The story of the conquest by the leader of the 1897 expedition. Edward Fitzgerald transports us back in time, with his story, to an emblematic site of Argentine and world mountaineering. Where it all began.
By Edward Arthur Fitzgerald, leader of the Aconcagua and Tupungato expedition of 1897. His story of the conquest (The Alpine Journal, v.19 1898-99)
Our work in South America was almost entirely limited to the Argentine Republic. We went directly from London to Buenos Aires and then to Mendoza by rail. Here we got about twenty mule drivers and some native muleteers whom we used during our work in the mountain range; we also bought five horses to ride. From Mendoza we went to Punta de Vacas, the last station of the Trans-Andean Railway.
TRANS-ANDINE RAILWAY: The construction of the Trans-Andean Railway on the Argentine side was granted under Law 583 of November 5, 1872. The execution of the project, its administration and commercial exploitation was granted to an English firm headed by Juan E. Clark, who presented the studies carried out for the line through the Uspallata pass in 1886. The construction of the railway did not begin until 1889. The opening of the line on the Argentine side was carried out from Mendoza to Uspallata on February 22, 1891, from Uspallata to Río Blanco on May 1, 1892, and from Río Blanco to Punta de Vacas on November 17, 1893, with a total length of 143 kilometers of track.
Here we made several expeditions through the lateral valleys surrounding Aconcagua, in order to determine the best route to attack the mountain. We decided that our best route would be via the Horcones valley, so on December 23rd I set out for that valley with Zurbriggen, four porters, two horses and three mules, to attack the mountain from the north-west face.
We gradually made progress, camp by camp, until we established a camp at about 5700m. There we pitched two tents and brought up provisions. The altitude of this camp was determined with boiling point thermometers. The trigonometric height has not yet been calculated. However, I think it would be safe to say that this calculation is correct, within 60 to 150m.
We were not having very good weather there, so on December 27th we were forced to turn back, mainly due to the fact that our food-heating apparatus was poor.
Between December 30th and January 2nd I made two attempts, but was forced to turn back each time, due to extreme weakness and nausea. On January 5th I returned to the attack, making a fourth attempt on the 14th. This time I reached 6700m. Here I suffered severe mountain sickness and was once again forced to cancel the attempt; however, I sent Zurbriggen up.
Mathias pushed on and reached the summit two hours later, at about 5 p.m. The next day we returned to our base camp at the Inca (Puente del Inca). On January 19th I started again with Mr. Vines, a porter, a muleteer and three pack mules.
Zurbriggen was temporarily incapacitated by the difficulties he had suffered on his previous successful ascent. We camped at 3650m that night. On the 20th we climbed to our camp at 4260m. Finding all our porters suffering from mountain sickness and severe mental depression, and knowing that our camp was well supplied at 6000m, Mr. Vines and I set out alone on the 21st. However, I felt ill halfway up and we both turned back.
The next day, the 22nd, we tried again. This time, despite a tremendous gale, we reached our 5700m camp. There Mr. Vines and I spent a miserable night in a small Mummery tent, with the temperature at least -17ºC.
EDWARD ARTHUR FITZGERALD : Edward Arthur FitzGerald was an American mountaineer, writer and soldier of British descent, best known for leading the expedition that marked the first ascent of Aconcagua. He joined explorer Martin Conway to walk in the Alps in 1894, where he met Swiss guide Matthias Zurbriggen. Sufficiently impressed, FitzGerald decided to hire Zurbriggen as his guide for the next five years. In 1900, FitzGerald joined the Imperial Yeomanry to fight in the Second Boer War, where he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the 5th Dragoon Guards and a first lieutenant in 1901. He was employed by the War Office from 1914 to 1919. In 1903 he gave up climbing after an accident in the Swiss commune of Zermatt and married the traveller and writer Ménie Muriel Dowie. FitzGerald died on 2 January 1931 at the age of 59, in London.
On the 23rd we were enveloped in clouds and in the afternoon a heavy snowfall fell. We were so completely incapacitated by these two nights of extreme cold and mountain sickness that we were forced to return to our main camp at the Inca.
On the 7th of February Mr. Vines and I set out on a new march. On the 8th we reached our camp at 4260m. Here I was again attacked by illness and it was not until the 10th that we succeeded in climbing up to our camp at 5700m.
The 11th and 12th were spent at that altitude, but as we were gradually weakening I thought our only hope was to make an immediate attack on the mountain.
On the 13th we therefore set out before daylight for the final climb. We took with us Nicola Lanti, an Italian porter. At just over 6100m I felt completely incapacitated by mountain sickness and had to turn back, but I sent Mr. Vines and the porter to complete the ascent.
They reached the summit late in the afternoon, stayed there an hour, and joined me at camp at 5700m late in the evening, in an extremely exhausted state.
On the 14th we returned to our camp at Inca. On the 18th of March Mr. Vines left our camp at 4267m to ascend a high peak a few miles west of Aconcagua.
He was accompanied by Joseph and Louis Pollinger. They had a difficult climb and suffered an accident which nearly proved fatal. It happened thus: Louie Pollinger was in front, Mr. Vines in the middle, and Joseph Pollinger behind. The leader, thinking that he could save himself a long detour by facing a difficult rock climb in front of them, headed for this almost perpendicular face; but when the party had reached half way, Pollinger found it impossible to proceed.
In turning to descend he fell, dislodging at the same time great masses of loose rock, which narrowly missed falling upon Mr. Vines, while he landed on the edge of a very deep precipice, narrowly escaping a jagged pinnacle of ice, which would have killed him most if he had struck it.
He was much shaken, but was able to continue after a short rest, and they reached the summit without further mishap. I estimate the height of this peak at about 5790m, but the calculation has not yet been made. The latter part of the ascent was difficult and dangerous, owing to the cornices. The party returned to camp at 4260m that afternoon.
It took Pollinger some days to fully recover from the effects of his fall. Vines and Zurbriggen, Lanti, a muleteer and three mules left Punta de Vacas on March 27 and reached the foot of Tupungato on the 27th, after 40 miles of very hard walking.
They made a base camp at about 3050m. On the 28th they went on and slept under a rock in the open at 4200m.
On the 29th Mr. Vines, Zurbriggen and Lanti set out. Lanti returned to 5180m; the others, still 800m from the summit, were forced to retreat. They returned to the main camp at Vacas to seek fresh supplies and more porters. On April 8, the same party, augmented by two porters and more mules and horses, reached base camp on the afternoon of the 4th.
On the 5th they set out for the bivouac at 4200m. On the 6th they tried to make amends, but storms and altitude sickness forced them to turn back.
On the 8th they made a new bivouac at about 5180m. A gale destroyed their tent during the night and forced them to turn back again. The cold was terrible, the thermometer reading -15°C.
On the 11th they camped again at 5180m, and the next day Mr. Vines and Zurbriggen reached the summit at about 4.30. The porters were forced to turn back sick at about 6100m.
The whole party returned to Vacas on the 14th, after nine days of great suffering and exposure. On the 29th April Mr. Lightbody and Mr. Philip Gosse, with Lochmatter as porter, ascended “Forked Peak,” as we call it, a mountain about 5180m high to the south-west of Aconcagua.
They started from a camp at 4000m near Horcones. Many full plate photographs were taken, and about 60 yards of cyclometric film was also exposed. Geological, zoological and ornithological samples were collected. The party consisted of: Stuart Vines, A. E. Lightbody.
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