Cerro El Mela
- Cerro El Mela
- 4160 m
- Prominence 2917 m
- Argentina
- Location: South 28.86722, West 067.12685 (GPS)
- Difficulty: YDS class 3
- Attempted January 11-14. 2023.
- Climbed November 16-20, summit 18th. 2024.
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Information:
Introduction:
This fairly "obscure" mountain is the highest point of a pretty large mountain plateau that is
near 4000 meter of elevation. The mountain ranks as number 107 in the world by prominence.
Despite of this, the amount of information on the Internet was extremely limited.
After extensive searching I was able to contact Leonardo Guzman. He has walked quite a lot
across this mountain and was able to provide some useful information about possible
trailheads.
How to get there:
A good point of reference is Tucuman. The closest town is Aimogasta.
Follow Hwy. 75 south from Aimogasta to location
S28.96523, W67.00047, take the smaller side road right at this point.
Follow this road approximately 1.5 kilometer. Park under a tree on your right hand side.
The trail starts here, on the opposite side of the road.
Route:
An outline of most of the route can be seen here.
Follow the pretty big trail uphill. It will cross (right) near the top of
the ridge, then traverse in the hillside high above the valley floor on your
right. A small descent near the end and you will cross a small drainage.
There was water here in January 2023, but the spot was completely dry in November 2024.
Continue to follow the bigger trail on the opposite side. This trail will
lead you to an old shepherd's hut.
This location is S028.97138, W067.05626, elevation around 2580 meter.
There is a creek with reliable water
running in a small canyon right next
to this location. The route descends to this creek and makes an ascending traverse
on the opposite side going hikers right. However, it can be difficult to
locate the trail in this area. The best advice may be to follow the main trail
from the hut down to the creek, there is a small pond here. Cross the creek above
a small waterfall, head directly up some slabs, then do a short, ascending bushwack,
one should traverse left while ascending. You will then soon hit a small trail that
ascends right. The terrain improves as soon as you are out of the creek canyon.
The next objective is to hike to the base of the two distinct ridges that connects
the high plateau with this intermediate area. There are several trails, often
marked with cairns, but none of them seem to connect all the way. The route
will cross several big gullys, the key is to follow a good trail each time you descend
into a gully.
There are some old stone walls (ruins) located below the two ridges. This is a pretty
good location for a camp if one
is wanted near the base of the ridge.
Both ridges may be used for ascending, the first one is perhaps slightly easier, it
is also the closest, so should be preferred.
The upper part of this ridge is a bit rougher, but at this point one should
be able to move off the ridge (hikers right) and continue uphill on easier ground.
The route next crosses a small plateau and some rocks before arriving at the base of a final
slope extending down from a high ridge. One should do an ascending traverse uphill while
going left in order to finally reach a key col located at S28.95367, W067.11564.
This passage is only slightly below 4000 meter.
The next section is more easy, descending while keeping a bit right.
Continue to a small valley at location S28.94495, W67.12299. In January,
this site had a good creek with water, but in November the creek was dry.
Fortunately, a very limited amount of water could still be found.
From this location, one may day-hike the peak. However, putting the last camp
a bit closer will make the summit day easier. For the route from here to the summit,
consult the track posted on Peakbagger.
This is a fairly long walk, more than 20 kilometer, mostly above 4000 meter of elevation.
Comments / Trip Reports:
First Attempt, January 11-14. 2023.
We drove in the morning, January 11., from Aimogasta and
were ready to hike by 0830. We arrived at the Shepherds hut by 1300.
After a rest by the creek we continued to the ruins near the base
of the ridge, arriving there by 1600.
The next morning, we climbed the leftmost ridge (as seen from below). The weather
was cloudy, but not too bad.
We were carefully followed bu a large condor
for about half an hour.
We reached the high col and descended on the far side.
We continued several more kilometer towards Cerro Mela and established camp
at location S28.92048, W067.11799, elevation near 4000 meter. From here, we intended
to climb the peak and most likely, move camp partway on our return route.
However, a big thunderstorm moved in and caused a very memorable night. Massive
lightning, flash-boom strikes nearby. The tent was bombarded with hail. My partner
complained about the low temperature, his sleeping bag did not provide
the warmth that he expected. I offered him an extra wool shirt, but this did not
help improve his somewhat pessimistic
view on the situation. When the lightning finally
subsided the next morning, we had 15 cm of new snow covering the ground. Not too deep
to walk in, but obviously, things would take a bit more time. The fact that we were
hit by snow and difficult conditions a few days earlier on Cerro Manchao did not
help the overall morale.
It became clear that he did not want to spend a second night at similar elevation.
Too bad, our second peak "failure" in a week.
Thus, we broke camp and headed back down
to our first camp at the base of the ridge. The only significant uphill on the way back
was the ascent back to the col on the high ridge.
We did visit the summit next to the high
col on our way back. Unfortunately, it tuned out to be just below the 100 meter prominence
level. The next morning, we had a fairly
easy walk-out back down to the trailhead where Franco and the vehicle were waiting.
Second Try, November 16-20. 2024.
