Travel Notes

“Ojos del Salado 7 days successful expedition
March 2016

“Chile Montana was a great company to organise a customised trip in Chile. The email correspondence with Vivianne was timely and efficient. The quality of service provided was excellent: camp equipment was to a high standard – North Face Summit Tents in good condition. The Camp Manager did an excellent job coordinating logistics and turned out to be a real chef in the kitchen – we have never eaten better on a summit trip. On the summit night our guide set a good pace and got us to the top of Ojos Del Salado at 6893m. The trip delivered everything we could have hoped for.”

Expedition members: Alison Smith and Jerome Saulnier

ChileMontaña staff: Mario Perez (Mountain guide), Juan Carlos Briceño (Base Camp Manager and Logistics)”

“37Ojos del Salado Military Expedition
February 2016

“Unfortunately we failed to summit Ojos; three of us suffered altitude sickness. The team had to turn around at 6200m despite having six strong members; we elected to stay as a group rather than spread ourselves across the mountain. Maybe better weather for a summit attempt a day later would have allowed that little extra acclimatisation that we clearly required. Ojos is there for another day, and so are we to climb it.
Not all was lost. We had a great time acclimatising; particularly on Siete Hermanos and San Francisco, both of which we summited as a team of 12 (including Edu and Mario) in good order. Laguna Verde was particularly scenic and we enjoyed being in Chile for three weeks.
Edu, Mario and Juan Carlos have been excellent ambassadors of Chile Montana – we are taking them out for dinner tonight in Copiapo. We have enjoyed their company and become good friends. Edu is very professional with a passion for the mountains. Mario is good fun and a highly reliable stalwart. Juan Carlos is much more than a top cook with his fine local knowledge. As a team of three they worked really well together and I hope they found our help a useful addition.
Thank you for your help in setting this up with me. I hope to return one day to complete unfinished business.”

Simon Smith, Expedition organizer and leader

Expedition members: Alistair Beard, Matthew Beech, Daniel Roberts, Edward Redgate, Andrew Dawkins, Richard Smith, Brian Howard. Peter Donohue, Mike Ward, Simon Smith
ChileMontaña staff: Edu Unzueta (Mountain guide), Mario Perez (Mountain guide assistant), Juan Carlos Briceño (Base Camp Manager and Logistics)”

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Ojos del Salado EXPLORUJ, Polonia
February 2016

“Dear Vivianne,

First of all, thank you very much for organizing this expedition for us!
Everything worked more than perfect.
• The logistic: everything always on time with no problems.
• The food: Juan Carlos is really one of the best cooks I have ever worked with, always joking, and a GREAT driver
• Our guides: Mario, always smiling, he took care of the two weakest clients on San Francisco and on Ojos del Salado, when the lady got weak he took her down on the short line, great effort and great job… about Eduardo I could write only in superlatives; great person, excellent and professional guide that do the job with patience and smile but also resolute and unhesitating. All clients had a great respect for his job and faith in his decisions and, furthermore, he is a great person.
• Tents, mattresses and other camping equipment, also perfect.
• Aline: she did a very good job while picking us up, showing the city on both ways. Great girl!!
• Lost baggage: I really appreciate all the effort you have put into helping us with finding the baggage. Aline helped us with renting the missed gear, she was also calling us almost every day to bring us up to date with the paperwork at the airport.

We were very lucky to have the perfect weather – so 5 of the clients summited, 2 got up to te Ojos crater. That is a great value for us and this was possible thanks to our team – Eduardo, Mario and Juan Carlos.
Thank you Vivianne for organizing the expedition for us. I hope we didn’t make too much troubles for you! I hope next year we will also have small groups for Ojos and maybe for other mountains. I do have some new ideas so I will get back to you when I will figure out what I want to offer to our clients.

Best regards,

Marta Horiaczek, Expedition organizer and leader.

Expedition members: Marta Horiaczek; Marta Wieczorek, Dariusz Pauliński, Danuta Kuban, Jan Wojciech Kuban, Anetta Koziol, Arkadiusz Koziol, Piotr Tarkowski
ChileMontaña staff: Edu Unzueta (Mountain guide), Mario Perez (Mountain guide assistant), Juan Carlos Briceño (Base Camp Manager and Logistics)”

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Volcan San Jose Climb
February 2016

“Hi Vivianne,
I enjoyed climbing Volcan San Jose very much.
Thank you for assigning good guides.
Also, it was a good opportunity to know many mountains around Maipo valley. It is unbelievable that such a beautiful place can be accessed by two hour drive from Santiago.
Now, I’m considering my next activity in this summer.
See you soon.”
Y.Fujimoto

Expedition members: Yasuhiro Fujimoto
ChileMontaña staff: Gonzalo Vilchez ( Mountain guide), Gonzalo Aylwin (Mountain guide assistant)”