I had proved to Dad and Karen both that I was ready to take on more responsibilities during this climb. I was no longer just a climber. I was a full member of the team, with jobs like keeping track of our elevation, setting alarms for waking up in the morning, and getting weather reports on the radio.
My most important responsibility was taking the Lake Louise survey. High scores were a signal that a climber was facing a life-or-death situation. I paid attention to the details and looked for the warning signs. Before we left base camp on the second morning, I totaled our scores. Everyone was safe to move on, but Ryan, Claire, and Mike weren’t feeling all that hot.
The mules didn’t climb above Plaza de Mulas, so we had to carry our heavy packs as we climbed to Camp Canada, at 16,568 feet, on Christmas Eve. Earlier we had only hiked up a valley, the Valle de las Vacas, but when we left Plaza de Mulas we were now actually on the mountain. The trail was steep, loose, and rocky.
Arriving at camp, the first thing we had to do was check in at the ranger station. The doctor wasn’t as uptight as Nurse Veronica.
“Your son’s doing fine,” he told Dad. “You can check his vital signs yourself from now on and report them to base camp by radio.”
I saw the relief on Dad’s face. One less thing to deal with.
John returned to Plaza de Mulas to acclimatize while the eight of us packed into Dad’s, Karen’s, and my three-man tent to celebrate Christmas Eve. Even at 16,568 feet there was no getting cold with all that body heat and our headlamps beaming. We were crammed shoulder to shoulder, with Karen in Dad’s lap and Ali in Pablo’s.
It was time for some light holiday cheer. We’d shared the rules ahead of time for a white-elephant gift exchange. You couldn’t spend more than twenty dollars and your gift couldn’t weigh more than half a pound. Dad passed around a bowl with numbered pieces of paper. I got number four.
Ali had number one and chose a box wrapped in silver. She opened it and found a Rubik’s Cube. Her face twisted in confusion. “What is this thing?” she asked.
Even after explanations and demonstrations, she didn’t see the need for a Rubik’s Cube on a mountain.
Ryan, with number two, had the option of taking her Rubik’s Cube or picking another gift. It was fair to say that the Rubik’s Cube was safe. He opened a green box containing a down camping pillow.
“Cool,” Claire said, with paper number three. “I’ll just take that pillow, thank you.”
My turn next. Ali wiggled her gift in my face, trying to tempt me. “Jordan, take my Rubik’s Cube. Take my beautiful cube.”
“No thanks. I’ll try this purple box.” Maybe I should’ve gone for the toy instead. I opened an ultralight towel set, but it was way too cold outside for a major wash and dry.
John got the knife I’d brought.
We laughed for hours, drinking hot cocoa and eating Karen’s peanut butter cookies. It might have been unusual by some people’s standards, but for me this was the second best Christmas ever, next only to the one two years earlier when I’d gotten my ice axe.
Christmas Day, six of us chilled in Camp Canada while Dad took a trip back to Plaza de Mulas for more gear. Karen took a solo trip and shuttled supplies up to Camp Nido—short for Nido de Condores, or Nest of the Condors—and returned that afternoon just as Dad and John came back up from Plaza de Mulas.
When we left Camp Canada behind on December 26, our first obstacle was finding a way through the Penitentes, a field of upside-down icicles that were almost as tall as Dad. It would’ve been cool to break one off and pretend it was a Jedi sword, but I’d never damage the environment like that.
It took four hours of climbing to reach snowy Camp Nido. There’d been mules at Mulas, so I hoped to see condors here. No such luck. The camp sat on a wide plateau surrounded by rocky peaks of unusual shapes. I got my first full view of the summit and the surrounding glacial peaks. I could see most of the trail to the top and actually spotted the tiny moving dots of five climbers heading across a long traverse. That would be me in a few days.
The air was very thin at eighteen thousand feet, with still a massive distance up to the summit. Maybe it was that, or finally encountering snow on this mountain, or the responsibilities I had for keeping the team healthy and on track, but, for the first time on Aconcagua, I felt like a real mountaineer.
John, Pablo, and Ali arrived half an hour after Dad, Karen, and me, followed by Ryan, Claire, and Mike another thirty minutes after them. The trio of adventure racers dropped their packs and sank to the ground, breathing heavily. Ryan was holding his head, eyes closed.
“Jordan,” Karen whispered. “Your survey.”
I got out my chart and started questioning them about headaches, nausea, and dizziness.
