In Between Days

Our adventures in Antarctica continue!  We are in the in-between days separating the second Mount Vinson expedition and the long-awaited third Mount Vinson expedition with special guest guide Ed Viesturs.  Guide Terray Sylvester checks in with the description of some of the fun things the team has been doing in and around Union Glacier Camp while they await their return flight to Chile and the guides Terray and Madison await the arrival of Ed and the third team of climbers:

Hello, this is Terray calling in the second Madison Mountaineering Mount Vinson expedition of the season.  It’s January 8th.

For the last few days we’ve been here at Union Glacier Camp waiting for this team to fly back to Chile and our next team to arrive here on the ice from Punta Arenas.

So we’ve been seeing some of the sites here around Union Glacier.  A couple of days ago we went to a marble buttress known as The Elephant’s Head.  It’s an interesting location.  It’s at the head of a valley that’s scowered free of snow, one of the few snow-free landscapes here in Antarctica.

We were also able to see tracks of an ancent tirlobite in a rock there.  Those tracks were probably left many, many years ago when that rock was at the bottom of the sea floor.  We’ve also been enjoying talks on Antarctic history and exploration and nightly entertainment of documentaries and scrabble games.

So, with any luck this team will be flying back to Chile tomorrow, it just depends on the weather.  And our next group will be arriving here in Antarctica with Ed Viesturs.  We are looking forward to seeing them and getting the next climb started!

In addition to these expedition dispatches, you can also follow our teams as they make their attempts on the world’s most formidable mountains on:

– Amazon Alexa devices with the Madison Mountaineering Flash Briefing skill:

• Enable the skill and add to your flash briefing to hear our guide’s daily audio expedition updates on select expeditions

– Instagram:

• @MadisonMtng
• @GarrettMadison1