Expedition Dispatch

December 5, 2012 – Summit Success!

Preparing to Summit from High Camp

Okay, it is Wednesday, December 5th and wow! We have amazing conditions up at High Camp. There is absolutely not a breath of wind. The sun is shining down on our tarps and our tents. I’m never going to say it is warm in Antarctica because believe me, it’s not. But we have very good conditions so we’re going to start towards the summit of Vinson probably about 9AM or 9:30AM local time on Wednesday the 5th. We’ll see how it goes; it always takes patience, and determination, and humility to climb a big mountain like Vinson. There’s just no way to say what will happen today whether we’ll get turned back or whether were able to go all the way. We know we’ll have a long day ahead of us but the conditions look good right now. Remember that Vaughan and Todd and I have already been over 4,550 meters to the cache below the summit of Mt. Vinson once earlier. So, that part of the trail is going to seem familiar to us; that part of the glacier I should say. And above there, we’ll see, maybe if the winds are down today, we’ll be able to push this thing all the way to the summit. We’ll keep you posted.

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Made it to the Summit of Mt. Vinson!

Its 3:25 in the afternoon on the 5th, exactly six hours after we started climbing from High Camp, and Vaughan, Todd, and I are calling you from the summit of Mt. Vinson. It’s a beautiful day; we have forecast 25-knot winds to be here on the summit sometime today. Perhaps they’ll still show up, but thus far today, we’ve not seen such winds. I imagine it’s about 15-20 below right now but without wind. Amazing vistas all around us looking at the expanse of Antarctica in every direction.

This is Todd’s 17th time on the summit of Mt. Vinson, it’s my 7th time. But most especially today, it’s Vaughan’s 1st time on the mountain on the continent of Antarctica; he’s on the summit of Mt. Vinson. It’s the 5th of his continental high points of Seven Summits and he’s done a remarkable job. We came up the steeper way to the top of Vinson, on a steep slope from the west side of the summit, clipping through fixed anchors in the snow as we climbed. Vaughan did great; we got to the top as you can tell in pretty short order. Now we have a long, slow descent ahead of us but I am encouraged with the weather. We will call and report to you when we get to High Camp.

It has been a remarkable day climbing to the summit of Antarctica!

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