The Ojos Del Salado volcano is the highest summit across Chile, the second summit in America, and it is also the tallest active volcano in the world. That’s why this is one of the most desired challenges among mountaineers around the world.
We’ll meet you at the airport and take you to your hotel where you’ll have a talk with our guide in order to crystal clear any doubt clouding your mind and to check your equipment is proper and fitted for the purposes.
We set out towards Valle Chico to set up our first camp. This place is perfect to start our expedition because it has the ideal altitude for starting the acclimatization process.
On this day we’ll set up the second camp around the 3700 meters in order to keep on with our acclimatization process, which is crucial to our objective. We’ll do a light trekking to keep with our acclimatization process in order to get our bodies accustomed to this high altitude desert environment. This trekking is to be done around the Laguna Santa Rosa lakeside.
On this day we will perform our first ascension to the 7 Hermanas hill. Altitude: 4700masl.
On this day we’ll finish the first stage of our expedition. We’ll head toward Laguna Verde where we’ll set-up the base-camp, rest for the remaining day and get ready for the days to come.
Day 6: Laguna Verde / climb Mulas Muertas (5600m).
On this day we’ll put our bodies to the test. We´ll see how your body is enduring the lack of oxygen in this area. We'll go up a bit higher than 5,600 meters and then go back to sleep at the Laguna Verde.
In order to go forward into our expedition, we will ascend a 6000 and so check how our body reacts when facing that kind of altitude. We can either choose between Mt. San Francisco, at the frontier with Argentina, or Mt. Vicuñas. Both are above the 6000masl.
This is the last day we’ll be able to use the 4WD vehicle. We’ll transport the equipment to Refuge Atacama and from there we’ll have to work harder.
Each one of us has to carry his/her personal equipment plus a piece of the common equipment towards Refuge Tejos in order to prepare our last camp (high camp) and it clearly helps with the acclimatization process. Once we get to the shelter we’ll get some rest, leave our equipment there and head back to Refuge Atacama to sleep.
We’ll carry the remaining equipment towards Refugio Tejos. This time we’ll spend the night there. Since we’ve already carried most of the equipment the day before, we’ll be saving a lot of necessary energy for our next day, which is without doubt the most important day of our expedition.
We’ll set out early morning to reach the Ojos Del Salado summit (6,893masl). On this day we’ll see how all of our hard work flourishes. All the previous acclimatization process is to endure this SO challenging summit. No doubts about it, this is the hardest day in our expedition. We’ll be ascending 1,000 meters, crossing a glacier, rock climbing, reaching the summit, descending, and carrying the equipment back to Refugio Atacama all in the same day.
even abort the whole expedition program if needed. The above is for you to be aware that if something goes wrong you need to understand and (fully) cooperate with the guide, since any wrong or “too-late” decision might be fatal.
with a minimum of 2 and maximum of 12 climbers + guides.