Vinson
After traveling a few days through Argentina, I arrived in Punta Arenas in Chile on 16th December, 2005. There, I met up with Victor Saunders who was going to lead the expedition to Vinson. The next couple of days Samantha Larson, Dave Larson and Douglas Beall arrived as well.
Mount Vinson is without any doubt the most remote of the “7 Summits”. Antarctica is a desert of ice, thousands of km away from the nearest town.
On 22nd December, we boarded a cargo plane for a 5 hour flight to Patriot Hills with 20 other climbers. Patriot Hills is the base of Adventure Network International in Antarctica. The next day, a twin otter airplane took us from Patriot Hills to Vinson basecamp.
From there on, we hiked with backpack and sled to the low camp, where we celebrated Christmas. To get to the high camp, we needed to climb the headwall twice: the first time to acclimatize and to carry equipment up, the next day to get the rest of our equipment up.
After a night sleeping in extreme cold (-40 C) in the high camp, the weather didn’t look promising the next morning. Victor decided to make an attempt anyway and at 10 am we left for the summit. Because the weather didn’t get any worse, we managed to reach the highest point in Antarctica a few hours later. The fourth summit was climbed.
Information:
Name: Vinson
Altitude: 4892 m
Location: Antarctica
Coordinates: 78° 31’ 32’’ S, 85° 37’ 02’’ W
Summit Reached: 28 December, 2005
