Vinson Expedition Dispatch

December 9, 2010 – Reaching the Summit and Returning to High Camp

Well, we’ve reached the summit of Mount Vinson. John and Kate Gellert have stood on the top of Antarctica. At 8:06pm local time last evening, we reached the top of Vinson in very, very demanding conditions. Of all my ascents of Mount Vinson, I’m sure this was the coldest. This is interesting and kind of strange. It took us 9.5 hours to climb from Vinson high camp to the summit of Mount Vinson, and temperatures for most of the climb were pleasant to quite hot. In fact, several of hours into the climb, Pachi had to get Kate quickly undressed because she was badly over-heated. She was very sweaty and her clothes were getting drenched.

Now, if you are ever hot in Antarctica, it isn’t necessarily because the air is warm. Just as that was happening to Kate, I’m sure it was at least -13°F/-25°C ambient air temperature. Antarctica is pure white and all of that white surface—the glaciers and the snow—reflects 90% of the solar radiation right back into the atmosphere. It is very cold, dry snow for that reason; it is like sand. Your body and your dark clothing absorb that radiation. Without wind, even in very cold temperatures, you can get hot like Kate did if you are overdressed. Thirty-five minutes later, Kate was very aware that she was in Antarctica because she was getting cold again. We could see that one whole side of her nose was white with beginning frostbite.

We had to be very careful as we climbed higher up Mount Vinson to the summit. The winds were really strong and the temperature extreme. It was -31°F/-35°C and there were 30mph winds. I’ve never been much on calculating wind chill, but it means very cold, very extreme. We were not on the top for long, but it was a beautiful summit and a beautiful day. We got back down here and our total moving time on our climb and descent was 13 hours and 40 minutes.

Now it is another still, sunny morning here at high camp. As you know, we spent almost a week here and it is now time to start moving down. The airplanes are going to start arriving to Vinson base to take us back to Union Glacier. Ultimately, the Ilyushin jet will take us from the blue ice runway at Union Glacier to Punta Arenas. Congratulations to John and Kate and thanks for following us. We will continue to let you know how getting out of Antarctica goes. As soon as we are able, we will post many photographs of this very climb so you can see how John and Kate looked and how their conditions were as they moved up to the top of Antarctica, Mount Vinson.

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