The team should be heading home

I received an email today from ALE informing us that they sent a flight in to Patriot Hills on the 23rd, which returned to Punta Arenas on the 24th.

Hopefully all the climbers are already home, but if not, you should expect them soon.

This is the last post for this expedition.

Best wishes for Happy Holidays and a wonderful New Year from the Mountain Trip family!

Sorry folks, no word from the crew at Patriot Hills

I'm afraid I don't have any word from ALE or the crew at Patriot Hills. With the guys safely at the well supported camp, our sat phone went back up the mountain with Eric Larson. I wish I could give you a Christmas Eve update that they were feasting on seafood and vino tinto in Punta Arenas, but unfortunately, I just don't know.

Best wishes to everyone who is anxiously awaiting their loved ones. This was a long trip to a challenging part of the world.

Peace, compassion and good will to all.

Pinned down at Patriot!

After not hearing much from the team for a few days, I gave ALE a call this morning.

It seems like most of the guys arrived at Patriot Hills just one day after an Ilushyn flight and thus, they missed another key window of weather. ALE says that they have a flight on standby to go get our team, but that the weather is just too marginal to launch it quite yet.

I've asked them to notify me as soon as they get a flight in to the Ice.

Keep your fingers crossed...

A view from the summit ridge

Here is a view from the summit ridge that I took last January. I'm guessing that the guys had similar conditions and were treated to the same vista.

On Top at the Bottom of the World!!!!!

The team reached the summit of Vinson Massif on Sunday, December 17th!!!

Eric left a message that they were safely back at High Camp after making the summit. He reported that the three South Africaners made it to the summit, but that unfortunately, the other two climbers did not.

The climb to the summit rises steeply out of High Camp. Above the initial rise, the route follows a long, gently rising glacier for what sems like an eternity. The summit is right in front of you, seemingly right there- however hours of hiking don't seem to get you any closer! Finally, you climb a moderate slope and you realize that you are actually at the base of the summit ridge. The visual and mental mind tricks of the past hours fade and you can climb up to gain the ridge proper.

The final stretch to the summit is a wonderful bit of ridge climbing, with big air off to your right and a more gentle slope dropping off to the left. It sounds like the guys had a clear, beautiful summit day, so the views must have been sublime.

They descended to Base Camp and were able to fly back to Patriot Hills yesterday. If all goes well, they should be in the air, headed back to Punta Arenas later today.

I apologize for not updating this for the last few days, but I was out of town and my partner, Bill Allen is not yet back from his successful trip to Carstensz Pyramid.

I hope you've enjoyed these updates and ramblings. We should be proud of the efforts put forth by all the climbers.

Congratulations guys!

Making Great Progress

Eric called this evening to report that not only did the team move to Camp 2 yesterday, but they carried loads of supplies up to High Camp today. Conditions on the headwall were great for traveling, with firm neve and easy to spot crevasses higher up.

Eric reports high stratos clouds and said that the guys are psyched to push up to High Camp tomorrow. Everyone feels good and wants to take advantage of the good weather. They had temperatures of -30 C in the vestiblue last night! Brrrr...

No word from the team yesterday

I didn't get a report from the crew yesterday. Even Iridium satellite telephones are sometimes finiky when you're 750 miles from the South Pole...

My guess is that they pushed to Camp 2, just around the corner from the steep headwall. The stretch to Camp 2 is pretty mellow, although in very low visibility, the flat glacier could be challenging to negotiate.

I'll post updates as I receive them...

ON THE MOVE!

Eric called last night to report that the team has not only flown to Base Camp, but pushed ahead to Camp 1!

The weather at Patriot Hills had been pretty marginal, but the pilots of the Twin Otter aircraft felt that they had a window to take off in and loaded up for the 45 minute flight to the Branscomb Glacier. They arrived at Vinson Base at about 5:30 pm to find the weather much better than that at Patriot. They guys quickly loaded up and made the push up the glacier to a camp beneath the massive face below the summit of Vinson.

Today they will move along the base of the long face (it's not called a mMassif for nothing!) to a camp just around the corner from the steep headwall separating Vinson from its stunning neighbor, Mount Shinn.

Special acknowledgement should be given to Jim Wood and Mike Nixon, who ran the Patriot Hills half marathon the day before the flight to Base Camp. I'm betting that they slept pretty well last night...

Everyone is at Patriot Hills!

I received a long anticipated sat phone call from Eric yesterday. They were able to fly to Antarctica.

The weather had been pretty blustery for a long time, but the nice thing about weather is that it does change...

Eric reports that there is a pretty dense cloud layer over Patriot, that might stick around for a couple of days. As soon as they are able, the team will load up in a Twin Otter on skis and fly to Vinson Base Camp, on the Branscomb Glacier.

The guys are motivated and hungry to get climbing, so I anticipate that they won't need much of a window to push up the mountain.

I'll keep you posted.

Hopefully, the team is on the Ice!

Sorry for the lapse in posts. I've been away from the office for a few days.

I received a series of increasingly frustrated emails from Eric. The weather down at Patriot Hills has just been too windy to allow the IL-76 to safely land. The guys have been eating well, trying to keep motivated and generally wandering around Punta Arenas.

Highlights from their rampling include taking in the new James Bond film and an arduous, cross-town trek to the new MacDonalds. I guess walking there and back justified the consuption of such healthy food...

Eric's last email, from yesterday, stated that they were heading for the airport and it looked like they were going to fly. I haven't heard anything sice then, so I am optimistic that they are now on the Ice.

I'll keep you posted...

Doing the PUnta Arenas Hang....

We received some updates today on the team. As of this evening, they have not flown to Antarctica, due to high winds down on the Ice. Earlier today, the winds were exceptionally high, but they have tapered off a bit as of this evening, and hopefully this trend will continue, enabling them to fly in the morning.

Statistically, you can fly to Antarctica one day in three. A challenge specific to landing at Patriot Hils is that the long blue ice runway is perpendicular to the prevailing winds that blow down off the namesake mountains. Winds need to be fairly light to land a wheeled jet on blue ice in a crosswind. Sounds exciting, eh? It is!

The guys are keeping busy with morning runs and renting bicycles. We'll keep our fingers crossed that they get on the plane tomorrow.

Dispatch from Sunday evening:

Eric called from Punta Arenas. They had hoped to fly to Antarctica today, but apparently, high stratos clouds prevented the pilots from feeling good about the journey.

The guys went to see a nearby penguin colony today and Eric says they are "eating at all the best restaraunts." Better load up on the calories boys. Your metabolism will be running overtime shortly!

They were to get a 6:30 am wake up call if the flight was going to launch this morning. I haven't heard from them, so perhaps they are in the air. I'll keep you posted.

Hopefully this will be the scene later today!

Everyone has arrived in Punta Arenas

Mountain Trip's first Vinson Massif expedition of the 2006/07 season is underway!

The team has all congregated in the port city of Punta Arenas, at the southern tip of Chile. They are all in good spirits and excited to get on the IL-76 Russian transport jet that will take them to Antarctica.

We were biting our nails a bit when one of our guides missed his connection in the US due to a strong winter storm. Fortunately our our other guide rallied and worked hard to make the necessary preparations for the expedition. They are all packed and waiting for the "green light" to board the aircraft for the flight of a lifetime.

The team includes:

Andre Bredencamp from South Africa
Mike Nixon from South Africa
Richmond MacIntyre from South Africa
Jim Wood from the US
Yu-Chen Kou from Taiwan

Guides on the expedition are:

Eric Larson from Colorado, USA
Craig Van Hoy from Oregon, USA

Best of Luck to all the climbers. Keep warm down there!