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Weather delays had us burning another day at Low Camp, but the day after gave us the opportunity we needed. Mike made the call to pack everything up and do a combined carry + move, hauling heavy loads up the fixed lines. This next part would be the steepest on this climb: 40-50 degree inclines and 60-70 lbs loads meant a real workout. We hiked out to the base of the fixed lines, then latched on with our mechanical ascenders. At this point we’re roped to each other, and to the fixed lines. Ascenders make for a third limb – they serve as a handhold and make sure we don’t fall off the mountain. Our packs are similarly roped in so they don’t go tumbling down the mountain when we take them off for breaks. Lost backpacks have ended climbs.

We slowly made our way up, calling out when we’d reached the end of a rope to re-anchor on the next one. It was a slog up the steep slope, but we were shielded from the wind. At least until we topped out at the ridge. Then we had to deal with 15 mph & -40 effective. Which isn’t horrible if you’re equipped for it and moving, but being in the lead group we ended up waiting there for an hour for the other groups. So we resorted to shadowboxing and jumping jacks to stay warm. This despite five layers, mostly down, with our giant down parkas. Here we were, on a mountain in Antarctica, shadow boxing in multi-colored, mismatching parkas that make us look like roly poly’s. Some would call us insane… and they’d probably be right.

The view though…well it was something else:

I had the bad sense to ask Mike if it was flat to camp from here. He laughed, “It’s all uphill, just not as steep”. Twenty minutes he said. Twenty minutes to camp. That turned into another two hours. The scale and distances of Antarctica completely deceive the senses – a peak that looks like an hour’s hike may in fact be a day away. I hear astronauts have similar issues on the moon.

The most brutal part was that we were in a shallow trench, the camp up and to the right, hidden by a hill. So you couldn’t see it until you were a few hundred feet away. Nothing worse than climbing without your goal in sight…it felt like forever. Oh that -40 deg 15 mph wind? Still there.

But the day wasn’t over when we got to camp at the end of our 10 hour climb no – that’d be too easy. We had to set up five tents, in the wind, with our thick gloves on. Thick gloves and dexterity don’t really go hand in hand, and you really don’t want to take them off unless you’re a fan of frostbite.

So we were dead tired, cold and hungry, but we managed to get the tents up, working as a team – five people just to get one tent up. It was probably around 2 AM, not that it mattered. The sun never sets.

We got into our bags and hit the sack right away. There was talk of dinner, but the guides couldn’t get their stoves going in their tent vestibule due to the billowing wind. No cook tent up this high – we might have mutinied if they’d told us to dig 6 feet of ice after that climb!

The weather wasn’t great the next day so we used it to rest. That pretty much meant staying in our tents, because outside sucked. Unfortunately we also got some bad news – Vinson Base Camp radio’d in: “The Storm of the Century: headed your way”. 100 mph winds expected at our position, 60 mph at Low Camp. We had 3 days before it hit. 3 days to summit and make it back.

Shit just got real.

Continue “To The Top!”