Had brilliant time climbing with HME in the stunning Atacama. Christian, our guide, was excellent - helpful, supportive and encouraging. The support team were also excellent. Climbed 5 mountains although missed out on Ojos summit due to illness. I will be back! Thanks HME.

Everything on this expedition ran smoothly, from the airport pick-up to the hotel and transportation to each camp. The food was amazing, the guides were friendly and professional, and the acclimatization plan was excellent. Nothing to complain about. I will definitely climb with High Mountain Experience again next time I go to the Andes.

Overall this was a nice trip. Good camps, nice people, great acclimatation schedule/approach, decent food, and a successful summit However, 1 guide for 3 climbers was not the right decision to start. This was especially true after it became apparent early on that the skills/fitness levels/speed of the 3 climbers in the group were all very different. I raised multiple times that I'd be willing to pay to add another guide to our group, or to get a private guide for the Ojos summit day. I was assured we'd be fine and it wasn't needed, which was inaccurate - summit day was made substantially more difficult and less enjoyable than it should have been because I wasn't allowed to move head on my own, and the other climbers stayed so far back that I resorted to climbing up and down sections of mountain repeatedly to stay warm. I should have listened to my gut rather than the guide, which is not a great foundation for a trip like this. Otherwise, communication was a bit spotty - occasionally I'd get very quick, helpful responses to questions. Other times things would go dark. An agenda was provided for the trip but it didn't match what we actually did, which caused confusion with the people back home wondering where I was. Also, the agenda stated we'd be camping up high on Ojos multiple nights which never occurred, so I purchased and brought a lot of cold weather camping gear which I didn't end up using at all. So overall it was worth doing, but the trip is missing a lot of polish and could be improved.

The communication was excellent. I received help with everything I needed, and the responses were always very quick. Our guide, Alvaro, was also very nice and took care of everything. Both the food and the service were really good. However, the ascent was much too fast for me. We covered a lot of distance and altitude by car. In the end, I had to stop and head back to the city.

I thoroughly enjoyed my fourteen day trip to the Copiapo and the Laguna Verde region of Chile with HME. However, while the acclimatization period is important, if I were to do the trip again I would opt for a trip of shorter duration such as the nine day guided trip. The acclimatization days were just okay as most of the time is spent exploring the immediate Laguna Verde area. After a couple of these days there was little to do in the area and staying in your tent to rest was not an option, due to the intense heat of the Sun during the daytime at this significant elevation. The guides and workers at Laguna Verde were outstanding, consistently doing their best to meet the needs of clients. Overall a positive experience in an amazing part of the world.