I was back in Argentina, this time with my good friend Helge. The purpose was to return
to the two peaks that I failed to climb in January 2023. This time in November, spring time
in Argentina. I decided to switch the order, ie. Mela would be our first objective.
We flew to Tucuman and rented a "normal" car there. The two trailheads were known to be
accesible with a normal car. In Tucuman, we first had a welcome dinner (with Franco) at
La Querencia Parrilla, known for the famous Argentine Asado (Mixed meat Barbecue).
The next morning, Helge and I had breakfast then drove directly to the trailhead.
We started hiking around 1500 and reached the shepherd's hut after 3:20. In fact,
somewhat faster than in 2023. We established camp and had a nice evening before our
first night on the mountain.
We left after breakfast, the first goal to reach the lower end of the ridge. This
hike went very well, we were able to follow trails most of the way. Somehow, we passed
the first ridge and ended up at the base of the second ridge.
Ascending the ridge was hard work. Pretty easy on the lower part, but our route had
passages of (YDS) class 3 scrambling in the upper section. Helge felt the change to
high altitude and moved more slowly. However, we made steady progress and finally
crossed the key col,
just below 4000 meter, at 1715. Much easier from there, we still
decided to camp near the first available water. Thus, I set course directly for the
good sized creek that we had seen in 2023. Big surprise and concern when it turned
out to be dry. Fortunately, a few small ponds of water still remained. We established
camp around 1830. The sun was still hitting the nearby rocks, a
pretty tough 10 hour day had come to an end.
The next day, we decided to do the summits from camp. It would be a pretty long day, possibly with
very limited water. I would carry a backpack with water and reserve clothing, a pretty easy load.
This trip has a fair amount of ups and down, it is a long hike mostly staying between 3900 and
4100 meter of elevation. See track posted on the Peakbagger web page.
We had been hiking quite a long time before we started to see Melao.
Mela is not visible until
you are pretty close.
We
had started soon after daylight and made the summit of Mela at 1130.
The return hike passed across
the two summits of Cerro Melao, with
brief stops at both locations. We made it back to camp after
11 hours of walking. We had started out with one liter of water each. This ran out before we were
back. On the return hike, we first discovered some stationary water, I drank a bit, while Helge
was able to still wait for a better looking supply. We were lucky and discovered a tiny stream
that came directly out from the base of a small rock face. Building a small dam, we were able
to collect good water. We had a late dinner and slept well, knowing that our goals were achieved.
We noticed that heavy rain hit the tent a few times during night.
The next morning I had a bad case of diarrhea. Helge had none of this, most likely due to the
water. Fortunately, all back to normal after one day.
The next morning, we walked back across the high col, then descended the ridge. We decided to
descend the other (rightmost when coming down) ridge, since I remembered it as somewhat
easier. We descended on the left side
of the "top ridge", like the previous year. However, this time we went too far and ended
up too low and needed to traverse an exposed (YDS) class 3 area in order to get back to the ridge.
The rain that came the previous night made all vegetation wet. We both had completely wet boots
and feet by the time we approached the creek near our first camp.
The time was already close to 1600 when we reached the shepherd's hut. Helge was motivated
to continue down, however, I was tired and felt that another 1000 meter down would be
noticed by my knees. Thus, we quickly agreed to camp and spend
another night and descend the next
morning.
The next morning promised another nice day.
We had a very pleasant hike back
down to the car. The plan was now to travel to
Amigasta, spend 2 nights there, then start our big second climb, this time of
Cerro Manchao.
Elevation measurements of the 3 summits near Cerro el Mela:
As part of our trip, we wanted to measure the elevation of the tops as accurately as possible.
We believe that there has been no previous accurate measurements. On some maps, a spot elevation of
4189 meter can be seen on Cerro Melao, but this seemed way to high. Satellite radar measurements
indicated that Mela was the highest, perhaps a bit higher than 4150 meter.
We used a Garmin GPSmap67 calibrated by satellites only. Readings were also done using satellite
data only (no barometer!). This unit receives data on two different (frequency) bands
from 4 major GPS systems (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou). In addition, we
sampled elevations using the Phyphox APP.
from the University of Achen on an iPhone X. This gives access
to the raw data from the iPhone. In particular, the ellipsoid elevation.
Finally, we recorded tracks both with the GPS unit as well as with GAIA GPS on the iPhone.
The results are summarized as follows:
Cerro el Mela. Cerro Melao North. Cerro Melao South.
---------------- ------------------- ---------------------
GPS spot elevation: 4168 meter 4150 m 4159 meter
Phyphox elevation: 4168 meter na. 4159 meter
Phyphox Ellipsoid : 4200 meter na. 4191 meter
Gaia track (highest): 4159 meter 4150 m. 4156 meter
We estimate (conservatively) that Cerro el Mela is 4160 meter and that Cerro Melao (south summit) is 4152 meter.
An estimate for the north summit of Cerro Melao is 4150 meter. The col depth between the north and the south summit
is approximately 40 meter. The col depth between Melao and Mela is about 110 meter. These values are in reasonably
good agreement with satellite radar measurements.
Resources:
