Climbing for Learning - Mt. Vinson, Antarctica

Started Up the Mountain!

We arrived at Camp 1 at 9 pm this evening and have set up camp.  The mountain was covered in fog creating white out conditions, but there was no wind and the temperature was only -10 to -15 degrees.

The plan tomorrow is to head to the foot of the headwall, which will be our Camp 2.  Everyone's doing fine.

-John

Arrived at Vinson Base Camp!

We arrived at Vinson Base Camp after a 50 min flight on a Twin Otter plane.

-John

Waiting on Flight Status

Waiting on flight status to Vinson Base Camp.  Temperature is -5 degrees!

Salmon and fajitas are for lunch!

Antarctica Day 2 - Climbing to "1/2 Camp"

By 3 PM we are packed and ready to begin our ascent of Vinson - but a LOT took place to get us ready...

After a 9 AM wake-up, breakfast and hot drinks, we begin packing all our personal gear and group gear for the climb.  This involves some considerable work. 

Our personal climbing gear had been packed and given to ALE 3 days ago.  We each sort this out and re-pack it for a glacier travel - about 60% of the weight in the backpack and 40% in the sled.  Vern sorts out the group food, fuel, and gear and creates 6 piles - one for each of the climbers.  Of course, he and Tim have, be far, the largest/heaviest loads.  Vern also sets out large sacks of snack/lunch food that we each choose from to create our personal snack/lunch food that we will have on the mountain.  There is a huge sack for each:  cheese, meats, dried fruit, nuts, cookies/crackers, and candy.  I also brought some snack food with me from home that I knew I would like and would do well on the mountain - Power Bars, Cliff Bars, some Cliff Shot Blocks, etc.  The big question is how much to bring??  Because... this stuff is really heavy.  But... you don't want to run out of snack/lunch food.   I err on the side of too much - knowing that I can cache food at Camp 1 and pick it up on the way down.

After we are all packed... the last big job is to rebury the cache - the extra gear, food, fuel, tents - covered with plywood and then buried with a foot (.3 m) of snow.  We're off!

The actual climbing part for the first two days is relatively straightforward.  We climbed in two, 4-person rope teams - with each person separated by about 40 feet (12 m) to guard against crevasse dangers on the glacier.  We climbed in our mountaineering boots (no crampons yet) and did not use use snowshoes as we had on Denali - there is not enough fresh snow each year to need snow shoes.   We climbed slowly and we climbed for about 6 hours! 

Within 500 ft (152 m) above base camp we climbed into a cloud and for the rest of the day we had only 50 ft (15 m) of visibility.  I could see the person in front of me - but if I looked off to the right or left it was a total whiteout - I could not distinguish the ground from the air or if the elevation was going up or down.  It was a very strange feeling to climb like that for the entire day.  Aside from the extremely poor visibility, there was no wind and the temperature was mild - 0 F (-32 C).  My guess is that I was carrying 80 lbs (36 kg) between my pack and sled.  We were all working fairly hard going up the glacier and bit-by-bit we all began to shed our layers until most of us were literally climbing in our underwear - our base layer.

After arriving at "1/2 Camp" we followed the same drill as the day before to get a tent platform, tents, and posh set up.  After an incredible dinner we finally rolled in to our sleeping bags a little after 12:30 AM.

Antarctica Day 1 - Fly to Vinson Base Camp

Things are rolling!  I woke up about 11 AM.  Lunch is at Noon!  The weather looks good and we have been given word that there is a good chance we will fly in the Twin Otter turboprop plane to Vinson Base Camp later this afternoon.  I slept well, but my body is still adjusting to the 24 hour sunlight and all the travel.   

We have another great meal in the dining tent.  Vern's continues his mealtime expression that he started before each meal in Punta Arena, "Eat up, boys - this may be your last good meal!"  Not only is the food in Patriot Hills is good, you get to eat it while seated in a cushioned chair, and you can pour your hot and cold drinks from a nice huge container with a seamingly endless supply - all comforts we will be missing over the next days and weeks on the mountain.

The weather is clear and crisp - the flight is on!  We depart Patriot Hills about 3 PM for Vinson Base Camp.  All our gear is loaded in the front of the plane and we are seated in the rear.  The co-pilot leans his head around the corner of the cockpit to tell us to buckle up and remind us where the exit doors are located.  Unlike the Alluetian that landed on the ice with its 20 wheels, the Twin Otter has skis and used a completely different runway.   We also have windows! 

The flight to Mount Vinson... is simply amazing.  We are flying over miles and miles of vast, uninhabited, remote, unforgiving land.   Almost immediately, we are in the Ellsworth Mountain Range where Vinson is located.  It's like looking out on the land that time forgot.  We are flying over peaks, around peaks, and between peaks.   After about 50 minutes, the Branscomb Glacier and base camp is in sight - and we can see the snow runway we will be landing on. 

Now, the real work begins!!  In addition to all the group gear and food we brought with us, Apline Ascents has a large cache of gear and food at Vinson Base Camp.  It's burried under about 2 feet of ice and snow and two large sheets of plywood.  Our first job - dig out the cache!!  We are at 7,200 ft (2,200 m) - a North American equivalent of 10,000 ft (3,048 m) and I can feel the altitude as we work.

