Ojos del Salado Outfitters
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I needed work. Emilia was eight months in at the time, and finding anything even remotely reliable out here in the Atacama is a hard bet. There’s money, technically—mining money, foreign money, adventure money—but none of it wants you unless you’re already broken in a very specific way. I should’ve listened to Sebastian when he warned me about the whole thing. He has a gift for seeing disasters early. But I had no choice.
So one week later, after finally calling the number pinned to the community board at the feria downtown—a handwritten flyer curling at the corners like it already knew better—I found myself sitting in a large canvas tent with five other men. Each one was more forlorn, shifty, or physically compromised than the last, like a casting call for a cautionary tale.
Juan was missing three fingers on his left hand, lost to a threshing machine he described with fondness, as if it had been a mentor. Tomas had a pronounced limp and what appeared to be an untreated concussion he’d been “meaning to look into.” Another man coughed continuously into a bandana that never changed color, which I found more unsettling than if it had. I myself had no mountaineering experience beyond a single regrettable hike in college and a general belief that most mountains do not want people on them.
We listened as our group leader, Arturo, sloppily described the basics of mountaineering while inhaling shots of Murtado straight from a plastic bottle. He spoke with the confidence of a man who had survived many things he should not have, and therefore assumed survival was contagious.
“Our job here is simple,” he said, swaying slightly. “We move groups of out-of-shape, well-to-do white people to the top of the highest active volcano in the world. And hopefully back.”
At 6,891 meters, Ojos del Salado sits on the border between Chile and Argentina, 800 miles north of Santiago. The middle of the middle of nowhere. A place so remote it feels theoretical. According to Arturo, our first order of business was obtaining our official Expert Level Expedition Specialist certifications.
This took six hours.
Six hours of loosely supervised knot-tying, a slideshow that froze on the word hypothermia, and a brief demonstration involving a carabiner that Arturo dropped and did not retrieve. There was no written exam. No physical test. At one point, Juan asked if altitude sickness was “more of a suggestion,” and Arturo nodded thoughtfully before pouring another drink.
That I earned this title is alarming enough. That Juan and Tomas also did is deeply troubling.
Juan, who cannot fully grip an ice axe.
Tomas, who gets winded standing still.
The three of us now held identical certifications, qualifying us—on paper—to lead strangers up the highest active volcano in the world. Strangers who had paid good money for reassurance. Strangers whose lives would soon depend on men who had met one another that morning and still did not know everyone’s last name.
The first expedition began before dawn, because all bad ideas prefer darkness.
The clients arrived bundled in brand-new gear, still creased from the store, faces bright with the optimism of people who believed money functioned as insulation. Arturo introduced us as his specialists, lingering on the word like it might solidify if spoken slowly enough.
Juan was assigned rope management, which no one questioned. Tomas handled logistics, despite struggling to carry his own pack. I was given the lead position, which I accepted without protest, because refusing responsibility felt more dangerous than taking it.
We loaded into the trucks and drove toward the volcano, the landscape flattening into a vast, colorless quiet. It looked unfinished, like God had stepped away mid-thought. Conversation softened. Breathing changed.
One client asked how often people died doing this.
Arturo laughed, which somehow ended the conversation.
By the time we reached base camp, altitude had begun its work—heads aching, breaths shortening, confidence thinning. Arturo demonstrated how to pitch a tent in high winds, then wandered off to smoke. Juan tied knots that looked decorative. Tomas assured someone that dizziness was “the body learning.”
At some point, I realized I was giving advice. Real advice. I was correcting posture, checking straps, making decisions. The clipboard had been passed to me, and I didn’t hand it back.
By summit day, the distinction between preparation and performance had dissolved. We moved upward because upward was the only direction left. There was no triumph at the top, no cinematic revelation—just wind, exhaustion, and the quiet understanding that we had arrived somewhere we were never meant to stand.
On the descent, no one spoke.
Later, back in the tent, I filled out paperwork with hands that no longer shook. The forms asked if conditions were optimal. I checked yes. They asked if protocols were followed. I checked yes. The answers felt true in the way systems require truth to be true.
The tent walls flap. The clipboard lies, softly, insistently. And somehow, we all keep moving upward.
And I needed work.
For Emilia.