The following post was written by both Zach and Dakin: 

We have a new addition to our crew. Dominic is from Switzerland and was teaching snowboarding in Bariloche but has set out to travel for a few months before returning home.
We were all very intent on doing a multi-day trek in the Andes, so we checked with a few different companies and found one company with a reasonable price and a guide who seemed very excited at the prospect of taking a group overnight for he had been doing mostly day hikes with couples and other, more touristy, type groups. Leo, our guide, was a 21 year old Argentine who looked like someone who knew the mountain like the back of his hand, and his enthusiasm even strenthened that perception.

The mountain range we were hiking in was known as the ¨Cordon de Plata¨, or ¨The Silver Range¨. Our plan was to start at an altitude of 2000 meters, and ascend to a cabin at around 3500 meters. The next day we were to summit the peak at 4200 meters and then make our way back down, however this is not what ended up happening.

The first 700 vertical meters was acsended briskly as it was through a valley with only a small incline. Upon reaching the col at the top of the valley we all added a layer as we were approaching the some clouds and the temperature was starting to cool down significantly. (definition of a col)

The next 1000 meters started out with some rather easy trekking across some rocks. Eventually, as we acsended higher, the slope became steeper, the rocks less stable, and the air thinner. We were told, from the top of the col that we had about two hours left until we reached the shelter; our guide was sorely mistaken. As the slope became steeper, every step had to be carefully thought out as an ankle could be broken or the weight of our packs could easily send us tumbling if we were to take a wrong step.

The distance to the head wall which we were ascending, seemed deceiving to say the least, every time we thought we had made significant headway, our feelings of accomplishment quickly dissolved, as the magnitude of the tremendous rock face looked as it had hours before. The thin air combined with the grueling terrain had us taking five minute breaks every 20 minutes, although it seemed as though we went for much longer before we had to rest. When we finally reached the steep headwall, we were all exhausted, but the bottom of the headwall was the just the beggining of the hardest and most frustrating part. Our attempts to ascend the headwall seemed futile as it seemed that every five steps sent us sliding back three. The rocks had become much smaller and the slope caused the rocks slip beneath our feet making us attempt to take quicker steps despite our exhaustion in order to make our attempts worthwhile.

Upon reaching the top of the headwall, four hours after leaving the first col, we all dropped our packs and quickly added a few more layers as the wind on the col had made the temperature seem as though it had droped significantly and once our hearts stopped pounding, our body temperature took a significant swing as well. Once we had caught our breath and snapped a few photos, we realized that our guide had dropped his pack and been walking around. When we noticed the blank stare on our young guides face, as well as the desolate landscape that surrounded us, we realized that the shelter we had set out to find was nowhere in sight and we were standing on a ridge at 3700 meters with only twenty mintues of daylight to spare.

When our guide realized what he had done a blank stare of guilt, embarrasment, and fear covered his face. He fell silent, other than his suggestion to walk along the ridge to see if we could find the shelter. He said nothing else for what seemed to be the next 12 hours.
Before the sun went down, Dakin stopped our guide and suggested that we build a shelter before people got too cold and all daylight was lost. Acting quickly we did our best to clear two platforms in which would be suitable for sleeping. We constructed makeshift walls around the cleared areas, by stacking massive rocks, in hopes that they would help protect us from possible wind gusts we would encounter throughout the night.  The following picture from the next morning of the platform we cleared out.

As the tents were put together, and dinner was cooked, Dominic offered us a bottle of wine that he had packed to surprise us with at the top. Unfortunately, Dom was feeling extremely ill from the altitude and was unable to enjoy the wine with us. Shortly after eating half cooked pasta, we crawled into our tents and into our sleeping bags to escape the cold. Due to the exposure of the ridgeline we began experiencing strong winds almost immediatley following our sad attempt at falling to sleep. Although we didnt speak a word over the next 8 hours, if we had wanted to, yelling would have been the only way to communicate due to the ferocious flapping of the tent fly in the 130 km per hour wind.

The next morning we quickly took the tent down, which took four us to hold down to keep the tent from blowing off the ridge, and started our descent in order to escape from the cold. What had taken us four hours to ascend, the day before, took us a little under an hour to descend by sliding down the snow filled section of the headwall and other parts below.

These events contributed to the positive experience had by all members of the group. Due to these circumstances we immediately  become trusting friends which lead to our decision to embark on our next adventure, only hours after returning from the mountain.