Mt. Aconcagua at a height of 6,961 m is the highest mountain in the Andes Mountain Range and also in the western and southern hemispheres. It is located in Argentina, in the province of Mendoza and lies 15 km from the border of Chile.
Aconcagua is one of the ‘Seven Summits’. The Seven Summits are the highest mountains on each of the seven continents. Climbing to the summit of all of them is regarded as a mountaineering feat, which was first achieved by Richard Bass from the USA in 1985.
The name Aconcagua is believed to mean ‘sentinel of stone’ in Quechua. Aconcagua used to be an active volcano till about 10 million years ago. It is part of the Aconcagua Provincial Park, a protected natural area in the Andes that was established in 1983. It has a number of glaciers, the largest of which is Ventisquero Horcones Inferior which is about 10 km long.
Aconcagua was first climbed in 1897 by Swiss mountaineer, Matthias Zurbriggen. The youngest person to reach the summit was Tyler Armstrong of USA. He was 9 when he reached the summit in December 2013.
Kamya Karthikeyan from India became the youngest girl to reach the summit in February 2020.
Picture Credit : Google
