We hired some mule drivers and 2 mules to carry our stuff. And that's how we're going start approaching on the Central Andes.
It will be dark in one hour. And there’s no sign of them up there.
The wind is worse. 25, 26 below zero.
Everything froze.
We'll see tomorrow...
I'm all wet.
I'll dry my boots and go up the river.
If I find them, I'll send an Ok signal on the GPS.
Then, our base in Brazil will contact you and say thet I found them.
If they are not there, I'll press the summit button,
And that means you should head back to the car.
I've been climbing the valley for a few kilometers now
It's still snowing.
No sign, footsteps, or anything…
Nothing.
I'm going throught that valley ahead.
- Hey, any news?
- 2:30 PM, look what I found.
I hope they belong to our mule drivers.
Yeah, if they're not here, I'm fucked.
Well...
I'm fucked.
This was the place they should be,
3400m of altitude.
But no one is here.
- So he didn't find anyone?
- Max said that the mules are not there? - Yes.
- Oh, shit.
- So the storm has passed,
we lost two days in this failed approach
And now the weather is getting better
And we have no idea where all of our equipment is.
I'm exhausted, it's been 27 hours since my last meal, but let's continue our way back.
Arriving at the Col
Almost 07:00
The weather is pretty good.
- We just got to the car
And all of our stuff is under the car,
Which means the "arrieros" dropped our things here, and left.
- I feel beaten
That's a 6387m mountain
Called Ramada, which I climbed already.
Thankfully.
- So they came yesterday and fucked off, to lower ground and camped.
They had no intencion to take our stuff up there.
We need at list a week or two to clear the snow and the river goes back to normal.
Otherwise will be a suicide just to try to cross this rivers on the way up Mesa.
So we gonna have to wait a while now.
Our weekly routine is getting ready for the next one, we climb a mountain, then get down, clean everything, then climb again, and so on.
The routine is pretty fun, it's my life's dream and it's coming true, even with some complications.
So we're preparing for Toro getting everything ready for climbing it tomorrow.
After a week trying...
we went to San Juan, had some medical exams and handled a lot of burocracy
So we're finally on our way to Toro.
This seems to be the first expedition to it.
After a long time at last we got our mountaneering IDs.
We're "andinists" now.
Well, we just come across the river that we need to cross and we need to find out how deep is.
Well, apparently it doesn't flow.
We are at the bottom of the valley. We're pretty low, its 3.500m. We're very low of what we're used to.
It's two of them.
And we're breaking camp now, we're gonna have to walk 12km to higher grounds.
- I ended up having a stomach issue, I feel very bad.
Almost 4800m
Finding where to step on
this snowy slope, leading to Toro.
I feel very weird today
Kind of sick.
I think.
- What happened to you, Max?
- I think I had a blood sugar issue
I never felt like this before.
I just turned off.
I guess we did 7 mountains in a row… so your body end up feeling it…
We've been pretty like so far, I mean, we didn't have no broken bones or anything about that.
But yeah,I don;t know what happened to me. I just have to shut down.
It's not so cold, and we saw a beautiful moon tonight.
I know it will be hard, I try to fool myself, thinking it will be easy.
5.5000m
Fuck that was steep.
Pedro and Suzie were beasts today. - And now we're tired.
- And now they're fucked.
We're strugling. It's nearly 2:00pm and we have 200 meters to the summit. And we're knocked.
The snow is very deep
Everyone is exhausted.
Yeah, that's very cool.
Yeah, fucking finally.
Wow, look at that!
I've been planning these for 4 years and I just can't believe I'm here now.
Well, they route, I imagine the route to get up here was easier, but we struggled a lot.
Summit!
- I'm very tired, and after more than 55 days of expedition
I feel like my battery doesn't recharge anymore.
- Oh, my God!
- You never saw anyone trying to climb Plomo?
- Nobody, mountaineers do not come here.