arid and inhospitable, with many rock formations and little vegetation. I felt a surge of gratitude for the company of my three friends.

At 8:30 am we arrived at Confluencias, where two rivers merge, the site of our first camp. After we set up our tents and rested for a few minutes, we walked around the area and found a tiny, cave-like construction made of rocks, obviously used as a shelter.

We arose at nine the next morning, feeling no need to hurry. After hiking for two hours, we realized that we were east of our intended route and that the map the soldiers gave us had misleading information.

From where the rivers merged, we had followed a neighboring canyon. After a loss of several hours, we regained our route near Piedra Grande, a big boulder where we stopped for lunch. The boulder marks the beginning Playa Ancha, which means “Wide Beach,” a rock-strewn channel about one quarter of a mile wide and several miles long. In the late afternoon the channel fills rapidly with the water from the snows that melt in the midday sun, making a crossing treacherous.

Because we had lost several hours in the morning, our timing was thrown off. We arrived at the far end of Playa Ancha just as the waters began to rush down, no different than a flash flood. What was earlier a dry bed suddenly turned into an infinite number of snake-like streams, which swelled rapidly. We had to hurry to make it to the other side. Most of the streams we could easily jump over or else throw in large rocks that served as stepping-stones.

Before reaching high ground on the other side, we had to cross one last stream. The stream had swollen to the size of a raging river. We took off our boots and stripped down to our underpants. Miguel roped up and managed with great difficulty to make it to the other side. He belayed each of us as we precariously crossed the icy water, barefooted and barelegged.

We hiked until the light became dim. We made camp without having reached Plaza de Mulas, which, we discovered the next day, was only twenty minutes away from our campsite. Without water in our canteens and far from the streams, we camped in a state of dehydration. Before we got into out sleeping bags, we watched the moon as it filled the valley with its eerie light reflected off the glacier of El Cuerno, a peak directly in front of us. The spectacular view helped to keep our minds off our dehydration.

We awoke to another sunny, cloudless day. We slept very little that night due to thirst, but the cold, invigorating air kept us moving about at a brisk pace. It was not long before we reached the base camp, Plaza de Mulas at 13,860 feet.

The large shelter, a solid wooden and stone structure, looked like it could easily accommodate dozens of climbers. We tried to enter the building, but someone had locked the door. We discovered later that an expedition from Venezuela had locked the door on their way out and had removed the key, not realizing that we were due to arrive at that time. Fortunately, Miguel spotted an open window in the attic. He stood on our shoulders and then managed to use his rock climbing skills to hoist himself up to the little window and climb through into the attic.

The shelter looked like a palace to us, with its walls lined with provisions left by previous expeditions. If we had known ahead of time about this abundance of food, we would not have needed to hire a mule to carry our box of rations.

We soon discovered why there was so much food left over from each expedition. The elevation and amount of exertion often leads to loss of appetite. Most expeditions calculate the amount of food they will need based primarily on the amount of calories they eat while in their homes. My normal consumption of around 3000 calories a day shrunk to less than 1000 calories a day on the mountain. Digestion appeared to place an additional strain on an already overtaxed system.

We spent the morning examining the contents of all the abandoned foods and medicines, trying to decipher some of the foreign words on the labels. Later we lounged in the sparse vegetation on the banks of the river in back of the cabin. We rehydrated our bodies with cup after cup of delicious mountain-stream water. That afternoon, I prepared a package of dehydrated vegetable stew left by an American expedition. My three friends were pleasantly surprised and intrigued by the concoction, never having experienced a package of powder that instantly turns into a full meal.

We heard a shout and rushed outside to greet two soldiers and the mule carrying our little-needed box of food. The soldiers lingered long enough to share our meal, then loaded up the extra equipment left by the Venezuelan party and began the long trip back to Puente de Inca with barely a moment of rest.

As evening approached, Miguel spotted in the distance two figures walking wearily toward the shelter. They were members of the Venezuelan expedition who had returned after reaching 18,000 feet, where exhaustion and puna—the local name for mountain sickness—had overcome them. The other two in the party had continued on toward the summit. We talked with the Venezuelans well into the night, so animated with excitement and anticipation that sleep was slow to come.

We arose at five the following morning, December 29. It was dark and cold when we left the shelter. After an hour, just as it was getting light, we passed another shelter, Plaza Vieja.

