Entries from Expedition Dispatches
Posted by: Steve Gately, Hannah McGowan
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Aconcagua
The team enjoyed one last breakfast in civilization this morning before stepping outside to blue skies and calm winds. The walk to our first camp, Las Lénas, in the Vacas Valley went perfectly. The valley can often times be extremely hot when there is no wind or extremely frustrating if there is a lot and we were gifted with the perfect amount to keep us cool and enjoy the trek. The team did great on their first day of trekking and enjoyed getting into the high country and working up an appetite for our carne asado tonight. The asados in the Vacas Valley our one of my favorite parts of the trip. The Arriaros make a fire and cook large cuts of beef and whole vegetables over an open fire. Everyone sits around the fire and is served family style. It's a wonderful bit of Argentinian mountain culture and a true highlight of the trip. Tomorrow we will continue our journey up the Vacas to our second camp "Casa de Piedra" (11,000 ft) and we'll finally get our first view of Aconcagua! That's all for now, thanks for following!
RMI Guide Steve Gately & Team
Posted by: Steve Gately, Hannah McGowan
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Aconcagua
The drive into the mountains starts by passing through many of Mendoza's Bodega's until the landscape changes to rolling hills peppered with bushy green shrubs. Soon there after we gain elevation and follow the Rio de Mendoza up to the Uspallata Valley where the topography changes yet again to tall jagged peaks colored red,orange, tan and grey. Another hour down the valley takes us to Los Penitentes where we will be calling home tonight. The team spent the afternoon packing and repacking there duffel bags for the trek into the Vacas Valley tomorrow. At the moment we are all probably much to full from dinner and excited to get to bed and finally leave the creature comforts behind for a sleeping bag and tent tomorrow. Everyone is doing fantastic and eager too start our adventure! Tune in tomorrow for more!
RMI Guide Steve Gately
I need this information for a school project.
Posted by: Connor on 12/15/2016 at 8:52 am
Love the picture! Looks like a healthy group. Godspeed!
Posted by: Terry (Jen's Mom) on 12/14/2016 at 12:20 pm
Posted by: Steve Gately, Hannah McGowan
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Aconcagua
Aconcagua season has officially begun! The team all safely made it to Mendoza today and enjoyed finally putting a face to the names in the what felt like 1000 exchanged emails over the last month. Most of the team enjoyed a few hours exploring the culture and sights of Mendoza's city center before getting to work trying to figure out how to navigate the park's online registration form. After figuring out that Argentinian keyboards have a different key layout and with only mild frustration, we managed to get everybody registered! We spent the rest of the evening doing our gear check and enjoying a delicious dinner out in town. Tomorrow we pack up and head to Los Penitentes (9,000ft) where we will pack our things to survive the long and arduous journey attached to the back of a Argentine mule. Everybody is in great spirits and excited for the challenge ahead. Thanks for following.
RMI Guide Steve Gately
Wishing everyone a beautiful and safe experience. Sending Boyd lots of hugs . I’m excited for you!
Posted by: Nichole jensen on 12/14/2016 at 5:11 pm
The entire O’Shaughnessy family wish Boyd and they entire expedition a safe and exciting climb. Looking for updates on your adventure!
Posted by: Mike O'S on 12/13/2016 at 8:01 pm
Posted by: Dave Hahn
Categories: Expedition Dispatches Vinson Massif
None of us minded getting up early today at Union Glacier. We packed our bags and knocked down our tents one more time. Then we drank a bunch of coffee and waited for the big plane to come in. We had a ringside seat for the 11 AM landing out at the Ice runway. It didn't take long for the ground crews to get it unloaded and to get us on board. We were off deck by noon and had a smooth and easy 4.5 hour ride back to Punta Arenas. Then it was time for showers and a fine dinner out with friends. We celebrated a truly enjoyable climb in an extraordinary environment. Tomorrow we'll fly some more and we'll eventually go in different directions. But we won't soon forget what we accomplished together.
Thanks for following.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Mr.Hahn,
Its been 20 years since my first season of 6 as a member of the twin otter crews. Fond memories of working with you and glad to see you’re still up to it.
Miss my days down there and hope to come back some day.
Dave
Posted by: Dave Bosma on 12/31/2016 at 4:39 pm
Dave,
Thank you for safely guiding Keith and the rest of the team for this experience. Also thank you for posting the daily blog so that I could know where the team was and to let my mother-in-law and others informed of the progress.
I wish all of you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Yuki Loritz
Posted by: Yukiko Loritz on 12/12/2016 at 11:36 am
There was optimistic talk yesterday evening of a flight to South America today. The weather didn't cooperate, but we certainly didn't mind another day in the heart of Antarctica. We ate well, we rested, we rode fat tire bikes on a 10k groomed trail, we watched clouds come and go, and we mingled with other "tourists" and staff of ALE (our logistical company). Everybody wanted to know about our big storm and just how hard the wind really blew.
Union Glacier camp feels like a major city compared to our small camps on Vinson. Ski planes come and go at all hours, snow cats and snowmobiles roam about, folks come and go from skiing and climbing, from excursions to the coast and the pole. It is a bustling crossroads in the middle of a beautiful nowhere. It is hard to interact with so many well-traveled people without hatching plans for the future. Our immediate future involves northward travel and word has it that the IL76 will be in tomorrow morning. We could be in South America tomorrow evening. One day at a time though.