Ryan waved me off. “No need for that. I’ve had it. I’m going back down.”
“Rest a few days at Camp Canada and do some smaller hikes,” Dad suggested. “You’ll feel better and can try again.”
Ryan shook his head. “I’m an endurance racer, not an altitude guy. This is killing me.”
“I’m with him,” Mike said.
Claire’s knees were drawn to her chest, and she was resting her forehead on her arms. “Me too,” she said. “It’s been great, honestly. I never would’ve seen Aconcagua otherwise.” She stood up and put her pack back on.
“Me too,” John said. “I’m returning to Plaza de Mulas to acclimatize but will be back to summit with you.”
We hugged everybody good-bye, and I watched them leave, wondering what I, a kid barely five feet tall, was doing up here when strong, fit athletes like them had to give up. And what about Everest? It was almost seven thousand feet higher than Aconcagua. I heard somebody from another team puking not ten feet away, and my stomach started to heave. This was insane.
To make matters worse, one of the rangers who patrolled the high camps shook our door flap. “Is this the tent of Jordan Romero?”
“Yes,” Dad said. He smiled, but I could tell he was expecting another challenge.
The ranger asked if I’d been eating and drinking well and insisted on checking the percentage of oxygen my blood was carrying. Before we left home, mine had been 100 percent. As people climb to higher elevations and breathe thinner air, their number gets lower.
He clipped an oxygen sensor on my fingertip. “We will not allow you to continue unless your blood oxygen is at least eighty percent.”
Mine was eighty-five.
He seemed a little angry that I wasn’t suffering more. When he radioed the results to base camp, the doctors below accused him of lying. No one believed that a kid like me could be such a strong mountain climber.
Dad placed the oxygen sensor back on my finger and took a photo of the gauge. “Send that to base camp.”
We learned later that someone in another party on Nido had gotten seriously ill that morning with HAPE (high-altitude pulmonary edema), meaning his lungs had filled with fluid and he couldn’t breathe. Left untreated, he would die, so they’d rushed him down the mountain. I guess that was why they were being extra cautious with me.
Meanwhile all this heaving and leaving was getting to me. I missed my mom and Makaela. I’d never been this far from them at Christmas before. One of our sponsors, Network Innovations, had lent us a BGAN device that could connect to a satellite for making phone calls and using the Internet. The thing was pretty complicated to set up, but I told Karen I wanted to talk to my mom and she got it going for me.
As soon as I put the receiver to my ear and knew my mom was on the other end, I felt instantly happier. “Hi, Mom, it’s me calling you from 18,208 feet on Aconcagua.”
“Oh, Jordan, Jordan, are you okay? You’re not sick?”
I have to admit, my eyes watered just hearing her voice. I took a deep breath and pulled myself together. “No, I’m good, better than people twice my size and age.” Our connection wasn’t the greatest, so I cupped my hands around the mouthpiece to be sure she heard what I said next. “I miss you so much.”
“I miss you too, sweetheart. Everyone does.”
The static got worse then, but I pressed on anyway. “I’ll be home pretty soon. We’re supposed to summit in three days. Mom, Mom? Can you hear me? I’m okay.”
A long silence followed, then one more sentence from her: “Promise you’ll be careful and call me when you’re down safely.” The reception was breaking up, but I think I heard “love you” before we lost the connection.
With a big empty hole inside I gave the phone back to Karen to shut off properly. Her smile let me know she understood how I was feeling. I was lucky to have so much love and support around me.
The following day was one of those un-fun times when it was miserably cold and there was nothing to do but sit around waiting for our bodies to get used to the higher elevation. I kept my eye on the mountain, and I felt like it was challenging me to climb higher than I’d ever been. A storm cloud slowly formed around its peak, and I thought, Oh man, this can’t be good. An hour later the sky turned dark, as killer winds swept down the face of Aconcagua and rolled toward us, stirring up a whirlwind of gray dust so thick it obscured the mountain. A gust picked up a neighboring tent and tossed it. It looked like a big red paper bag bouncing along the sidewalk. Where were the occupants? I remembered Mom’s words: El viento blanco has blown climbers to their deaths. Would the wind coming in with this storm send me bouncing off the mountain like a paper bag?
Dad and Karen were having tea with some new friends at a nearby tent. It seemed safer to dive into our own tent than walk a few yards to find them. I zipped the door shut and sat in the middle of the tent, my knees drawn to my chest. The wind howled and bombarded the sides. I just hoped I was heavy enough to keep the wind from blowing the tent away.