Along the way we noticed the carcasses of several dead mules in various states of decay. It was a gruesome sight. The soldiers had told us that the mules died from heart attacks. They explained that their hearts enlarged over time from the stress of working at high altitude.

Most of the day we zigzagged our way up a steep slope of fine, loose gravel. We put one foot in front of the other in a monotonous rhythm. The altitude made my heart race and pound like artillery fire. My mouth felt so dry, I couldn’t resist a few big gulps from my canteen, in spite of warnings to sip water slowly. Immediately, I became nauseous.

Our rest stops were spaced at two-hour intervals, each being less than five minutes so we would not lose our pace.

At 2 p.m. we arrived at Antartida at 17,820 feet, a matchbox shelter six-by-six feet, cabled to the ground with heavy wires. Inside we found the floor covered by a block of ice three feet deep. The flimsy door had been ripped open by high velocity winds, allowing snow to enter, which then turned to ice.

We considered sleeping in our tents, but because of the steep grade of the slope and the high winds, we decided to try our luck on the ice. We put down a sheet of plastic and then piled all of our possessions onto the plastic sheet, including ropes, ice axes, containers of food, and anything else that would serve as a buffer against the cold.

Before settling in for the night on my pile of equipment, I turned on my headlamp, took out a pen from my pocket and wrote on the plywood wall, “Erica Elliott was here with the Club Andino Politécnico de Quito, December 1975.” Mine was only one of dozens of testaments written on the wall for posterity.

The night passed way too slowly. I moved around “in bed” constantly, trying to contend with the icy cold air and the objects poking into my back. But even worse than that, I had the dreaded puna. The pain in my head became intense, worse than a migraine headache. I finally gave in and let Miguel inject me with Darvon. This allowed me to sleep one half hour before it was time to get up.

At the first signs of light, we stumbled out of the shelter looking haggard. In a daze from the pain medication and from lack of sleep, I made coffee for us and shared a few of my snacks. The men were restless to get going. We packed up our gear and continued up the mountain.

After two hours of putting one foot in front of the other, and after passing Nido de los Condores (Nest of the Condors), we arrived at three little shelters located at approximately 20,000 feet. The first two miniature A-frames were not habitable due to the ice inside which had accumulated to the top of the little door, making entry impossible. The third shelter, called Berlin in honor of the German scientists who had donated it, was a little bigger than the other two, allowing space to stand up. Cables held down the shelters so that they could withstand the powerful winds that came sweeping down off the summit.

In Berlin we took off our heavy packs, rested for a half hour, and then pushed on.

After forty-five minutes we met the other half of the Venezuelan expedition coming down from the summit. They said that they had made it to the top. Yet when questioned, it sounded dubious since they didn’t see the aluminum cross nor the summit book, both in plain sight upon reaching the top, according to the soldier who oriented us at the army base.

The soldier at Puente de Inca told us that it was not uncommon for climbers to say they had reached the summit when in fact they had not, the proof being one’s signature in the summit book, photos, or souvenirs taken from previous expeditions and one’s own left behind—a custom found throughout the Andes.

In any case, the Venezuelans cautioned us to return to Berlin to get an early start the following morning. According to them, the summit lay ten hours away.

Taking their advice, the three Ecuadorians accompanied the Venezuelans down as far as Antartida where they picked up the rest of our equipment that we had left, having mistakenly thought that we could make the summit and back to Antartida in a day.

I stayed in Berlin melting pan after pan of snow for soup and tea. When my chores were over, I went to a rocky overlook to watch the progression of my friends as they wound their way back up the side of the mountain. I noticed that Eloy’s pace had become unusually slow. He rested every few steps in a sitting or lying down position. When he approached I saw how sick he looked, but he insisted that he was feeling all right.

We did little the rest of the afternoon besides preparing our equipment for the following day. By 8 pm we were in our sleeping bags, but none of us slept. It was probably the most miserable night of my life. There was little oxygen. Breathing had to be consciously monitored so that the lungs expanded to their full capacity. The air was stuffy with no ventilation. In desperation I slept with my nose in the door, which had been left slightly opened.

