Our view from high camp – a sea of snow and ice as far as the eye can see.
Sometimes it doesn't pay to do planning in advance. Especially when the airlines changed planes at the last minute and put our flights in an oversold situation because the new plane had fewer seats. After several phone calls to American Airlines, the end result was Brian was still flying out of Pittsburgh December 26th and I had to fly out of San Diego on Christmas Day. My flights to Punta Arenas, Chile had no issues after that and I made it there without incident. Two of our other teammates were on my plane, Dave Arnett (from Colorado) and Neill Johanson (from Sydney). Our lead guide, Sam Hennessey, picked us up and took us to the hotel where we met another teammate that had arrived several days earlier, Alistair Currie (from Melbourne). I think Alistair was relieved to finally have his alone time come to an end. With the Christmas holiday, Punta was a ghost town.
The next day was gear check for those of us that had arrived. I had organized my gear in order of the gear list. The guys thought that was pretty OCD of me. What can I say? I like to be organized.
Brian was suffering from flight delays and wasn't expected to arrive in Punta until the following day – the same day ALE (the company responsible for all the planning and logistics in Antarctica) was scheduled to pick up all our baggage for the plane. Finally he made it, had gear check and then we headed over to ALE's office for a pre-flight briefing. ALE had hors d'oeuvres and were serving drinks with Antarctic ice cubes. Our boarding passes were lined up neatly on one of the walls. There were several other groups there including Russians, Chinese and another American guide company. ALE reviewed what happens before, during and after the flight and informed us that we would be flying out first thing the next morning. Our pickup time was 6:05am at the hotel.
The plane was huge. It was a Cold War era Russian Ilyushin cargo plane. They had a camera mounted outside of the plane and the feed came into a flat panel screen at the front of the plane so that everyone could watch the flight path since there were no passenger windows on the plane. It was a 4.5 hour flight. About an hour before landing, they turned off the heat and had us put on all our cold weather gear since we would be landing on the ice. After we deplaned, we were all taken to Union Glacier, a short 10-15 minute ride. Union Glacier is like a launch pad for various groups doing various things. We were there to climb Vinson, but others were there to ski to the South Pole, fly to the South Pole, ride a bike to the South Pole, etc. The staff took us on a tour of the expansive camp. They had a very large meal tent which is where most of us spent most of the time hanging out. They had volleyball, basketball, bicycles, a 10k circuit and a yoga tent. There were bathrooms with two toilets each – one for pee and one for poo. They also had a shower facility with three stalls where you could take a three-minute shower. They held a lecture series which was great. The food at Union Glacier was outstanding. For lunch that day they had soup, lamb stew, fruit, cheese, and all kinds of other food items. After lunch, we set up our tents and moved in.
The weather was beautiful at Union Glacier but there were clouds over Vinson Base Camp. The pilots don't like to fly in low cloud conditions so we would not be flying out until they cleared. They had a few white boards in the meal tent to keep people posted on flight status and weather conditions. At 10pm, our guide Sam reported that we would not be flying out that night so we all went to bed. It was a waiting game at that point. For the next two days, we kept going through our daily routine…wake up, have breakfast, check the whiteboard, have lunch, attend a lecture, check the whiteboard, have dinner, check the whiteboard. I have to say that the lectures were fantastic. One was on Eric Larsen's North Pole expedition and the other was given by a guy named Wilson on the Emperor Penguins.
It was New Year's Eve and ALE was preparing for the celebration. They had built an Ice Bar where they served mojitos and a warm, mulled wine. Dinner followed and we just assumed we were headed to bed after. However, immediately after dinner, Sam told us we were leaving. We all bolted out of the meal tent, packed up our gear, loaded the plane and flew to Vinson Base Camp. We stayed there overnight and headed to Low Camp the next morning.
