We´re Off!

This is the last post from Mendoza, as we're just about to hit the road.  All is well!  We've got a big, yet very upbeat and happy group of people to climb with.  Mostly made up of American's, we have one Brit, one Dane, and one guy from Holland (who is actually American now).  We have more people in the group than expected, but plenty of guides and our lead guide is a nice American named Tom Torkelson who has a very good background in mountaineering.
 
The winds were high last night and the temps came down (from the 98F high in the day!), which means we'll be a little bit colder than avg on the first few nights, but that's a blessing, as we all have warm sleeping bags and the warm nights would cook us!  So, hopefully we'll be able to send out a blog from base camp, which is about 5 days away (Plaza de Mulas).  Between now and then we'll be hiking up a valley, enjoying the views and a relaxed pace.  That will take us to the base of the mountain (base camp), which will be just around 14,000ft.  From there we will do a few cache-and-carry trips, where we just move our gear up to the next higher camp in stages, eventually sleeping at about 18-19000ft on our last night b/f summit. 
 
So, really nothing out of the ordinary!  Keep your fingers crossed we run into good weather and low winds.  If we don't, no worries, we'll press on and fly that flag anyway!
 
Take care everyone.
 
--Rob and the Gang
Climb High, Fly Low

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