Outside Asia, no mountain tops Argentina’s Aconcagua
Aconcagua rises 6,967.15 metres in Argentina's Mendoza Province, higher than any mountain outside Asia and the second most prominent peak on Earth. Once an active stratovolcano above the subducting Nazca Plate, it now draws climbers to a normal route that needs no ropes, yet it kills about three people a year.
The mountain stands about 112 kilometres northwest of Mendoza city and roughly fifteen kilometres from the Chilean frontier, cupped by the Vacas Valley on one side and the Horcones Inferior on the other. Aconcagua Provincial Park wraps those approaches, and several glaciers still spill from the upper faces. Subduction of the Nazca Plate beneath South America built the edifice; Miocene tectonic rearrangements later shut the volcanic plumbing that had once fed a living stratovolcano.
Swiss guide Matthias Zurbriggen made the first recorded ascent on 14 January 1897 while attached to a British expedition. From the north, the so-called normal route usually needs no ropes, which is why outdoor writers call Aconcagua the world’s highest non-technical mountain. The boast misleads novices: atmospheric pressure near the top is only about forty percent of the pressure at sea level, so altitude illness, not rock difficulty, gates most failures.
Etymologists cannot agree on the name. Mapudungun Aconca-Hue may point to a river “coming from the other side”; Quechua readings yield “Sentinel of Stone” or “White Sentinel”; Aymara Janq’u Q’awa suggests “White Ravine.” Guide literature lists the options without crowning a winner.
Most climbers stage from Puente del Inca and the Plaza de Mulas base camp at 4,370 metres, said to be the second largest after Everest's, where doctors check whether they are fit to continue. Only an estimated 30 to 40 per cent reach the top, and the steady toll of deaths has earned the peak the nickname Mountain of Death. Tyler Armstrong summited aged nine in 2013, and Scott Lewis at 87 in 2007.
Source: Aconcagua
