Panamerican Peaks Project

Transition to Mountaineering

February 21st, 2010

After the bike mishap some 10 days ago and then the surprise visit back home in Florida during the last week I am now en route to Mendoza for the expeditions on Aconcagua and later Ojos Del Salado.

I procured the replacement frame part from ChallengeBikes in Holland. It was shipped via FedEx to Florida, so I could bring it with me to Mendoza (and then send it down to the bike shop in Bariloche. Thanks to FedEx for delivering overnight and thanks to ChallengeBikes for splitting the cost of the frame part. I also got a new flag pole for my Bob Yak trailer – the old one had been shredded to pieces by the Patagonia wind.

When I left last night from Miami I reflected on how distributed my equipment is at this moment: My bike is at a bike shop in Bariloche, the bike trailer and panniers at the hostel in Bariloche; my replacement part is in a bag checked through to Mendoza. My duffel bag with tent, sleeping bag, stove etc. is already in Mendoza at our hotel. My mountaineering backpack I just picked up from the hotel in downtown Santiago where I stayed 5 weeks ago on the way down to Ushuaia. Not the kind of scenario for a person who needs to have all equipment present in one location at all times…

Last week I did some work on my Blog pages (as compared to the posts). There is now a new About page (with mission statement and link to project brochure in PDF format), as well as Peaks and Rides index pages (http://tlausser.com/blog/peaks and http://tlausser.com/blog/rides) with a picture of all peaks or rides by country. From those you can easily navigate to the respective page for a specific peak or ride through that country. You can also use the links in the ‘Pages’ section on the right. Alternatively, you can navigate to a particular peak page directly by name, such as http://tlausser.com/blog/peaks/aconcagua.

Speaking of Aconcagua: Antoine Labranche from Canada and I will embark on a 2 week expedition to Aconcagua starting this Tuesday (Feb-23), followed by a 1 week expedition to Ojos Del Salado (Chile’s highpoint). I have created a new SPOT tracking page for Aconcagua (see Route link on the right or directly here) where you can follow our progress over the next 2 weeks. There is also a Aconcagua photo album on Picasa. If there is WiFi as rumored at the hotel near base camp I plan to provide some updates during next week as well. Wish us luck up high for the next 3 weeks!

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