We packed up camp and departed around 1pm. After arriving at Low Camp, we set up our tents and helped Sam build a snow wall since the forecast indicated high winds. It wasn't the prettiest wall we could have built, but it was good enough. After dinner, Lakpa told us that the sun doesn't come out until 11am at Low Camp so breakfast would be at 11:30. Any earlier and it would be too cold. We had a rest day the next day and went for a short day hike to an overlook. We could see the steep, long snow wall with fixed lines that we would be climbing the following day. Back at camp, we had steaks for dinner.
The next day was a carry day to the top of the fixed lines. It was bitter cold during breakfast at 10:30am but once the sun came out it warmed quite nicely. Then the following day we moved to High Camp. IMG, another American guide service, the Russians and two ALE rangers were on the same schedule as us so we saw them all along the way. We got our cache from the top of the fixed lines and then had another 1-1.5 hours to High Camp. The last 45 minutes or so into camp were mentally difficult because it was a slow slog up a never-ending hill. I think almost everyone on our team felt the same way about it. We set up camp and had dinner. Tonight Lakpa cooked salmon. It was delicious! Better than I've had in some restaurants. Sam and Lakpa decided we were going to take a rest day the next day while all the other teams were going for the summit.
We had a beautiful day at camp just hanging out and taking pictures. On a side note, the pee hole at high camp was pretty scary looking. It was big and appeared bottomless. I decided I would not be squatting over that hole for fear of falling in…never to be found again. Later that day, the teams began to arrive back at camp. The Russians were the first to return after a successful summit. They ate, packed up and headed all the way down to Base Camp. Those guys were tough.
Our summit day started at 7am. We had breakfast, got geared up and went for one last head call. I went to dump out my pee bottle into the scary pee hole with my wag bag tucked under my arm. I guess my wag bag wasn't tucked in securely enough because as I was pouring out my pee bottle, my bag slipped straight into that hole. Shit. This was the last thing I needed to happen on summit day. I knew I had to tell Sam. He ended up having to fish it out with one of my trekking poles. Luckily that was the only thing that went wrong that day. It was a beautiful, sunny day. It started out a little windy, but that didn't last long. We traveled in two roped teams all the way to the summit. The summit ridge was fairly exposed but an easy traverse. It took us 7 hours to reach the summit. We could see forever. Not only did we have great weather but we had the summit all to ourselves. We took tons of pictures since it was such a nice day. It only took us two hours to descend back to camp. Unfortunately for Brian, he ended up with a degloved foot. A picture has been included below (warning: it's gross). I patched up what I could, but unfortunately he had to descend with his foot like that the rest of the way to Base Camp. On a happier note, summit day dinner was ramen with shrimp. I actually like ramen on summit day. It is somehow comforting.
The next morning the weather turned nasty, but we broke down camp and descended all the way to Base Camp by 5pm. We were hoping that a plane would come and get us, but there were clouds looming overhead. By 8pm, we knew we were staying there overnight. Luckily, we were able to get a flight out to Union Glacier the next morning. They gave us a 28-minute heads up that they were one their way, but we weren't going to complain about the short notice. We couldn't wait to get back to the luxury of Union Glacier. Plus, we had to make it back to catch our flight to Punta scheduled for departure on January 9th. Back at Union, I decided to take a shower before dinner. You had to fill a bucket full of scalding hot water. Then you had to add a few chunks of snow into the bucket to get it to the desired temperature. Once you were ready, you put a hose in the bucket and flipped a switch. It was only three minutes long but it was marvelous.
It was a party atmosphere in the meal tent. The Ilyushin was still planned to arrive as scheduled and all the teams had summited in perfect weather. One of our teammates, Don, had brought a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black so we all had a couple shots each. There was a lot of beer drinking and even some wine. All of us, the Americans and the Russians, celebrated together.
By morning it was time to depart our little city of snow and ice. As the plane left the ground, I felt a little tinge of sadness. The adventure was over and it was time to go back to my normal life. I know I was a little long-winded on this one, but Vinson was the trip of a lifetime. I will always remember it.
