Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Danger on South America's highest peak

Interesting story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8048216.stm
Looks like Aconcagua is getting too popular.

"Forty percent of the tourists who come here do no preparation at all," says Daniel Cucciara. "This causes serious problems for rescue teams when they get into trouble."

It's not just the 40% who think a 23,000 foot peak is easy if it isn't technical. Beware of inexperienced and injudicious Argentine guides, who can and have led clients into danger. When I summitted this year I discovered that the best guide on the Big A (as well as many other hills) happens to live in Bishop. Look it up.

I've read that climbing Mt. Blanc is even more dangerous due to inexperienced guides and climbers plus avalanches and rockfall. Any suggestions on who the best guides are for a safe, enjoyable, and successful climb?

I'm sure there are many good guides and one I know for sure is Kurt Wedberg (sierramountaineering.com). He has guided around the world from Everest to Antarctica to Aconcagua to Europe.

I went guideless, but there were two evacuations, one rescue that we brought down, and one death. There was a grand total of 11 deaths that season. It is >22,000 feet-big time altitude illnesses on an otherwise easy standard route.

Some of these altitude illnesses occur on Whitney, but are far more severe at Aconcagua-like heights. Even during an austral summer (Feb) climb, we had 6 consecutive -15F nights. Lots of things to prepare for. Harvey

Federico Campanini, or "el Fede" as it said on his climbing helmet, was the Guide that died on Aconcagua last January, as told in the story linked above. Fede was the RMI guide on my rope team when we climbed MT Rainier in September 2007. He was a great guide, and a great guy, and just 31 years old. I was shocked and deeply saddened to hear of his passing. My sincere condolences to his wife and family. As I set here at my keyboard, to my right on the wall is my framed summit photo. It's myself and Fede on the summit, with big smiles and ice axes held high. He will be missed.

Scott McCay

There are alot of good British guides in the alps every summer and you can get there details from the BMC website, thats British Mountaineering Council; the French guides have a culture for rushing their clients which often causes rockfall and they can be quite insistent on speed to the point of rudeness; in a very hot summer the permafrost starts to melt and you get terrible rockfalls especially at a couloir on the way up to the Gouter Ridge, its nicknamed the 'bowling alley'some summers the rescue helicopter parks there and just waits for the bodies to arrive at their feet. I went guideless one summer and had no problems; just get a good forecast and step carefully.