Finally the flap opened and Dad and Karen scrambled inside.
“Damn, that’s nasty,” Dad said. “You okay, buddy?”
I nodded.
He gave a reassuring smile. “The weight of the three of us will hold the tent down.”
Soon we were in the middle of a blizzard so loud it seemed like a helicopter was permanently landing next to us. I crawled into my sleeping bag and pulled the hood over my head. The wind howled all night long, piling snow on our tent until the side caved in against my back. Dad went out to shake the snow loose, and I held my breath until he was back inside safely. The condensation of our breath formed tiny icicles that dropped from the ceiling in frozen rain. Even I, who could sleep anywhere, had a rough time trying to get some sleep.
I guess we all dropped off, because we woke up to a beautiful winter-wonderland day. There were two feet of fresh snow on the ground and drifts of four feet or more.
“We need to make a break for it and get to Camp Berlin before the weather ambushes us again,” Dad said. He called to Pablo and Ali in the next tent, and they crawled out, wide-eyed, and it was just too tempting. I bent over and formed a snowball.
“Oh no you don’t!” Pablo said. He quickly did the same and fired the first shot. He missed me, but snow splattered across Karen’s jacket.
“Jordan, reinforcements!” she shouted.
Soon we were in the middle of a full-on snowball fight. Missiles flew in every direction. At one point I leaned over to gather ammunition, and a big wet snowball hit me right in the butt. Splat. I did a major face-plant.
At 18,200 feet, we only had enough energy for a short battle. Making and throwing snowballs, dodging, falling, laughing—all that left us out of breath. But it was a blast.
We’d put on quite a show for climbers from Britain, Poland, and Italy, who’d all crawled out of their tents at the noise. They gave us a round of applause but didn’t offer to help break the trail, or lead the way through the snow, to the next camp, Camp Berlin. Needless to say, the trail was covered with snow.
“Okaaay, team, are we ready to move on to Berlin?” Dad asked.
Weather on Aconcagua was unpredictable, but we knew there was a series of storms coming with short climbing windows in between. It was important that we get going when we could.
The combination of altitude and fresh, deep snow was too big an obstacle for Pablo and Ali. “We’re going to stay here for a couple of days to see how we feel,” Pablo said.
Wow, two more team members down. It was discouraging. Most expedition groups we met had eight to ten members in them, but it seemed like Dad, Karen, and I were destined to remain a team of three. Nobody could keep our pace. It seemed that most climbers needed more time to acclimatize than we did.
We stuffed everything in heavy packs, and the three of us set out. Dad was in the lead. With each step he sank almost to his knees in the snow. He did his best to drag his legs across the snow and plant them deep, creating a series of holes for Karen and me to maneuver in. His legs were so much longer than ours that we had to ask him to take smaller steps.
It must have been exhausting for him, but he kept a steady rhythm, stopping only to check on me. Each time, he gave me one of those big smiles. I was beginning to realize that my Dad’s cheerful determination was rare in this world.
Climbing was cold and hard. I paused for a short rest, leaning on my poles.
Karen called to me, “Jordan, what elevation?”
I checked my altimeter. “We’re at 18,500.”
“Just think, Jordan. Less than a thousand feet and you’d be on top of Kilimanjaro.”
But this wasn’t Kili. It was Aconcagua, almost three thousand feet taller. The snow was deep, and the wind felt like it was about to send me bouncing down the mountain like that red tent. My pack was super heavy, and Karen and I had to work twice as hard as Dad to climb in and out of his steps. I dropped to my knees, totally spent. This was it—I couldn’t go any farther.
Karen pushed through the snow to get to me and took her mitts off to open a small pack of string cheese. “Eat this and an energy bar. You have to eat. Now. You’ll feel better.”
She was right. I needed fuel. I bit into the cheese and pretended I was home, eating a big hot pizza with gooey mozzarella.
“You can do it, Jordan,” Karen urged. “Don’t give up.”
After a ten-minute rest and two imaginary pizzas, I got up and plodded on again. I kept telling myself that nothing was easy; just keep going. I climbed another half hour, putting one foot in front of the other. I was feeling light-headed. What number would I give myself on the dizzy scale? Or for a headache?
I was totally exhausted and having trouble moving. For the first time, my Everest steps were real. I planted my foot and stopped cold, not able to lift it.
