Mt. Aconcagua

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Since we are gearing up for the upcoming release of Murder on Aconcagua around here, I thought I would start doing some posts with information about the mountain itself.  You will all be Mt. Aconcagua professionals by the time the book comes out!



Aconcagua is the highest mountain in South America, in the western hemisphere, and in the southern hemisphere, too. No other peak on earth, except Mount Everest, is further away from a higher peak--you have to travel over 10,250 miles to the Hindu Kush Mountains of Pakistan to find higher ground when traveling from Aconcagua.

There have been occasional noises made by the Argentines and others that Aconcagua might be over 7000m high, but it seems that the consensus is that it falls just short, leaving all the world's 7000m peaks in central Asia. An Italian expedition in 2001 with super-accurate GPS equipment has fixed the peak's elevation at 6961.83 meters.

The mountain is geologically complex, and while many of the rocks that form it are volcanic, the general feeling seems to be that Aconcagua is not an eroded, long-dormant volcano, as one might suppose. That leaves Ojos del Salado, in the Puna de Atacama well north of Aconcagua, as the world's highest volcano.

The peak is located 15 km east of the main crest of the Andes, entirely in Argentina. This is the dry side of the Andes, so, despite its height, Aconcagua is not particularly icy or snowy. The standard routes up the mountain involve no glacier travel. The area is not as arid as the bone-dry Puna de Atacama, but the glaciation is less than in the Andean peaks of Peru and Patagonia.

Murder on Aconcagua will be the 5th book in the Summit Murder Mystery Series.  Each book stands alone as an amazing read, but if you read the series and follow Scott Devlin from the beginning you will get to climb along on amazing adventures that will take you all over the world!  Not to mention each book is full of plot twists and action packed drama!  The order of the books are as follows...


Click each link above to be taken to Amazon to place your order.  If you would like to purchase a signed copy please email my project manager Jennifer at jennifer@irionbooks.com for more information.


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