Climbing for Learning - Mt. Vinson, Antarctica

Alpine Ascents Cybercast: Summit!

Hey there friends, family and loved ones, this is the World Wide Wonders reporting in from the top of Antarctica. It is a spectacular day, there is hardly a breath of wind in the air and we can see from over there to all the way over there to the other side of the horizon. It is beautiful and the mountains are sticking up out of the clouds, a huge sea of clouds underneath us but we can see the fourth and the fifth and the second highest all sticking their heads up above the clouds. Everybody is excited to be here, feeling happy and elated, thinking of friends and family and loved ones and taking some photographs and patting each other on the back and congratulating. I wish that you could be here it so beautiful.

http://www.alpineascents.com/vinson-cybercast.asp

Off to the Summit!!

The weather is beautiful and we are heading off at 7am eastern daylight time.  We are expect to have a 12 hour day, 8 hours up and 4 hours down.  Everyone's ready to go and we'll let you know how it goes when we get back to high camp!

-John

Arrived at Camp 4 - Possible Summit Day Tomorrow

We arrvied at Camp 4 (13,500 feet) today after a little over 6 hour climb.  Got to camp and ate some soup before heading to bed at midnight with the weather changing.  It could mean the possible summit day tomorrow morning.  We could wake up at 7 am for a 12 hour climb to reach the peak at 16,047 feet.  The temperature is  cool -25 degrees.  Everyone's doing well and I'm looking forward to see what tomorrow brings.

-John

Alpine Ascents Cybercast: 12/8/2009

Hey there friends, family and loved ones, World Wide Wonders checking in from high camp, we are about 13,500 ft about sea level, that 4,185 meters for the international folks out there. Everybody is very tired from the push up however everyone is in excellent spirits. We just had dinner and we are tucking everybody in, the sun is shining, a light breeze and 32 degrees below zero Celsius still. We are having a good time, we are all pretty keyed up at taking a look at tomorrow morning and seeing if its doable so we will keep you abreast of the situation as it unwinds, ciao for now form Mt. Vinson.

http://www.alpineascents.com/vinson-cybercast.asp

A Few Select Images from the Journey

 

 

   

Alpine Ascents Cybercast: 12/7/2009

Hi there, hello there friends, family and loved ones this is the World Wide Wonders doing what we do best, climbing mountains. Today was a big day, 9 hours on the trail. We got up early, had a nice breakfast of cold cereal and put them on the trail nice and early. We have been out for 9 hours today; we got our stuff moved however up to high on the mountain. We moved food, fuel and camping supplies up to over 12,000 feet, high camp. So we are in pretty good position now, all we have to do is refuel so we are all in the cook tent right now jamming in dinner. We have got some chicken noodle soup and some monster steaks coming out and lots of good stuff, some vegetables on the way just to show (…transmission break…) what do you say guys, how are you feeling, the team is going to be home for Christmas so take that as an advisement and either be there or be somewhere else. Wishing you the best from high on the flanks of Mt. Vinson, World Wide Wonders – over and out.

http://www.alpineascents.com/vinson-cybercast.asp

Antarctica Day 4 - Carry to Camp 2, Ascending & Descending the Fixed Lines

Today's focus is to get as much personal and group food, gear, and supplies to Camp 2 as possible - ensuring that we don't take anything we might still need at Camp 1 - and then climb back down to Camp 1 and sleep.  This will position us well for our eventual summit day and give us another good day of acclimitization ("climb high, sleep low").  From this point on we will be climbing without sleds and with crampons on our climbing boots.

Visibilty is great today - with the cloud now below us and still howevering over the lower part of the glacier.  The temperature is a little cooler so layering decisions will be a little more critical.  It is also very sunny!  Even while in the cloud, I put sunscreen on every time we stopped - and my face is still turning a nice shade of crimson red.  Today the sunscreen and lip balm will be even more important.  I've learned to get the sunscreen up inside my nose as far as I can since the reflection from the snow will burn the inside of my nostrils.

We leave Camp 1 at 2:30 PM and climb 1,000 ft (304 m) to get to the fixed lines.  It takes us about an hour and we take a break at the bottom of the lines. 

We have only encountered 2 other people on the mountain so far - which is very unusual and also very nice.  We do feel like we have the mountain to ourselves.  The two folks we did see are a pair of German climbers.  They were originally climbing Mt. Tyree, the second highest peak in Antarctica, when a rock fall early on the climb broke the arm of their third climbing partner.  After getting him safely back to Vinson Base Camp, they decided they would climb Vinson as a two-person team.  They started off ahead of us today and we could see them high on the fixed lines... slowly working their way up.

For the next 4.5 hours we are climbing up the fixed lines - taking a break each hour for food, water, and to ensure our pee bottle hasn't frozen!  We are not roped together, though, and we can climb somewhat at our own pace. We are connected to the line via a safety line/carabineer and our ascender.  

It's close to 8 PM and we are finally off the fixed lines.  From here it is still about 1.5 hours to Camp 2.  We are now getting a breeze from the back side of the ridge and it is getting VERY cold.  We rope up into teams, ice axes out for the first time and away we go.  While I am walking I am quickly putting on everything I can find to keep warm.  I have an extra pair of gloves clipped to my harness - they go on.  I have an extra hat in my pocket - it goes on.  My two hoods are up and I am keeping my chin warm by blowing down into the buff wrapped around my neck.  Wow...   My feet, fortunately, are nice and warm!