Karen gave me some M&M’s and that helped. It was so cold that they definitely melted in my mouth and not in my hands. Both hands were numb with cold. I continued up the long, steep switchbacks for another hour until the sugar rush ran out. My legs felt as mushy as that Russian spaghetti, and I staggered.
“Jordan,” Karen yelled. “You okay?”
I looked back at her with icy tears streaming down my face.
Dad stopped immediately and came back toward me, while Karen pushed through the snow to reach my side. They made a huddle around me, and then Dad sat cross-legged in the snow and pulled me into his lap.
“What’s wrong, little buddy?” he asked.
“Why am I doing this?” I cried.
Dad held me tighter. “You’re following your dream.”
I could hardly push the words out. “I can’t do this anymore. I hurt all over and I’m so tired.” Tears flowed down my face and froze on my cheeks. “I’m scared and I miss my grandma and Mom. I want to go home.”
Dad whispered, “It’s all right, J Man. Use the memory of your grandma to help you. She loved you so much.”
I inhaled a long, shaky breath. Dad had called me J Man instead of Little J again, and that brought more tears to my eyes—happy ones. His arms felt warm and safe. I knew my dad loved me and would never let anything hurt me. I removed a mitt and rubbed the back of my hand over my eyes, but the tears kept flowing. I couldn’t stop them.
“It’s okay to have doubts,” Karen said quietly. “We all do. There are times when I’ve stopped and asked myself, ‘What in the world did I sign up for here? Why am I doing this race?’ ”
I sniffed, trying to clear my nose, and looked at her.
“Honestly. So many times. The answer’s always the same,” she said.
I sniffed even harder, trying to breathe. “And that is?”
“That it feels good to keep going. The best part of the journey is when you overcome the pain and grow stronger.” She brushed tears from my cheeks before they could freeze. “You did that on your very first mountain. And I know you can do it here, too. We’ll help you.”
Then I imagined Samuel saying, It’s okay to be afraid. That shows your great respect for the mountain. It wants you to climb it.
Karen unzipped my jacket to get my water bottle. “Drink some of this and have another energy bar.”
Dad was still holding me. “It’s your call. We can go up or down, but the quicker we move, the sooner we’ll reach camp and get warm.”
I lifted my head and had to decide between climbing higher and giving up, between altitude and attitude.
I chose to push on. Aconcagua was a big summit, second only to Everest in elevation. It would help me get stronger for that climb.
I tried to clear my nose and swallowed the last of my tears. “Let’s go. I’m ready,” I said.
We had just started back up when an Australian passed us coming down from Camp Berlin. Wind had destroyed his tent during the night and had flattened one that belonged to a Spanish team. They’d been able to repair theirs, but his was gone.
The image of that red tent bouncing on the mountain came back to me, but I blocked it out and kept going. I couldn’t allow fear to get in my way. We leaned into the storm for another hour and a half and finally dragged ourselves, exhausted, into Camp Berlin, the last stop before the summit.
I thought I was hallucinating due to lack of oxygen when climbers from Polish, Italian, and Spanish teams clapped and cheered as we entered the camp. They showered me with questions like how old was I, where was I from, and why did I want to climb Aconcagua?
I didn’t have much of a voice and let my dad answer. He had the widest grin I’d ever seen on his face.
“They must’ve heard about you being on the mountain, J Man,” he said. “Word spread about a strong young boy following his dream.”
His words fed my spirit. Suddenly I knew I could make it to the summit now.
“Can I take a picture with you?” asked a very thin Polish climber. At high altitude you often don’t feel like eating and find it hard to sleep. She and her team had been on the mountain for almost three weeks and were about to make their third attempt at the summit. That’s what I called perseverance. I smiled to myself. I had it too.
Even the ranger at Camp Berlin greeted me with a smile.
“I think the rangers are pulling for you now,” Karen whispered.
After the welcoming committee returned to their tents, Dad and Karen tucked me into my sleeping bag. I was so dead tired that I didn’t trust myself to be awake for the weather report. I set my alarm for seven p.m., and when I woke up we all listened to the forecast together.
It wasn’t good. The park service recommended that no one attempt to summit the next day. We were going to have deteriorating conditions for about twenty-four hours before the weather would improve midday on December 30. Disappointed, Dad and Karen radioed John and Pablo that we wouldn’t be summiting until then.