Atacama, Incahuasi in northern Argentina

February 1, 2006

We set out to climb the volcano of Incahuasi, a mountain on the border of Argentina and Chile. Incahuasi has a summit elevation of 6,621 metres (21,722 ft) above sea level. We flew from Buenos Aires to La Rioja in Northern Argentina and then drove to Fiambala, the border outpost. There, we met our driver Johnson who arranged for our transport to Las Grutas, a border police post close to Incahuasi. We had two main issues: acclimatization and water. The mountain is very high and there is no drinkable water. We were counting on the winter snowpack to provide us with the source of water. Unfortunately, we did not find any snow and had to abandon our attempt. The trip gave us a great opportunity to trek through the little visited corner of the Atacama Desert. It was a good adventure regardless of our lack of success with the summit.