A while back I wrote about bootstrapping a Kubernetes cluster. I’ve been refining the setup so that it requires as little manual kubectl‘ing as possible. I still use ArgoCD to get everything rolling, and there is one bit that kept going red: persistent volumes.
I got really fed up with sitting at home because of covid. So instead I rented a car and went for a snowy hike where I wouldn’t be likely to run into people: Mt Asama, an active volcano. In fact I only ran into 1-2 people on the way.
While other countries have pretty harsh lockdown rules (from what I hear on the news), Japan is pretty lax about that. While commuting to work by train is discouraged, I figured going up in the mountains (where there are hardly any people) it can’t hurt, right?
After Elbrus and Kilimanjaro, I knew I can’t take Aconcagua lightly. At almost 7000m it’s the highest mountain outside of Asia and thus the second highest of the Seven Summits. Working full time, the time I had available for training was very limited. This was before covid hit either, so I actually had to commute to the office too, which is about an hour one way. So what can the man do if he only has so many hours in the day and he needs some sleep too, but training has to be done for Aconcagua?
After reaching the summit of Aconcagua at 6961m, we took two days to get back down. Naturally when we got back to camp 3 after the summit day, we were completely exhausted. However the next day wasn’t going to be any easier either: we had to descend all the way to the “normal” route base camp at Plaza de Mulas.
On Elbrus we’d enter the world of snow as soon as we “went up the mountain.” Aconcagua is very different. There is snow and ice: there are the penitentes and the route goes over glaciers on multiple occasions. But the snow and ice is mostly covered by rock and dust, so it’s much harder to be conscious of it. This year there was so little snow that we didn’t even need to take our crampons for the summit attack.
After Plaza Argentina base camp, we kept doing the same load carrying routine: carry up some team gear, go back down, maybe rest and then move to the higher camp. We had a total of three high camps: camp 1 at 4950m, camp 2 at 5570m and camp Colera at 5870m. While we were climbing Aconcagua the “Polish traverse” route, Colera is also the highest camp of the “normal” route.
The route up to almost 7000m altitude on Aconcagua is a long one. I’ll write about the “world below” (Mendoza and the area) later. Our route, the “Polish traverse” goes up the Vacas valley to the base camp at Plaza Argentina. On the way we had lunch at some roadside restaurant where we met another team (of two + guide) who were going up the “normal route.”
If you’ve watched Yama no Susume, then you’ve heard of Mt Tanigawa. It’s the goal of a major arc of the story and an important memory to the characters. I went there in a different season though (in the snow), but didn’t climb the main summit. For no particular reason other than I didn’t realize the summit I was at wasn’t the highest point. Whoops.
This year was quite thick in events so I decided to write a year retrospect for a change. I read somewhere that people tend to do wild things when they’re nearing a “round” age like 30, except I read about this after I planned most of the stuff listed below… It definitely did turn into a very eventful 30th.
