RMI Expeditions Blog
Low Clouds and Grounded Planes
We all awoke this morning to a strange thing: warmth. All of us were sweating in our sleeping bags, and a quick unzip of the tent door explained the phenomenon. During the night, low clouds had marched across the continent, swamping the Sentinel Range in a mire of moisture, and bringing the temperature up noticeably.
After some coffee to get us moving, Peter set off to check in on flight possibilities with the ALE staff nearby. A quick radio call confirmed what we all suspected: No flights today. We'd be spending at least one more day at Vinson Basecamp.
There are certainly worse things to have happen; Vinson Basecamp is not a bad place to be stuck in a fog-bank. But, we all are a bit bummed as it would be nice to be moving to a new location and prepping for a new climb. Climbing, however, is often an exercise in patience, dealing with forces which are not only uncontrollable, but also tend to punish the impatient.
So, today, we sit, Kent and I shoot, and wrap up production loose-ends. We also took some time to pore over our map of the Sentinel Range, looking for potential peaks to check out via Twin Otter when the weather clears. Again, there are worse things; soon, the weather will again clear, and we'll be off to the next step of the journey.
Patience, as the saying goes, is a virtue.
-Jake Norton
This is Gabi and the RMI Aconcagua expedition checking in from Camp 1.
This morning we left the comfort of Aconcagua Basecamp and started to head up at 10am. The team did a great job climbing today, it took us 4 1/2 hours to reach the camp. We enjoyed another sunny day. The cold winds on the Andes started to pick up, not too strong yet, but forecast is calling for 75 mph at the top for tomorrow. We will see how hard is blowing here tomorrow morning and we will decide if we do the carry to Camp 2. Our plans B and C for tomorrow are to carry just to the col between Aconcagua and Ameghino (half way to camp 2) or we'll use one of the weather days if winds are extremely strong. We'll be sending dispatches from the new comfort of Camp 1.
I am passing the keyboard to Garrett, and he will give you the score of the stoke meter.
By popular request we are instituting a daily stoke meter, to share with the world the level of excitement the team is currently feeling. We'll be using a numeric scale that corresponds to a specific level of stoke, defined as follows: 0-2= no stoke. 3-5= semi-stoke. 6-8= stoked. 9-10= TOTALLY STOKED! Today's stoke meter is a healthy 6, which is pretty nice after the climb.
Stay tuned for more updates from the team!
RMI Guides Gabriel Barral and Garrett Stevens
By popular request we are instituting a daily stoke meter, to share with the world the level of excitement the team is currently feeling. We'll be using a numeric scale that corresponds to a specific level of stoke, defined as follows: 0-2= no stoke. 3-5= semi-stoke. 6-8= stoked. 9-10= TOTALLY STOKED! Today's stoke meter is a healthy 6, which is pretty nice after the climb.
Stay tuned for more updates from the team!
RMI Guides Gabriel Barral and Garrett Stevens
We had high hopes of being able to fly today. After several days of protests and road blocks in Punta Arenas the crew was ready to load the plane with gear, food and more expedition members and fly to Union Glacier. Unfortunately, that didn't happen due to a broken fuel pump. It may be a few days before it can be fixed and the jet is back in the air.
The food and accommodations here are great and we are all doing well.
Best,
RMI Guide Ed Viesturs
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Hi there, it’s Peter, checking in from Vinson Basecamp, today is January 15th. And it’s about 1:20 PM. We woke up this morning, we had a great ski day yesterday, and we're hopeful [to fly] to one of our objectives an unclimbed, unskied peak. But the weather moved in and we are in a very cold, icy fog now with zero visibility. And so everybody's kinda shut down and it looks like it's gonna be tent time all day and just chilling and taking it easy and resting up a bit. We’ve been on a pretty, oh, not hectic schedule but we've been doing everything or a lot of things everyday so it’s kinda nice to have a rest. Forecast is not great for tomorrow, but we'll see what happens. And we're hopeful that we can get a twin otter plane out of here. We've got a couple great objectives about 10 minutes south on the way back to Union Glacier that we'll look at from the air and think that they would be prime possibilities for doing some skiing. And we hope we can land right by them. That's the plan and R&R today, iPods in the tent, and reading and just kinda taking it easy. And hopefully that changes tomorrow and we can we can get going with the rest of our trip. That's it for now, and we'll talk soon.
Peter Whittaker gives team's update on the RMI team's rest day
Beautiful Lines in a Sea of White
We had another stellar day today in the peaks off the Branscomb Glacier a couple of miles from Vinson Basecamp. There seems to be endless ski opportunities in this area - not surprising since we're on a continent almost entirely covered in snow and ice. But, what has been surprising is the quality of the snow we've found.
Often, we've heard, the conditions for skiing here in the interior are marginal, with variable crust and massive patches of rock-hard, blue ice covered by a thin veil of snow. Hit one of those with some speed and you're down for a home plate slide. Fortunately, some wind events recently, combined with the uncommon snowfall of early season, have created great conditions around Vinson Basecamp.
Today, we moved again to the beautiful ribs outside of camp in the late afternoon when the sun gets low and backlights the whole area. Peter, Seth, and Caroline skinned up to a great location below a terrifyingly big cornice; fortunately, their position was well-protected by a hug bergschrund just below the cornice, and gave safe access to good terrain below.
We all had a great 4 hours shooting under the low-Antarctic sun with perfect snow conditions. We skinned back to camp by 9:00 PM, had a stellar dinner, and started organizing gear again. Tomorrow, our Twin Otter arrives midday. We'll fly around Vinson for a bit, and then go off scouting for an unclimbed and unskied peak. With luck, the 16th will find us in new territory on an untouched peak in the Antarctic.