Next - set up the sleeping tents - Vern gives us a lesson on preparing a platform to set up the tents.  We spend about 15 minutes getting an area big enough for three level tents - and then stamp the entire area down with our mountaineering boots to harden up the surface.  All our stamping physically breaks the snow crystals - causing greater compression and creating an exothermic reaction that generates a small amount of heat.  The heat warms up the snow enough to cause it to bind more tightly with each other.  We let the snow "set" for another 10-15 minutes and then repeat,.  Sure enough, after about two rounds of this, the loose snow that we started with not only feels packed - but hardened!

After the sleeping tents are up, we help Vern and Tim set up the kitchen tent or posh tent.  Vern and Tim get dinner and hot drinks going.  By 11 PM we are crawling into our sleeping bags - ready to begin climbing tomorrow.

Antarctica Day 1 - Arrival in Patriot Hills

Night turned into day as we continued to fly south from Chile.  Even though it was after mid-night, the light poured in from the small portal windows of the Aleutian cargo plane.  We landed on a long blue-ice runway at Patriot Hills - the way-station for most Antarctic adventures.  They had turned off the heat in the plane about 1/2 hour out from landing to give us time to prepare for the climate we were getting ready to walk in to.  Gradually, everyone on the plane donned parkas, hats, gloves, and sunglasses.  It was 2 AM. 

There are some very friendly people working at Patriot Hills, especially when it's so early in the morning!  We got off the plane and walked about 2 kilometers to the dining tent that is situated near the center of the Patriot Hills base.

There was a hot dinner waiting for us!  Leif, the Norwegian "hotel manager" gave us an overview of Patriot Hills - where we could could go, where we could not go, the location of the new "pee" and "poo" facilities that had just been installed, and the general schedule of events.  For the Antarctic tourists going to the South Pole, there are actually clamshell tents with cots!  Luxury!

After dinner Vern took our team out next near the guide tent where we had a lesson on setting up tents in Antarctica.  It was still very sunny, about 0 F (-17 C), and very little wind.  We got the tents set up and I was asleep by around 4 AM!

Alpine Ascents Cybercast: 12/4/2009

Hello there friends, family and loved ones reporting in not only from Antarctica but also from the base, yes the base of Mt. Vinson. We arrived at Vinson base camp after a short flight in the twin otters from Patriot Hills. Everybody’s spirits were lifted as the plane took off and we got to see the great mountains of the Ellsworth Range as flew backwards and north about 100 miles to find the highest mountains on the continent; (…transmission garbled…) and Mt. Vinson rearing its ugly head high above the horizon. Are paced quickened as we unloaded the plane and thought of nothing but how can we set up our camp quick enough so that we can get some sleep that we missed last night. Before we could do that, Tim, our fearless chef whipped up a passel of hot pea noodle soup that had never been tasted before on Antarctica and some great tasting steaks and everybody went to bed happy and healthy. So say hello to mom, people are in good spirits, ciao for now from high on the flanks of Mt. Vinson.

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

Inside the Antarctic Circle!

It's now 5 am in the morning local time.  The sun is high in the sky.  The flight was great on a Russian cargo plane.  It looks good for us to fly out tomorrow to Vinson base camp.

The skies are clear.  It's cold, about 0 degrees, and we're at 3,000 feet elevation.

Now I'm off to bed. Everyone's doing well!

Alpine Ascents Cybercast: 12/3/2009

Hello friends, family and loved ones,

The team awoke from jet lagged repose to a brilliant day on the tip of South America. I spent the night packing food supplies for our effort on Vinson. We met with our flight service early to discuss logistics of our planned excursion to the land of ice and snow. They have chartered an old Soviet cargo jet to fly us to the "Ice". This afternoon we weighed our equipment and supplies and had them loaded onto the plane, a huge Ilyushin 76. We will fly when the weather conditions permit and presently conditions are near flyable so we are eager. Enjoy the excitement with us as you track our progress.

To The Summit,
Vern Tejas

I hope we can fly soon

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

Getting to The Ice - via Russian Cargo Plane

We had already given most of our gear to ALE the day before. We had left a carry-on bag with everything we needed to be wearing when we land (which turns out to be a lot!) and we had the stuff we were going to leave behind at the hotel. We had about one hour. Sure enough we were all dressed, packed, paid and ready to go when the bus showed up at 8:30.

By 10 PM we had gone through security and were all sitting inside a Russian cargo plane. Talk about a wild ride. 17 tons of cargo are behind just 6 rows of old airline seating - 6 seats to a row. It's a Russian crew with Cyrillic labeling on all the equipment. On the wall above the radio operators head is what looks like a Russian Orthodox icon picture of Jesus. I didn't know if that meant we were being watched over... Or we needed to be doing a lot of praying to be sure we got to our destination. I'm sue it's a little of both!

You can see all the wires running through the upper body of the plane and it has a distinct smell - a large musty smell mixed in with oil kind of like the inside of the an auto repair garage.  After our safety brief the Russian crew member passed out the ear plugs. It's just a little bit noisy!

The seats were very comfortable, though, and 45 minutes into the flight the ALE folks and Vern were up serving drinks and making ham and cheese sandwiches for everyone!

The flight is 4.5 hours long.  When I came to Antarctica with my father, sister and brother in 1999, we traveled by ship for two full days just to get to the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. Now, after a 4.5 hour flight I will be inside the Antarctic Circle!!