Best Regards,
Dave Hahn
Still praying for good weather for everyone. Safe travels.
Yuki Loritz
Posted by: Yukiko Loritz on 12/9/2016 at 10:40 pm
We started the day -as usual- in a cold cloud at high camp. We are finishing it in bright sunshine and relative warmth at Union Glacier. It was a hard day of down climbing with heavy packs, but by late afternoon we were in Vinson Base where a plane was waiting just for us. Our tents are up in a flat place tonight and the team is happily chatting with explorers, adventurers, scientists, guides, pilots and hard workers from around the world -all mixed in the comfortable ALE dining tent.
Chances are good that we'll fly to Punta Arenas tomorrow.
More as time allows.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
Congratulations to Dave and the team! I loved following your expedition. The dispatches were so nicely written! Again Dave: WRITE A BOOK :-). Happy Holidays
Posted by: Wolf Riehle on 12/8/2016 at 8:32 pm
Not much wind at high camp this morning, but a heck of a lot of cloud when we checked it at 7 AM. Seemed like this was to be our opportunity though. We breakfasted in fog and light snow and got ready to climb. Nothing had changed by the time we got roped up at 9:45. We set off into the murk. Not a great day for pictures... but walking in a whiteout means there are few distractions. We took a quick rest break every hour or so and went steadily higher and colder. Light winds came up with face freezing potential as we neared the top, but almost miraculously, we lost all wind and even got a touch of sun as we went out the summit ridge. We hit the tippy top at 5:30 and liked it so much we spent 30 minutes up there. It took us three hours and ten minutes, mostly in cloud, to get back to high camp. Thankfully, there we got some late night sunshine to enjoy dinner by. The team is tired, but as you can imagine, we're also pretty happy right now as we drift off to bed.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
[Transcription of audio call from the summit]
Hey, this is the RMI 2016 Mt. Vinson Climb, We are on the summit of Mount Vinson, all of us! 100%, a team of 5 right up here on top! We climb through clouds all day, but here on the top we are looking up looking up at blue sky. It is calm on top. This team is done a great job. We'll let you know we get back to high Camp and everything is good, and that's what we expect because everybody is climbing strong.
That's all for now, high from the top of Antarctica.
Dave Hahn Calling from the Summit of Mount Vinson.
On The Map
Congratulations to Mt. Vinson Team!!
Charlotte
Posted by: Charlotte Williams on 12/8/2016 at 1:16 pm
Bravo!!! Well done!!! Safe journeys home!!!
Posted by: JP on 12/8/2016 at 3:18 am
Finally in position. We moved up to Vinson high camp today (12,300 ft). It was calm at Low Camp this morning when we climbed out of our tents, but it really didn't look that great up high -from our vantage point. There were still big wind sculpted clouds attached to the high summits. Our radio conversations with friends at high camp told a different story... they said it was calm and warm at high camp and folks were headed for the top. We geared up... dragging our feet just a bit in case the weather turned obviously bad. But it didn't. We left our longtime home at low camp (9,200 ft) at 1:40 and cruised up in about six hours. Fog overtook the team about half way up the ropes though, and stuck with us to high camp, so we didn't have any views. We reached camp about when the summit teams were getting back. They'd been above the clouds on the top. With all of our team feeling good and strong, it didn't take much time to build our camp, eat dinner and get to bed. We 've got a big day coming up tomorrow. Perhaps we'll get some views along the way.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
The wind finally quit this morning, about 20 minutes before the sun hit to start a much better day. It still wasn't a climbing day for us though. There were still winds blowing snow off the ridge we needed to crest. They were dying down, but not quickly enough for my tastes. We dug out and dried out down at Vinson's Low Camp... Licking our wounds, so to speak, after the epic storm. The team up at high camp seemed to have survived the blow and similarly, dug out and rested today. The teams with us at low camp went for a late afternoon start on moving up, We'll give it a shot tomorrow. Finally with a couple of days of semi stable forecast in our favor. After several days of a constant roar it is great to be back to profound silence... the kind that stretches to the horizons.
Best Regards,
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
On The Map
I’ve been praying for good weather for you. Good luck!
Yuki
Posted by: Yukiko Loritz on 12/6/2016 at 8:57 am
Let's get the exaggerations out of the way at the start... Winds today at Low Camp were between 70 and 80 mph. Except those figures are probably right, judging by how many times the gusts demolished the snow walls protecting our tents. Those walls were made of blocks we could barely lift. The storm is well and truly upon us... And upon everyone else too for that matter. There wasn't any moving from camp to camp today -or carrying of loads. It was hunker down and hang on day. The storm didn't let much sun through to warm us either, so life was grim. Conversation in the tents was tough to accomplish with the tent walls snapping like machine guns in your ear. Walking outside the tents was bound to include getting knocked to the ice a few times. But we are still hanging in, here at Low Camp, waiting to catch a break. The views we did have today were quite dramatic, with giant wind sculpted clouds diving off the high peaks. We can't quite say yet that we've been through a full on Antarctic storm yet, because it ain't over. Soon though.
Best Regards
RMI Guide Dave Hahn
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Praying for safety in your trek. Wishing my brother, Rob, the best!!!
Posted by: Marg on 12/15/2016 at 6:15 pm
Have fun and don’t f*** it up! (See Bob that statement works for more than rugby!) Cheering y’all on!
Posted by: Kat Roche on 12/15/2016 at 10:48 am
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