Miguel asked me to close the door because Eloy had developed a fever and a hacking cough. On top of that, I had developed a full-fledged case of puna. I had to remain in a sitting position the entire night. Lying down brought excruciating pain to my head. Miguel injected me with Darvon again, which brought no relief this time.

We were all dehydrated because the water in our canteens had frozen. The temperature was ten degrees inside the shelter. We had to get up in the middle of the night to melt snow for tea. I noticed that getting up and moving around brought some relief.

Miguel’s little alarm clock rang at three in the morning on the last day of the year. Our spirits were low and our minds foggy. Eloy’s condition had become serious. He was gasping for air and alternating between sweating and freezing from the fever. We plied him with hot tea all through the night, along with a dose of the antibiotics we had bought at the drug store in Mendoza. We waited for the morning to come so that someone could take Eloy off the mountain before he got too sick to walk.

Now came the problem: Who was going to take Eloy down?

I felt that we should all stay together as a group. Marcelo replied that this was their only chance to try to make the summit since they had to be back in Quito by a certain deadline for their classes. When someone suggested that we forget about attempting the summit, Miguel said he felt he owed it to the Sports Association since they had paid for our trip.

After more discussion, Miguel offered to accompany Eloy down off the mountain himself. Everyone voted against that idea since he was the team leader. Marcelo said that I should be the one to go down since I had the worst case of puna. We all became irritable and argumentative. I could feel myself slipping into sleep-deprived and pain-induced irrationality. The tears streamed from my face as I told of my dreams of climbing to the summit with Miguel.

“And today is the last day of the International Year of the Woman,” I babbled on and on, my behavior convincing them all the more that I should be the one to go down with Eloy.

In a flash, I came to my senses as I took in the absurd scene unfolding, with the three of us huddled around the burning candle, arguing about who should take Eloy down, while Eloy sat in the corner gasping for air. In a moment of clear thinking, I agreed that I should be the one to take Eloy off the mountain.

Marcelo and Miguel hastily prepared for their departure to the summit. By 6:30 am they were on their way up the mountain, as Eloy and I headed down the mountain. They later filled us in on what happened.

They reached the summit in five hours, breaking all previous records, pushing themselves at an inhumane pace so that they could beat the bad weather that was brewing. A mushroom cloud had engulfed the entire summit, which meant the “white wind” would soon follow, a blinding wind made of particles of snow and ice. They both felt frightened. Their feet had become frozen like lifeless stumps. At one point, they stopped, took off their boots and massaged each other’s feet until the circulation returned.

Marcelo had difficulty breathing and had episodic hallucinations involving crosses. He tried to convince Miguel that they had reached the summit because he knew there was supposed to be a cross on top. He began to photograph the crosses, which were, in reality, thin air, a projection of his weary, oxygen-starved mind.

When they finally reached the true summit, Marcelo got down on his hands and knees and began throwing rocks around as though he were looking for something. When Miguel asked him what he was doing, he said he was looking for the shingles on the “roof of America.”

By 2 pm they were back in Berlin where they waited out a snowstorm.

In the meantime, after an exhausting six-hour descent, I managed to get Eloy down to Plaza de Mulas where a Japanese expedition had just arrived. Communicating with them was comical. They spoke only a few words of English and Spanish. A doctor on their expedition managed to convey to us that Eloy probably had bronchitis, complicated by pulmonary edema. The drop in altitude had significantly alleviated his difficulty breathing, yet he still needed medical help to prevent pneumonia.

After entrusting Eloy to the care of the attentive Japanese doctor, I spent the rest of the day sitting by the river, trying to sort out my feelings. I had succumbed to the stresses of the many sleepless nights we had endured from the time we left Quito two weeks earlier.

After one restful night, I recovered my emotional equilibrium. It took a little longer to let go of the disappointment I felt about not being able to climb to the summit with Miguel. But I was also relieved that Eloy got down the mountain safely and was out of imminent danger.

That evening Miguel and Marcelo staggered into Plaza de Mulas looking like wild men in a stupor. Their faces were swollen and disfigured, a frightening sight. They were too exhausted to talk.

The next day, a soldier packed Eloy out on a mule. It was New Year’s Day, a fact no one seemed to notice or care.