-Jake Norton
RMI Guide Seth Waterfall checks in after a ski day in Antarctica
After the climb David, Cindy, Ben and I said goodbye to our climbing teammates and boarded the Twin Otter at Vinson Basecamp. We flew to Union Glacier, the hub of ALE's antarctic expeditions, we had only spent a few hours here on our way into Vinson Basecamp due to the great flying weather. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case on our return. The weather is good for flying but a strike in Punta Arenas, Chile, our next destination, is preventing the Ilyushin jet from making it's way to pick us up. We aren't alone.. several teams are sitting in Punta Arenas waiting to start their Antarctic adventures and just as many teams are here waiting to return.
Hopefully we will be in the air soon.
RMI Guide Ed Viesturs
A bright, sunny, warm day lulled everyone to the cook tent for books, card games, and group crossword puzzles on our rest day. We slowly worked to organize gear that will stay in Basecamp, and that which will move up with us tomorrow to Camp 1. Everyone is excited to leave the unmistakable scent of mules behind and to begin the ascent of the upper mountain. We'll be up early tomorrow to break camp, eat breakfast, and work our way to Camp 1, most likely next to the Norwegian and French teams that we've climbed next to thus far.
We'll have more to report tomorrow!
Cheers,
RMI Guide Gabriel Barral
Skiing in Antarctica is not something I ever really thought I would do. I'm not sure anyone on our team thought they would get the opportunity for that matter.
But, this morning, the sun popped out from behind Vinson, bringing the temps to a reasonable level (perhaps zero?) and dropping the wind. A quick breakfast, some coffee, and we geared up to begin the day.
Our first foray was onto a small slope just above basecamp with some big crevasses and seracs. The team made some great turns in marginal snow, and had a lot of fun. By late afternoon, the sun had moved around, casting great shadows on some nice, big terrain across the valley from us. Splitting up, Peter, Caroline, and Seth went down to skin up a nice rib on the shoulder of the Branscomb, while Kent and I cruised up another hill to get in position to shoot.
Having shot only a little skiing before, I turned to Kent to help choose the right place to shoot. A veteran of many big ski shoots, he's quite the expert...the only difference being here in Antarctica there are no helicopters or Ski-Doo's to move us from place to place - only our own power.
So, we set up on a beautiful ridge, looking across an enormous valley with long shadows of the team skinning into position. Eventually, on cue, they dropped down some 1,000 feet, kicking up beautiful snow into the low, evening light. By then, it was 8:00 PM, and time to skin an hour back to camp and make dinner.
Only a couple of runs for the day, but the scenery, conditions, locale, and team couldn't be beat. We're all excited for tomorrow.
Hello everybody, this is Peter checking in with First Ascent/RMI ski team here at Vinson basecamp. And we just finished a fantastic day of skiing. We transitioned yesterday from the climb into skiing today and we went out and skied some shoulders and glacial areas right on the side of the runway here at Vinson base. And in the morning had a nice session and kinda got our ski legs under us and testing the snow and the slopes. This afternoon we went over, down valley a couple miles and off to some shoulders and planks, to the south and the snow was unbelievable. Two – three inches of some of the most beautiful, most sparkling snow that I've ever seen and we had just a great afternoon/ evening. We got back to camp at about 9 PM. Once again, Jake’s going to try and push out some images to show you what I'm talking about, but it was surreal and just an amazing ski day today, a beautiful snow in the most beautiful place in the world. And almost spiritual really, really, nice and so we're all stoked. We're back in camp and finishing dinner and then gonna hit the rack. Tomorrow will be one more day of skiing here and then we've got the maps out and we are plotting to find a piece between here and Union Glacier and we'll take the twin otter probably day after tomorrow to get up in the air and look around for just the perfect mountain that is unclimbed and unskied. So that's our plan. All is well here. Everyone’s healthy, happy, and really stoked about the turns we got today. We will check in with you tomorrow. And everybody have a good evening and we'll talk soon.
Peter describes the team's first day of skiing
The group woke for the third morning under the shadows of Ameghino and our objective, Cerro Aconcagua. The skies were a brilliant blue, and excitement ran high in the group over breakfast as everyone prepared for the day's carry to Camp 1 (16,350'). Group loads of food were doled out, and the group took up the slow, but steady pace that will be our mantra for the rest of the climb.
It took us 4 1/2 hours to reach Camp 1. We took a nice 45 minute rest there and then we headed down to basecamp arriving by 5:00 pm. The descent took us less than half of our ascent time. Route conditions between basecamp and Camp 1 were very nice compared with what I have experienced in the last 10 years.
Tomorrow we will take one more rest day with the relative comforts of basecamp, before our move to Camp 1. We've received some of the posts left on the blog, and we are all grateful for your well-wishes.
Signing off,
Gabriel Barral and the RMI Aconcagua expedition
Tomorrow we will take one more rest day with the relative comforts of basecamp, before our move to Camp 1. We've received some of the posts left on the blog, and we are all grateful for your well-wishes.
Signing off,
Gabriel Barral and the RMI Aconcagua expedition
Hi, regards all :)
<a >Filmy</a>
Posted by: ShawnSpeed on 2/4/2011 at 5:31 am
Hey to all of you from Marysville, Ohio and the Union County Family YMCA “Training Home to Erin Snowden” We love the updates. Please take good care of Erin and each other. You’re all an inspiration, In fact I wish I could be with you. God Speed the rest of your adventure!!!
Rick Shortell, Executive Director
Union County Family YMCA
Posted by: Rick Shortell on 1/19/2011 at 7:01 pm
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