Vern

Hear Vern's Call from Aconcagua

Click for [RealAudio]  [Windows Media]

(Requires FREE RealPlayer or Windows Media)

Buenas días Mountain Zone. This is Team Omega, reporting in from Aconcagua, Argentina. Yahoo! We were very fortunate yesterday and we were able to summit. Even though there was high winds and low temperatures, we stood on top and were able to take measurements — both climatology and physiological measurements at the very summit of Mount Aconcagua.

It was a beautiful, clear day in the morning and then the [Unintelligible] frontal system moved in and we realized we were in for it, so we — we had 30 mile-an-hour winds in the morning shaking our tents and we decided to go anyway to beat the storm — so we stood on top and clocked some mighty fast winds. It was 43 miles-an-hour on the summit ridge and zero degrees temperature at the summit, which is 22,835ft and that was at 13:45 on the 23rd of September.

We also checked our blood-oximeter readings to measure our saturation of oxygen in our blood. On the summit Bob was 62% with 115 pulse and I was 63% oxygen saturation with 95 pulse. This morning we took our psychological tests and hopefully we'll be getting that data posted very soon.

Thank you very much for following our progress. We enjoyed being with you and now all we have to do see if we can get down off this windy mountain in one piece. Ciao for now, hasta luego.

—Vernon Tejas, MountainZone.com Correspondent

EXPEDITION DISPATCHES