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December 21 – We are going home!
I’m standing by the blue ice runway, it’s actually about 1:30am on the 22nd now and from out of the sky to the north just came that big, Russian Ilyushin jet. Had what appeared to be a very smooth landing across the ice. Will, Gus and myself will soon be on our way back north, out over the Antarctic Peninsula at 29 000 feet, across the southern ocean and into Punta Arenas Chile in a few hours and yes home for Christmas.
We’ve been lucky; a lot of good people have worked very hard for us. We spent 10 days waiting in Punta Arenas and speaking for Will and Gus and myself that was easily worth the 12 days we had down on the ice and our success on Mount Vinson a few days ago.
Will on the summit of Vinson
AlpineAire food tastes great in Antarctica!
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This BAI expedition
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Listen to Audio of Wally's Call (.wav)
It’s December 21st, summer solstice in the southern hemisphere. I expect most people who are looking at this dispatch are in just the opposite situation today in the northern hemisphere. I have to say that in Antarctica with the 24 hours of light we always have at these latitudes, the longest day of the year really doesn’t look very different. But this one feels great!
We’ve just had an amazing 12 days down on the ice as you can tell from the dispatches. The climb of Vinson and the beautiful weather throughout; hard to put into words. But as we go home now, we’ll be thinking of how lucky we are to get back home to the families, and certainly aware that any trip to Antarctica involves amazing unknowns of transport.
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