Aconcagua vs Ojos del Salado

[m.c. reinhardt]

Here is in interesting story. Harry, is this another one of your April fools jokes?   Oh, yeah, it's November!
I'm guessing that Aconcagua is the highest peak but this story does peak one's curiosity.

MC     

[7summits]

Hahaha, no this time it's not me :-)
But you must know better than to believe anything anymore that these people write, right?

Actually the mountain is very nice, I climbed it 2 weeks after summiting Aconcagua in 2003 and as we were still acclimatised and you can drive to 5200m it took only a few days from sealevel to sealevel... We had the summit to ourselves and met only one other team (from and with very nice guy Wally Berg) on the way down.

You can spend a nice few days around Laguna Verde, where this image was taken.
The last scramble is nice, but I cannot say if this is higher or not than Acon, though I feel I should have had more trouble with climbing it if it were..

[Mountain John]

it seems there were measurements in 2005 and 2004 as well, and they confirm Ojos del Salado elevation plus or minus just a few meters.

Acon is 6962.  I don´t think they debate that.

here is link for 2004 and 2005 readings

http://www.peaklist.org/WWsurveys/SA/ojos.html

Mountain John

[Scott Patterson]

Just a cheap rehash of old news (decades old in fact), some of it erroneous. The debate has been going on for over 50 years now but has been over for decades, and survey after survey, Aconcagua has been measured higher. The debate is older than the old 1980's K2 vs Everest one. 

There are also several old errors in the article. First, Ojos del Salado was climbed in February 1937, and also probably by the Incas several hundred years before as well.

It is also known that the 1956 group climbed the wrong peak and not Ojos del Salado. This has been proven. (See also Secor's book).

All sources in recent years seem to agree that Aconcagua is highest. The old arguements that Ojos was higher seemed to have died out decades ago.

More recently, what actually really is (or at least was) still disputed is the 2nd highest peak in South America. Corax has a good discussion of this on the Ojos del Salado page on Summitpost.

http://www.summitpost.org/mountain/rock/150299/ojos-del-salado.html

Ojos isn't the only other mountain in South America that has been reported to be over 7000 meters. Another mountain in South America which was once reported as over 7000 meters is Ancohuma in Bolivia. More recently, the accepted elevation is generally listed as 6427 meters.

One mountain that has been upgraded very recently in elevation is Coropuna Peru. The latest survey apparently puts it up at 6613 meters. If the survey is correct, it will move from the #21 or #22 spot (depending on the list) and up to #12, #13, or #14.

Elevations in South America are always changing or variable it seems. I led a trip to climb some of the lesser known peaks to the Andes in 1998-1999. We had a topo map, a provincial map, and an atlas map for Nevado Tolima. The atlas map said the mountain was 18,438 feet/5620 meters. The provincial map said the peak was 17,110 feet/5215 meters. The topo map said the peak was 17,303 feet/5274 meters. Out GPS said the Peak was right at 17,600 feet, coincidentally almost the average of the othr three figures. Since the topo map was closest to our GPS figure, we assumed it was the most accurate and correct probably the correct one to use.

[MvdB]

the whole problem about which one is nr1 and which one is 2 is still not solved, but Janne Corax claims that on his three climbs Aconcagua came out higher then Ojos del Salado, with about 60 meters difference in altitude...

http://www.mounteverest.net/news.php?news=15386

[Corsair]

the whole problem about which one is nr1 and which one is 2 is still not solved, but Janne Corax claims that on his three climbs Aconcagua came out higher then Ojos del Salado, with about 60 meters difference in altitude...

http://www.mounteverest.net/news.php?news=15386

As I've been mentioned a couple of times in this thread (yes, I'm Janne), perhaps I should comment.
As said, I have summited and measured Aconcagua, Ojos, Pissis (two of the three summits) and Bonete Chico. Further, there have been been more accurate surveys as well. There's no question about this is the right order.

The source that says "these peaks haven't been measured properly" is either completely ignorant or is fishing for headlines. I'm here talking about the original source, not anyone in any forum.

Some days ago I added some more info to the ExWeb article, not to be put online, but for the record. Part of that e-mail below:

south american peaks

there's no doubt about the order of the four highest. i.e. aco, ojos, pissis, bonete chico, but there are two other issues which have been discussed for some time.
the first one seems to have been solved recently.
ojos has two summits. one is called the argentinian and one the chilean. they are both right on the border, but the reference to the countries comes from the fact that one of them is very easy to climb from chile and the other one easy from argentina. there has been a lot of discussion about two issues:
1). is it ok to climb any of those two summits and claim to have bagged the summit of ojos?
2). which is the highest of the two?

here's a relevant excerpt from an e-mail:

***********
It was surveyed by Argentinians Claudio Bravo ( xxxxx@arnet.com.ar) and Dario Bracali (xxxxx@inplast.com.ar), using levelling, in November 2003.
 
The West (Chilean) summit is 54 +/- 5 centimeters higher than the East (Argentinian summit), and is steeper.
************
it seems like that problem is solved. competent use of levelling leaves very little room for further speculation. the consensus is, based on the fact that the difference is only 54cm, both summits are ok for claiming the ojos summit.

another issue, which is not set yet, is the summits of pissis. there are three summits within 3m (SRTM)! i have been on top of two of those, but the DGPS readings are so close i can't say for sure which is the highest. the little difference marginal talks in favor of the west (so far called the true) summit. i had no time to climb the third summit.
SRTM is not accurate enough to set the issue and even DGPS-measuring holds some  problems. peter xxxxxx hopes to go to the bottom of this matter, going there next season with a trimble.

[Corsair]

One mountain that has been upgraded very recently in elevation is Coropuna Peru. The latest survey apparently puts it up at 6613 meters. If the survey is correct, it will move from the #21 or #22 spot (depending on the list) and up to #12, #13, or #14.

Scott, which survey is that?
It's almost 200m higher than the generally accepted altitude.
Could you please link to a source.