Mount Aratat & the Wonders of Turkey Expedition Dispatch

August 21, 2013 – Great Teamwork Leads to Great Accomplishments on Summit Day

At 12:15 AM - High Camp 13,450 Feet

It’s about 9:30 in the morning and I’m calling you from 16,300 feet above sea level at the edge of the ice cap. We are getting much closer to the summit of Mount Ararat. I will tell you how the day has gone so far, it has been a long one already; when I woke up at about 12:15 am, trying to assess the situation for our morning, it was hailing quite hard onto our tents at high camp. A few minutes later when I looked out I realized there was also a heavy fog and it threw your headlight beam right back into your face; which is the worst visibility you could imagine. So we told the team to hang tight till 3 am knowing that when we did start we would get light a short time afterwards at least, even if we still had fog. In fact we did have fog when we started climbing just before 5 am.

Now Dennis has had a lot of problems with nausea and not feeling well last night so he knew when he got up this morning he was not going to go. Susan has also been having problems with headaches and just not feeling very strong so it was clear that they both needed to stay at High Camp and Valentine is down with the cooks at Camp I. All of them have been doing a great job supporting us from camp.

Listen to Wally's call

At 15,200 Feet

The rest of us continued climbing in rather poor visibility but the group climbed very well. Now at 15,200 ft /4,632m above sea level, kind of a special place; that is where Woodie Vaughan turned around, his high point on our last climb (Woodie Vaughan is a longtime friend of Wally and Charles and was a part of the July 2013 Berg Adventures Expedition of Mt Ararat). His good friend Charles Martin was there with me and Mehmet this morning and Charles knew because of the difficult descent with his back problems and the difficulty going down we knew that it would be wise for him to turn around there at the same place Woodie did. So Charles and Mehmet turned around but not before Charles took a thank you photo for the surgeons that made it possible for Charles to go as high as 15, 200 feet.

Listen to Wally's call

At 16,200 Feet

Now the rest of the team is here at the ice cap and what we have decided is that Carolyn who has felt strong all morning has decided that she will need more energy for the descent and so her and Duygu are going to start back for High Camp right now and the rest of us are going out onto the glacier to see how we do about reaching the summit. We will keep you posted and we will hopefully call you from the summit in a little while.

Another quick update at 10:15 am; Jean Pierre has decided to descend with Duygu and Carolyn. He is thinking about how long the descent is going to be and saving energy to go to not only to High Camp now but all the rest of the way to Camp I later this afternoon, or perhaps this evening now. The team is working really well together we have people in different camps keeping track of one another, we need help everywhere including Camp I where have to get folks started down. Now my summit team is continuing on and again we hope to call you from the top.

One last note at this point 16,200 ft/4,938 m above sea level was the high point for Carolyn in her life, and she is really excited. I am not sure about Jean Pierre because I know he has done a lot in the arctic but regardless they both did great and the entire team is doing great!

Listen to Wally's call

At 11:05 AM -The Summit of Mount Ararat 16,854 Feet

11:05 am; Deke, Micheline, Anne, John, Wally and Jamal walked onto the summit of Mount Ararat together. That was about 6 hours and 15 minutes after we left. It took a lot of effort for the team to get up here and they did great. The entire Berg Adventures Mount Ararat team did great. The folks that turned around at lower elevations also pushed and had great accomplishments. We are just starting our way down now to be re-united with the others. Everyone’s got a long way down and I am proud of the entire team. I can’t tell you we had a good view on the summit but I can tell you of the other Berg Adventures climbs this season for this team there was virtually no wind and very warm temperatures. It took a lot mentally and physically for everyone to get up here. Congratulations team. And for those of you watching and listening in we will keep you posted as we work our way down the mountain all the way to Camp I today.

At 6:00 PM

I just spoke to Valentine at Camp I and she said that the guys there are taking great care of her. She said that she could not believe it - she goes all year in North Carolina without seeing snow and now there is snow everywhere- in August!