We get to Camp 2, 13,500 ft (4,115 m) and it is REALLY cold. We are quickly trying to get out gear out to cache so that we are not standing around in the cold too long.  Vern wants us to stay roped up.  There is another climbing team at Camp 2 from IMG (International Mountain Guies) led by Phil Ershler.  They had just summited that day, but are gladly helping us out - refilling water bottles with warm water and even emptying our pee bottles.  Vern and Tim quickly consolidate the gear, tie it down, and by 9:50 we are walking back down.

I am definitely tired - but, dinner and sleep are back down the fixed lines - so all other thoughts are purged and it's all about the next step and keeping warm! 

It takes us 18 minutes to get back to the fixed lines.  We are moving faster and I am a little warmer, but I am still cool.  I decide to leave an extra layer on for the fixed lines and it turns out to be a not a good decision. 

Some people say that going down is harder than going up.  This is not the case for me, but it's easy to forget that going down still takes a LOT of energy and even more mental focus.  As I headed down, I focused on my next step, but completely forgot about my breathing.   After 300 ft (91 M) I was really starting to get warm... after 600 ft (182 m) I was already sweating and I could feel my elevated heart rate throbbing through the top of my head!  Both of these were good reminders that I needed to SLOW down - which I gradually did.  It took me about 45 minutes to make it back down the fixed lines.  My rope team was waiting for me at the bottom and we roped back up for the walk back down to Camp 1. 

We got back to Camp 1 about 11:30 PM - 9 hours of up and down.  What a day!  We all gathered in the posh tent for dinner and hot drinks.  Everyone was tired but in great spirits.  Tomorrow the plan is to break Camp 1 and move to Camp 2 - back up the fixed lines... but this time making a new home at 13,500 ft (4,115 m). 

Arrived at Camp 2

Beautiful weather today.  We carried our packs and sleds from Camp 1 to Camp 2, taking us about four and a half hours.  We had clear skies so our major concern was sunburns.  We just finished up camp set-up and some soup.  We are now going to do some practice for tomorrow as we will be climbing up fixed lines on a very steep section up toward Camp 3.  We are going to be putting a cache up at Camp 3 before heading back to Camp 2 spend the night.

-John

Alpine Ascents Cybercast: 12/6/2009

Hello there friends, family and loved ones, World Wide Wonders checking in from camp II at 3115 meters above sea level, eighteen degrees below and good night basically. Life is good we are just finishing off dinner. We have had a great practice today for the fixed lines coming up tomorrow; people have now done it with the gloves on and their big thick gloves on and most of them have done it through their mittens we are going to keep practicing so that we can move efficiently tomorrow. Everybody seems to be feeling very good, appetites are up there and Tim is cooking up a storm and we just want to say hello to you guys, we love you.

------------

Hello there friends, family and loved ones this is Team World Wide Wonders reporting in high on the side of Mt. Vinson. Today we moved up, it was a long hard day pulling big sleds up the hill but fortunately the weather was on our side; no wind, no snow just fog. Lots of fog, didn’t know where we were going until we got to camp I. The team was very happy to be here because after that long fog Tim pulled out some hamburgers and cooked them for us and everybody ate them with relish well we didn’t actually find the relish but we ate them with gusto well we didn’t find the gusto either however it was very, very tasty. With that we all climbed into our beds at one o’clock in the morning and so we went to sleep. So join us for the further adventures of World Wide Wonders.

http://www.alpineascents.com/vinson-cybercast.asp

Antarctica Day 3 - Camp 1 & Fixed Line Rehearsal

Vern set the wake-up call at Noon!  It turns out that because of the orientation of the mountain ridge by the camp, the direct sunlight would not hit the tents until 11:30 AM.  The direct sunlight provides a huge amount of radiant heat!  The extra sleep was also very welcome!

After breakfast, hot drinks, and packing, we are climbing again by 3:30 PM.  The visibility is a little better today - about 200 feet (61 m).  I can't really see the terrain we are climbing in, but the sense of whiteout when I look to either side is gone.  There is no wind and we are again climbing in our base layer.

We arrive at Camp 1 after 6 hours of climbing.  At Camp 1, Vern wants us to get a snow wall started around the tents.  We set up the tents close together and after the posh is set up we begin a quarry for the walls.  Vern has 30 years of experience cutting and building snow walls - and is also very particular in how he likes the process to go and the end product to function.  He's a very good teacher and in about 30 minutes we are producing semi-acceptable blocks.  We get a least one row complete before Tim calls us in for soup.  With the quarry started and one row complete, the logic is that we could quickly build the rest of the wall if needed.  The weather forecast looks good for the next several days - and the collective hope is that we will not need the wall!

After another great dinner, Vern has the team out to rehearse climbing the fixed lines in a flat area by our tents.  We get our harnesses on, properly rig our ascenders, and rehearse using three sets of gloves - to navigate a series of anchors that will guide us up 3,280 ft (1,000 m) of fixed lines and back down.  We start off with a pair of thin glove liners and get used to moving our carabiner and fastening and unfastening our ascender.  Then its the same process with a warmer, thicker, harder to use glove - followed by the same process using our almost impossible to use mittens!  We practice for about 45 minutes until everyone feels comfortable.

Why are we climbing fixed lines?  Several years ago the Vinson climbing route was altered to bypass a crevasse and avalanche field.  The new route is up the side of a fairly steep slope (check out the video).  ALE set up the fixed lines each year on the slope.  We will spend approximately 4.5 hours just on the section of fixed lines...

We climb into the bags around 1 AM with another wake-up call set for Noon!