After a few hours of rest, Miguel, Marcelo and I began the long trip back to Puente de Inca. Miguel and Marcelo’s pace had become uncharacteristically slow from exhaustion. We stopped at Confluencia and spent the night in a cave, too tired to set up our tents. Miguel and Marcelo slept until three the following afternoon.

On the way to Puente de Inca the next day, we passed the carcass of a mule. With a shudder, I recognized the white markings on its face, identifying him as the one that had carried up our box of food. Its swollen body had burst open, allowing the entrails to spill out. It had died presumably from a heart attack. A wave of horror and sadness passed over me.

As we were leaving the Valley of Horcones, we met two Argentine priests camped by the lake. They were spending two weeks acclimatizing themselves in preparation for their third attempt to climb Aconcagua. When I mentioned my disappointment at not having been able to make it to the summit, they agreed to let me climb with them. I told them that if I decided to come back, I would join them in a few days.

At Puente de Inca, the soldier who oriented us gave Miguel and Marcelo a heartfelt congratulatory handshake. A climber had relayed the news of their extraordinarily rapid ascent to the summit. Later we found Eloy recovering under the care of the army doctor.

We showered, went for a brief medical examination and then to bed. Marcelo and Miguel slept for fifteen hours.

I spent the afternoon watching the soldiers stopping every passing vehicle to check for suspected terrorists and concealed weapons and ammunition. As usual, Argentina was in the midst of its continual political upheavals, especially intense now due to the severe inflation that racked the country.

On the morning of our departure from the army base, after Eloy had fully recovered from his episode of pulmonary edema, one of the soldiers flagged down a passing car and ordered the driver to take all four of us to Mendoza. We spent the day in the city doing errands and resting up for the next leg of our trip. For Miguel, Marcelo, and Eloy, the next leg meant another one hundred-hour-long bus trip back to Ecuador.

One evening in Mendoza, as we sat quietly eating dinner in a cheap restaurant, total chaos suddenly broke out when five policemen kicked open the door, marched in with guns drawn, and ordered everyone to get out of their seats and go to the wall with their hands over their heads. I barely breathed, waiting to get shot in the head as I stared at the wall in front of my face. I wondered if my parents would be notified of my death. I wanted desperately to tell my mother and father that I loved them before I died.

The police inspected each person’s identification papers, and then patted us down. They hit some of the men and shoved them, telling them to line up at the door. The police took those men somewhere, probably to jail or worse.

We sat back down at our table in an adrenaline-soaked daze. The waiter said that this sort of occurrence was so common that it didn’t even reach the newspapers.

When we left Mendoza, we took the bus to Santiago, Chile, the place where I tearfully parted ways with my companions. While they headed back to Quito to resume their classes at the Polytechnic Institute, I stayed in Santiago a few days to plan my trip around the continent for the next six months before returning home.

Before leaving Quito, I had cashed in my $600 return ticket to the US on Pan American Airways, enough money to last for about six months while traveling in South America.

I wandered around the city aimlessly, heartbroken about leaving Miguel, and intensely missing my climbing companions, barely able to hold back my tears. We shared several years’ worth of experience compressed into a few weeks. I seriously pondered the possibility of returning to Ecuador and spending the rest of my life with Miguel. My rational mind talked me out of pursuing this unrealistic possibility.

The adjustment to being without my companions felt intensely painful. If I had a liking for alcohol, I would have gotten drunk. Instead, I fully experienced the pain. When I saw lovers walking hand-in-hand down the street, or stopping to kiss and hug each other, I had to wipe away my tears and swallow hard.

After several days of coming to grips with my aching sense of loss, I decided to change my plans and postpone for a couple of weeks my trip around the continent. I felt a magnetic pull to return to Mt. Aconcagua. I wanted to reach the summit as an expression of my love for Miguel and the dream we had.

My mind swirled with thoughts that I could not clearly articulate. I knew instinctively that reaching the summit had nothing to do with fame and conquest. In my case, climbing mountains gave expression to my love of life and, at the same time, served as a metaphor for overcoming my fears and limiting beliefs about myself.

I knew intuitively that my time in the mountains would serve to help prepare me to have the courage and perseverance to endure some of the life-threatening challenges that I would surely face while pursuing my path in life—according to what a Navajo grandmother had told me as a prophecy after I had a close encounter with a mountain lion when I was a young schoolteacher.

I headed back to the mountain to try again to reach the summit.