Day Five, we were off to Plaza Canada with the rest of our gear. Its a good trail and a great camping perch where we spent the night. Day Six, we all did a carry up to Nido de Condones with Don and Morgan staying at Nido in order to do a carry the next day up to Berlin while the rest of us retreated back down to Canada. On Day seven, while Don and Morgan carried a tent, fuel and supplies to Berlin the rest of us carried the remaining gear to Nido. Day eight, we were successful in, everyone carrying our remaining gear up to Berlin with enough supplies to last a week. Everyone was feeling good when we reached Berlin so we decided if the weather was good the next day, we would go for the summit. On day nine there was a bad wind with some snow so we just stayed in our two tents. It was quite cold, it periodically snowed, and it wasn't a comfortable place to be with three/tent. The views were magnificent but at the high altitude of Berlin at 19,400', you didn't feel like doing much beyond the required melting of snow for water and cooking food. Day 10 on the mountain started out calm and clear so by 6:30a.m., our six climbers were heading towards the summit with the first light of daybreak just becoming visible. The weather started out nice and we made good progress up to 21,100' at Refugio Independcia. Next came crossing the Gran Acarreo - a steep slope about .25 mile wide. It was impressive looking down that slope for 8,000' to the floor of Upper Horconea Valley. Next came the Canaleta - a steep, narrow 1,200' chute to reach the summit ridge. It was slow going with more breaths per step than I had ever done before. Our mouths were open breathing hard so much that most of us even got some sunburn on our tongues. The weather started deteriorating and a foot of new snow in the Canaleta really slowed our progress but fortunately, there was no wind so we were able to keep going. Our group of six climbers reached the north summit at 3:00p.m. simultaneously with eight members from the commercial group. We could not see much through the falling snow but were happy enough that the weather had allowed us to keep going. The descent got more difficult in the deepening snow. With the fresh snow on top of the harder snow, we carefully kicked steeps across the Gran Acarreo and it wasn't until about 6:00p.m. that we got back to the Refugio Independcia. Navigating on down to Berlin Camp in the was difficult since all route markers were covered in snow. The first people were back to camp at 9:00p.m. and the last of our group came in at 10:30p.m. It turned out that four from the commercial group ended up bivouacking at Refugio Independcia with little extra gear - fortunately the storm was not too severe and they were back with their group by midmorning to the obvious relief of their guide. Day 11 was a pleasant hike back down to base camp although it was again snowing heavily on us for the last couple of hours before reaching the hotel. The next day we spent enjoying the Hotel Refugio as they began making preparations for closing it down. On Day 13, we hiked all the way back out to Puente with Doug and his wife trying a five hour mule ride straight through - they had a hard time sitting down for the next couple of days. The only real problem we had were our sunburned lips which took several days to heal.

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