Saturday, January 29, 2011

Volcan del Viento (6,028m) - Provincia de Catamarca, Argentina

We climbed this in a morning from a camp near Portezuelo Laguna Negra. This camp was closer to the summit of Viento as the crow flies than a camp at El Arenal would be, but wasn't really the best place to climb it from as it meant we had to cross over a number of valleys before finally being able to head up to the summit crater. It therefore took us 2h45 to climb, despite the summit being only 500m vertically above our camp.

The summit is on the eastern side of the crater, and it was suitably windy for the last 50m. This was the steepest part of the climb, and we had to go on all-fours for a bit when the big gusts hit. At the top there is a cairn with testimonios underneath (though not many as it is only infrequently climbed), and good views of Cazadero/Walter Penck and Nacimiento which are the closest two big mountains. We took a better route on the descent, staying high to avoid the valleys, though it still took 1h45 to make it back to camp.

Some GPS points
DescriptionLatLongAlt
Our basecamp27.15941 S68.47213 W5,541m
Volcan del Viento Summit27.19119 S68.47418 W6,028m

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