Vinson expedition update!

The Team land­ed at the Union Glac­i­er Camp in Antarc­ti­ca a cou­ple of days ago where they switched planes to head towards Base Camp. But, with poor weath­er, a cloudy day with 30knot winds and a tem­per­a­ture of ‑10C, only 3 of 6 flights to were able to leave for Vin­son Base Camp. Because of this, the Team was forced spend the night at Union Glac­i­er Camp. But, as MM trip leader Chris Warn­er sug­gest­ed, ​“hard to com­plain about the hot show­ers, catered food, and enter­tain­ment served up at the Union Glac­i­er Camp!”

From left to right: Gun­tis, Len, Chris and Michael

Their next day was a balmy ‑8C sun­ny day, no flights were head­ed to Base Camp. Anoth­er forced day of R&R in Union Glac­i­er is what they were left with, though Chris said their ​“fin­gers are crossed that we can fly in the morn­ing.” And that was the case! The team had a smooth flight into Vin­son Base Camp. And after a short time set­ting up camp for their return after the climb, and stash­ing gear, the team was up and mov­ing to Low Camp with­in an hour!

The trip to Low Camp is a 5.6mile trek with 2100ft of gain, but the crew was hap­py to be mov­ing. 70lb sleds and 30lb packs can’t keep these guys down! They also got a chance to uti­lize the 24 hours of day­light by leav­ing camp at 7:30pm and arriv­ing at 1:30am. Though Chris men­tioned that when the sun did cross behind a peak they got the so called ​“Insto-Bur­rrr!!!!” The sun soon returned around 3:30am while the team con­tin­ued cook­ing and melt­ing snow for water.

With rumors of a 24 hour storm sys­tem on the way, the team went up the fixed lines to drop gear at high camp and did great! Chris stat­ed, ​“These guys are moti­vat­ed but maybe too much so!” With enthu­si­asm run­ning high, they just need a few days of good weath­er and some acclima­ti­za­tion to make the sum­mit push.

Now the weath­er update stat­ed that con­di­tions should be sta­ble with a high tem­per­a­ture of ‑26C, and winds at 5 – 10 knots. Seems that their Sum­mit Win­dow has appeared. And with that the plan is to move up to high camp today, the 12^th, which will be an 8 hour climb up to 12,402ft. Sum­mit day to the top of Antarc­ti­ca is going to be tomor­row if all goes as planned, and antic­i­pat­ed to be a big push at 9 – 12hrs.

Wish them luck! 

Check out the Moun­tain Mad­ness face­book page for reg­u­lar updates on the expedition.