All Antarctica expedition dispatches
After a successful move up to high camp our Mount Vinson team settled into their tents to rest. Beautiful sunny weather being reported with views looking out over the Sentinel Range within the Ellsworth Mountains. The plan is to push for the summit in the next 1-2 days after a rest day for our climbers. Everyone is doing well and excited to make a summit attempt toward the top of Antarctica!
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Audio dispatch by Garrett Madison
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Today our Mount Vinson climbers completed a carry up to high camp where they cached food fuel and equipment for the days to come. Now back at low camp, our team will rest up and prepare to make a full transition to high camp to put themselves in position for a summit attempt. With 24 hours of daylight the amazing views can be seen at any point in the day. Our team is doing great and enjoying their time on the mountain together!
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Audio dispatch by Garrett Madison
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Our Mount Vinson team enjoyed a relaxing rest day today at camp 1 while reviewing the technical climbing skills necessary to move up higher toward the summit. Garrett checks in below via satellite phone (brief disconnection in audio). The weather report is clear skies and low wind across the extreme polar climate of Antarctica. Stay tuned as our climbers prepare for their summit push!
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Audio dispatch from Garrett Madison
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Our Antarctica expedition team has safely made the ascent to Camp 1 on Mt. Vinson in the Ellsworth mountain range. Mt. Vinson is the highest peak in Antarctica, approx. 600 miles from the South Pole and over 1,200 miles from the beginning of the Antarctic Peninsula. Garrett Madison reports beautiful conditions and a strong team as they move up the mountain. Today our climbers will either have a rest day or complete a carry of supplies and food up higher on the mountain. All is well in Antarctica and our climbers will check in soon!
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Our Mount Vinson climbers left Punta Arenas, Chile and have now arrived to Union Glacier Camp in Antarctica. The Union Glacier Camp is a seasonally occupied research and expedition staging site located in Ellsworth Land in Antarctica. The camp is located in the Heritage Range, south of the Ellsworth Mountains.
Garrett Madison checks in below after a night flight into Union Glacier Camp. The team will now organize their equipment before flying over to Mount Vinson in a couple hours. Our climbers plan to move up to low camp after a couple days of training with favorable weather conditions in the forecasts.
Happy New Years! : )
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Yesterday we left Mount Vinson base camp in the morning and flew by twin otter aircraft to Union Glacier camp, where we waited just a short time until the Ilushin 76 aircraft flew us to Punta Arenas, arriving late in the evening. Currently all members are in Punta Arenas or are enroute home. We have enjoyed 3 spectacular weeks in Antarctica, skiing to the South Pole and then climbing the highest peak on the continent, Mount Vinson, at just over 16,000 feet in elevation. Everyone on our team succeeded in both reaching the South Pole and reaching the summit of Mount Vinson. This has been an awesome journey, a great way to start off 2017! We look forward to repeating this program next season in Antarctica!
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Mt. Vinson Summit
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Antarctica Expedition Team 2017
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Descent on Mount Vinson
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Joel Schauer on the summit of Mount Vinson!
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Hi, this is Garrett Madison calling in for the Mount Vinson climbing expedition. Today is January 19 and today we came from high camp down to Vinson base camp. We had a nice day, it was cloudy some light snow but not windy. Everyone did great coming down from high camp to low camp and all the way to base camp. Had a big meal hamburgers, pasta and a little champagne to toast our successful climb. Now we are just hanging out at base camp getting ready to go to sleep and waiting for a flight back to Union Glacier hopefully tomorrow. Then onward back to Chile and home. We have had a wonderful expedition we are down safe to base camp just waiting for a airplane to fly back to union glacier camp then a jet back to Chile. We will check in soon. Thanks.
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Mount Vinson climbing expedition
Hello, this is Garrett Madison with the Mount Vinson expedition. Today is January 17th and we are at the summit of Mount Vinson! Beautiful day up here, got the summit all to ourselves. We are the only team up here on the mountain on high camp. And we are going to savor the top here for 45 minutes, take a few photos and then head on down to high camp and spend the night. Everyone did great today worked hard, and just a glorious day up here blue skies. Views of the Sentinel range, Ellsworth mountains, Tyree, Shinn and just a spectacular day up here, we will check in soon. Thanks.
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Hey this is Garrett Madison calling in for the Mount Vinson climbing team. We had a great rest day today at high camp. Our plan is to go for the summit tomorrow. We are going to depart high camp by around 8am and hopefully reach the summit sometime in the afternoon and make it back to camp in about 12 hours time. Beautiful weather up here, hardly any wind today, suns been out all day and no high clouds. Really lucky hoping this good weather holds for us tomorrow. Then we will be down the following day to Vinson basecamp. Fingers crossed for good weather tomorrow and a fantastic summit. We will check in soon.
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Hello, it is the Mount Vinson team here in Antarctica. This is Garrett calling in today with a big day here for us, it is actually early 2am on January 16th and we are just getting ready to go to bed after a huge day climbing from low camp up to high camp. We made it up here a couple hours ago, took a while to have dinner and heat up our water bottles and get ready to bed. Everyone is doing well. We are up here at high camp the weather forecast looks good, we are going to take a rest day tomorrow. Hopefully summit the next day, the 17th of January if all goes according to plan. Beautiful views up here, 24 hours of daylight as usual in Antarctica this time of the year. Bright blue skies above us, all is well here in Antarctica, we will check in tomorrow. Thanks.
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Follow along with our friends at Polar Explorers for exciting news and photos as our team climbs Mt. Vinson! Stay tuned!!