Gone

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 08:39:24 -0300

From now until we return to Chile in mid-January you can follow our progress via emails and at www.thepoles.com and www.expenews.org .

D

That Spot of Training !

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 13:14:43 -0300

I mentioned ‘a spot of training’, well, here’s our new training spot. Before, we either ran or cycled along the shores of the Straits of Magellan. But hey, Tyree is steep, so the guys needed a bit more. We’ve temporarily moved to the Hostal Calletana, which has stairs = pull ups and campusing. That’s Jarmila in the pic above and Pachi climbing in the video below. Now we just need to find the stairs on Tyree :-)

Ready, Set ... Wait

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 11:10:39 -0300

The customary high winds down at Patriot Hills have us doing the usual wait for a couple of days. We’re all packed, our sleds and barrels are on the Ilyushin, parked out at the airport. So we get two calls a day to update the situation and in the meantime do a bit more eating, sleeping, telly and the occasional spot of training.

Daze

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 01:22:21 -0300

Haven’t had a chance to post anything the last few days - it’s just a daze of shopping, sorting, packing, driving around, remembering to eat and managing to fit in some sleep. My least favourite part of these expeditions.

Today we had the ALE briefing (below), as we’re scheduled to fly tomorrow (actually later this morning as I type this at 1:30am). If nothing else the briefing is a good chance to meet everyone going down on the your flight and to catch up with those you’ve met on previous trips. Guys like Phil Ershler, guiding on Vinson since 1988, and Mike Roberts, my partner from Vinson in 2001, here on his 17th trip to The Ice. Throughout the year I get numerous emails from people planning expeditions, so it’s good to see that some of them finally make it to this stage, people like Ine-Lille and Rita , from Norway, who are climbing Vinson then sking to the South Pole from Vinson BC.

Now And Then ...

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 00:10:35 -0300

Tonight we had a beer with John Evans, pictured above with Jarmila, after dinner in Lomits. In January 1967 John, with Barry Corbet, became the first person to stand on the summit of Mount Tyree - somewhere we hope to be in the next month or two.

As ever, John was excellent company, with lots of stories from the old days and the interesting stuff he still gets up to. Nowadays he works placing US scientific parties up and down the Peninsula for fieldwork. It’s also great to hear first-hand the tales of the first ascent of the Hummingbird Ridge on Mount Logan, one of the world’s greatest ridge-climbs and still unrepeated. Or making one of the earliest ascents of The Nose on El Capitan in Yosemite, or pioneering a now-classic route up the west face of Mt Huntington.

Now back to packing ...