Thin Air in Mount Aconcagua

One of my staff is off for 3 weeks climbing Mount Aconcagua in Argentina. It is the highest mountain outside Asia, standing at 6,962m or 22,841 ft. He set off last week from Amsterdam via Madrid to Santiago in Chile before taking another flight to Mendoza in Argentina. From Mendoza its about 100km to the foot of the mountain.

The biggest problem with such an extremely high climb is attitude sickness for lack of oxygen. The air gets thinner and apparently the key thing for climbers is to get acclimatised quickly. The climber's motto is "climb high, sleep low", referring to climbing higher to acclimatise but returning to lower elevation to sleep. Climbers normally climb 300 metres in a day but come back down at 200 metres and sleep. Thus it can take up to 10 days to reach the summit from base camp.