Jonas and Maria on the Summit!

After a lot of hard work, Jonas, Maria and Todd made it to the summit of Mt. Vinson!

The Summit Ridge

Jonas climbing across the beautiful and fun summit ridge of Mount Vinson.

Heading off to the summit!

Well, we finally got our window and headed out into thin clouds for the summit.

Storm Day at High Camp

We spent the day on our tent, getting buffetted by winds gusting to 40 knots. Though it was chilly, outside, the thin clouds allowed our tent to warm up inside enough to be fairly comfortable.

Moving to High Camp

When we moved to High Camp, it was a totally different experience! We had the perfect day. It was actually hot! (Well, relatively hot...)

Stormy weather below High Camp

We climbed up the headwall between Mt. Shinn and Mt. Vinson in good weather, but the wind picked up severely when we topped out. We struggled through this to put our cache in at High Camp.

A view of our Route

Here is a view of the route we took on Mount Vinson. Base Camp is out of sight to the lower left. We followed the glacier in the foreground toward the Massif and then followed the base of the rocky wall back to the right to the spot where we put in Camp 1 (at the base of the tall icefall splitting the rocky wall). We then climbed up between the snowy peak in the background (Mt. Shinn) and the rocky wall's lefthand ridge to our High Camp.

Vinson Base Camp

Vinson Base Camp, with the Massif in the background.

The coolest plane on the Ice!

/This is the Ilushyn jet that flew us to Antarctica and landed on the Blue Ice runway!

The Plane is Coming!!

The word from Antarctica is that the winds have calmed and the plane is on the way. It will be this evening before they are all back in Punta Arenas, Chile. This will probably be the last update on this trip unless anything changes. Thanks for checking it out, Congratulations to the climbers, it sounds like they had a great trip, and adventure in Antarctica. Check out our website www.mountaintrip.com for more adventures.

Thanks from Bill and Todd at Mountain Trip

The Waiting Game

The Antarctica team is waiting for the weather to improve at Patriot Hills, eating Pizza (Todd is a pretty good mountain cook) and generally relaxing. They'll call as soon as the word comes that the plane is on the way. I'm sure they are all excited to get back and take a shower.

Back to Patriot Hills

The weather improved the planes could fly into and then out from Base Camp and the Vinson team is now back in Patriot Hills. This is the main airbase for this part of the continent and the place where they will wait for the next flight back to Chile. They are going to get on the same big Russian cargo plane that delivered them to the Ice a couple of weeks ago. It is an awesome sight to see that big bird come in for a landing on the blue ice runway. The plane is scheduled to fly tomorrow, but as always that is weather dependant.

Life is pretty good at Patriot Hills, they have a big heated tent where they can sit in chairs at tables and play cards for hours on end as they wait for the flights. We'll let you know as soon as we hear anything new. Stay tuned.

Still at Basecamp

They just called and they are still at Base Camp! The weather improved today, and it looks like they are going to have a pretty good shot at flying tommorow. They are still eating well; tonight's dinner was a spinach gnocci with a white sauce and tuna. Todd was a bit disappointed with the consistancy of the gnocchi, but it tasted pretty darned good. They are, however, down to two boxes of wine so if they don't fly soon they might really start to suffer. Let's hope they wake up to blue skies tommorow.

Hanging out at Vinson Base Camp

The clouds hung over Vinson Base Camp again today so the planes couldn't fly in to carry our climbers back to Patriot Hills where they will catch their flight back to Chile. So they're hanging out for another day in camp, waiting for the weather to change. Don't feel too bad for them, they are getting lots of time to read books, sleep in, and socialize with the 20 other climbers from around the world that are with them at Base Camp. They had grilled cheese sandwiches with soup for lunch, and Tamales with Chilean Wine for dinner. Sounds like they are living pretty well for being in Antarctica. We'll update when we hear anything new, but they are hoping to fly tommorow if the clouds clear just a bit.

Back To Basecamp

The whole team is safe and happy to be back down at basecamp (Maria said that coming down was the most painful part of the trip).

After packing up high camp, they descended the steep, crevasse-ridden headwall to Camp 1. The fourth member of the team, Matsumoto, was excited to see the summitters and was in great spirits after his "vacation" staying at the well-stocked Camp 1. His frostbitten fingers look great and there is no risk of infection. He made the right decision in remaining at Camp 1. He won't lose any tissue and they should be as good as new in a few weeks. The rest of the team admires his determination and dedication to the group as a whole. By choosing to remain at Camp 1, he enabled the team to go up to high camp in time to capitalize on the good window of weather they needed to reach the summit. His indomitable spirit defined "teammate" and when you get right down to it- that's one of the key reasons we enjoy climbing big mountains.

Now the team is waiting in the "luxurious comfort" of basecamp for the return flight to Patriot Hills. They hope to get to fly to the Patriot Hills Camp tommorow and will fly back to Chile as soon as tommorow night if the weather cooperates. We are psyched to have the whole crew back to basecamp healthy and happy.