Name = David Chen

Email = dchen168@stny.rr.com

File attached = IMG_0368.JPG

Message =
Hi, John.

Some time ago, I placed a SamStone in the Gunks near New Paltz, NY.
One of my best friends, Ryan, was my guide and instructor for that
lovely day of rock climbing.  Unlike me, he is an avid
rock/ice/mountain climber.  Well, when he told me early last year what
he and two of his friends had planned to do this past December, I
asked him to place a SamStone for me.  He happily agreed to do so.

On Dec 23, 2013, Ryan placed a SamStone at the summit of in
the province of Mendoza, Argentina.  The Seven Summits refer to the
tallest mountain on each continent.  Aconcogua is the second tallest
on the list.  Yes, only Everest is taller!  (There are taller
mountains in Asia that don’t reach the height of Everest.  This claim
for Aconcogua is referring just to the list of the Seven Summits.)  I
dare say that this may be the highest altitude anyone has ever left a
SamStone!

and here’s more info

Hi, John and Diane.

I just submitted an entry for a placing a SamStone at samstones.org, but I wanted to share additional details of my friend’s trip.

In case you haven’t gotten to read the entry yet…During the trip to the Gunks in New Paltz, NY where I placed the SamStone on one of my climbs, my guide and instructor was one of my best friends, Ryan.  Ryan loves the outdoors.  He goes ice/rock/mountain climbing when he can schedule it in.  Some time ago, he started talking about going on an epic, once-in-a-lifetime kind of mountain climbing trips.  He started making plans with two other friends from Ithaca early last year.  When I heard he was actually going to go, I asked him if he would bring a SamStone and place it somewhere for me.  He happily agreed to do so, even though he said at the time that he might not make it to the summit.

Well, on Dec 23, 2013, he reached the summit of Aconcogua in the province of Mendoza, Argentina and placed a SamStone.  Aconcogua is in the list of the Seven Summits.  If you aren’t familiar with the Seven Summits, it’s a list of the tallest mountain on each continent.  Aconcogua is the second tallest mountain on that list!  Only Everest is taller.  To be fair, there are several taller mountains in Asia.  However, since Everest is the tallest mountain in the world and happens to be in Asia, those other mountains are not on the list.  As I mentioned in my message via the SamStone.org website, this may be the highest altitude anyone has left a SamStone!

Ryan came back with some amazing stories and details about his climb that I wanted to share with you.  I didn’t include any of these extra details in the message I sent via the SamStone website since it would have made the message very long.  Ryan made it to the summit on day 9 of the trip.  If people didn’t have to acclimatize to the altitude, it would be much faster.  They spent 3 days between moving camps to get used to the altitude.  On day 1, they would hike to the next camp and come back down.  On day 2, they would gather most of their food and bring that up to the next camp before coming back down.  Finally, on day 3 they carried the rest of their gear up to the next camp.  On the way up, they hired mules to help lighten the load.  Ryan estimated that his pack weighed about 20 pounds on the way up.  He said it was closer to 80 pounds on the way back down.  Near the end of the return trip, he made up a poem about his pack comprised mainly of expletives!  In his group of three, he was the only person to make it to the summit.  His two other friends were within 1000 feet of the summit (he guessed maybe closer to 800 feet), but they were feeling the effects of altitude sickness pretty severely.  He told me that one reason he wanted to get to the summit was to place the SamStone up there for me.  I wouldn’t have been any less happy if he had stopped and turned back with his two friends.  After hearing some of the details, maybe he should have turned back with them!

On the way from high camp to the summit, he said he was out of breath with each step.  I think he said it took him hours to walk maybe the equivalent of a mile.  It wasn’t a mile vertically, but the total length of the path from the high camp to the summit may have been almost a mile (not quite sure of that distance because he was telling us so many details).  Along the route, there were two rocks that he had to climb.  Imagine going up two steps on a staircase.  Normally, not a big deal.  That’s what he was facing, and he said it almost destroyed him when he saw those rocks on the path.  But he managed to work up the will power to move on.  He needed to take several deep breaths before climbing up those two steps.  Then he was hunched over trying to catch his breath when he got to the top of those two steps.  After what seemed like forever to him, he saw the top of a cross.  He knew then that he had made it.  If you look at the two pictures I attached below, you’ll see the cross I’m talking about.  Apparently, it’s a place where people leave items of significant sentimental value.  For example, in the second picture, you’ll see two pacifiers and rosary beads to the right of the SamStone.  Ryan thinks that was left by someone who had lost their babies.  There were also flags tied to the cross and other items of personal value at the base of that cross.  He thought that was the perfect place to leave the SamStone.

Now, why would it possibly have been smarter for Ryan to turn back with his friends?  First, some additional background about Ryan.  He is a former EMT with wilderness first responder training.  He currently works as a nurse in the Cayuga Medical Center in Ithaca.  He brought his stethoscope (which we bought him as a graduation present) with him so he could listen to his own and his friends’ heart and lungs for signs of high-altitude pulmonary edema (fluid buildup in the lungs that can be life-threatening).  He also put together a mini trauma kit just in case they had an emergency.  So he knows his stuff when dealing with medical issues in the outdoors.  Looking back at it now, he knows he was high (not just in altitude, but also as in altered state) because of the low oxygen levels in the air.  When you look at the pictures, you’ll see that he was wearing a blue coat.  At the time, he would have sworn he was wearing a slightly lighter red coat that he also had brought with him for this climb.  He definitely wasn’t seeing things correctly while at the summit.  One of his other friends had brought a pulse oximeter.  After meeting up with his friends at camp again, he slept for 12 hours and was still tired and groggy.  His friend took a pulse ox reading and it was 70!  Apparently, in the hospitals, patients with a reading of 90 are given additional oxygen.  He was still well below that threshold after 12 hours of resting.  Unfortunately, he and his friends had to pack up and leave because the weather was taking a turn for the worse.

There are so many other stories and details to go with the amazing pictures he took while on this trip.  He was high enough (altitude this time) that you can see the curvature of the Earth in the clouds behind him in a couple of pictures at the summit.  I thought you would appreciate the effort he went through to get that SamStone to the top of Aconcogua.  However, it may be possible that he made it to the summit in some small part because I had asked him to place a SamStone on the mountain for me.  He mentioned several times while telling us this about this experience that he really wanted to place the stone at the summit.  He didn’t want me to write to you saying that he left a SamStone 800 feet from the top of the mountain.  He wanted me to be able to tell you that there is a SamStone on the TOP of the mountain.

So I have a request for you now.  In the entry for the SamStone website, I think it’s best to just use the shorter message that I sent via the website.  However, can you include both of these pictures in the entry?  I was only able to include one picture via the website.