Aconcagua Provincial Park

At 6,961 metres, Aconcagua is the highest point on Earth outside Asia — and from the Plaza de Mulas base camp at 4,300 metres, the remaining 2,600 vertical metres of glacier and rock-face still loom directly above you like something that shouldn't exist at this latitude. Aconcagua Provincial Park in Mendoza Province surrounds the mountain in 71,000 hectares of high Andean terrain, and the approach walks through it are remarkable even for those who intend to go no further than the base camp. The Horcones Valley trail passes beneath a wall of peaks that includes six summits above 6,000 metres.

Aconcagua is a stratovolcano of the Andes fold belt and, at the latitude of 32°S, the world's highest non-volcanic peak — its summit can be reached without technical climbing equipment, which explains why it attracts 3,000 to 4,000 summit attempts annually. The mountain's two main routes are the Normal Route on the northwest face (non-technical, high-altitude endurance) and the Polish Glacier Route on the east face (technical, requiring ice axe and crampons), both accessed from base camps at 4,300 metres. The Confluencia camp at 3,400 metres, two days' walk from the park entrance, sits beneath the mountain's south face and is accessible to fit trekkers without a summit permit — it provides one of the most dramatic viewpoints in the Andes at a fraction of the cost and risk of a full ascent. Summit season runs from late November to late January.