The camps up from Plaza de Mulas are Camp Canada at 4900m (16,075ft), Nido de Condores at 5400m (17715ft) and Berlin at 5900m (19360ft) about the same height as Kilimanjaro summit.

 

This account is mainly from correspondence with Frank.  Jack and Cesar dropped out at Nido de Condores.  Jack got a headache and lost confidence in himself and also a bit with the guides.  Thomas dropped out the minute he got to Berlin.  Every day was snow up to Berlin.  Summit day from Berlin started out nice and milder temperature than expected, up at 4am, start climbing at 6am.  Peter turned back on summit day.  Frank, Jimmi and Andre pushed hard to the canaleta and then got their asses kicked from that point on.  The three of them summitted on New Years Eve with guide Andres late in the day - around 3:30pm - a full hour after the normal window.  Then they took an extra 2 hours longer than normal to descend back to Berlin because no one saved enough energy for the return trip.  The rock/ice terrain on descent required focus they didn’t have and their legs were weak so the relied on their poles for balance.  They saw many guys being short roped by their guides because of the danger and two wackos just starting up the Caneleta at around 4pm.  Then the snows started, hard.  When they reached Independencia there were 5 climbers who were stationary because they couldn’t see the way back to Berlin; they followed our group down.  Andres was very familiar with the route, thankfully, and could find it even with the heavy snow.  By the time they got back to Berlin at 7:30pm they were in a near whiteout.  They collapsed in their tents, didn’t eat, went straight to bed feeling sick and disgusted about the mountain.  Frank says they had tons of snow in Camp Canada, Nido de Condores and summit day.  They were cold, miserable days that he can’t wait to forget.  Frank had a mild case of pneumonia and took two hours longer than usual on the hike out (Plaza de Mulas to Puente del Inca) due to blisters on his feet.  They heard of many evacuations by helicopter.

 

One week later, on my birthday January 7, four Italian climbers and their guide were caught in a similar situation.  Up above Independencia after a late summit they were trapped by an afternoon blizzard, which is common for this time of year.  The storm caused temperatures to drop to 0F (-18C) and reduced visibility to 10 meters.  The party lost its way and began descending the east face.  They sent out a distress call, but no one could go up in the storm and the helicopter (which doesn’t normally go that high anyway) could not go in the weather.  After enduring a night out, 2 were left dead (the guide and one of the climbers) and the others were rescued by helicopter the next day after descending to Nido de Condores camp.  In a separate group on the same day 42-year old British climber, Michael Freeman, died of a heart attack just 2 meters from the summit.  Also on January 3, 42-year old German, Stefan Geromin, died on in a fall.  When I was climbing the mountain, I was 42-years old.