November 24 – U.S. Thanksgiving on Ice

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It’s November 24th, that’s Thanksgiving Day in the United States.  Here in the Antarctic Martin, Woodie and I are doing our first carry to stock camp 1 far above us on the Branscomb glacier on Mount Vinson.

As you know we have 24 hours of absolute light here so our schedule is a little different.  It’s already 20:20 or 8:20pm Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and 4:20pm local time, Chilean, Punta Arenas time.  These guys are moving great.  They are complaining a little because I set a slow pace.  Martin especially is known for his speedy pace and Woodie is also complaining that he would like to walk a little faster, but we are going to go slowly up this mountain.

If you are wondering what we have for Thanksgiving dinner in Antarctica, I have some very frozen slices of turkey that I brought down from Chile.  If I can remember to get these in my pocket a little in advance we’ll pull them out when we reach high camp tonight and we’ll have a few slices of turkey on crackers and celebrate the US Thanksgiving in the vast, wonderful wilderness of Antarctica at the base of and the slopes of Mount Vinson.