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We woke to the cold and 10 mph winds. It wasn’t looking great, but Mike crawled into our tents to give us the news – the summit bid was a Go. So we reluctantly put on our layers and ventured out, getting to our ropes, dealing with the wind & our constantly-fogging goggles. Mark decided to stay behind, and with the weather looking like it did, that decision seemed like it’d be the wise one.

We were marching soon enough, though this time with much lighter packs. After about 45 minutes of dealing with freezing goggles and frozen fingertips, we broke through the cloud layer to blue skies. No wind, warmer temps. A Bluebird if there ever was one. The next part was a flat traverse to the base of the peak. As usual, what looked to be a 30 minute walk ended up being a 3 hour trip in this deceptively massive continent.

Then it got steeper as we circled around the back of the peak. And then it got even steeper as we cut switchbacks to navigate the final few hundred feet. Then we were at the ridgeline and thought we’d made it.

We’d thought wrong – there was another 40 minutes of knife-edge ridgeline traverse to the true summit. Because of course there was. We hooked into the anchors, awkwardly bouldering and scrambling with our crampons, packs, and many layers of down – hooked into each other as well. If that all sounds clumsy to you, well you’d be right – it was.

But after what was a ten hour ascent, we found ourselves standing at the summit, looking over a sea of clouds, the mountain peaks peeking through, like islands in an ocean. But this was no mere summit. It was the top of Antarctica, the most remote, desolate, and possibly the most beautiful continent in the entire world. It was such a privilege to stand in this place – a place about 500 humans have set foot. Merely visiting Antarctica is a special, almost spiritual experience, but standing on the peak of its tallest mountain is beyond my literary ability to convey.

Make no mistake, despite the incredible weather, this was still Antarctica. Even on a good day in summer, it’s still cold as hell.

After admiring the views for 20 minutes, we began our descent. The thing about mountain climbing is – the summit is only half the trip, and descents are always brutal. You’re exhausted, you’ve accomplished your goal, you just want to be back in your tent, but gravity makes it hard. Most mountaineering incidents occur on the downhill. For me, it dragged on, and on, and on. So much of mountaineering is a mental game, and descents always challenge your fortitude.

Antarctica wouldn’t let it end without some drama though – as we descended the last 45 minutes to camp, we saw a dark cloud blanketing the area. A storm, and one with 45 mph winds to boot. Whiteout conditions, minimal visibility, extreme cold; staying out in that kind of weather was a recipe for frostbite and hypothermia. As we rolled into camp, the only thing on our thoughts was to get into our tents ASAP.

I remember ditching my crampons outside and looking around – maybe 10 ft visibility, the howling storm blotting out the sky, kicking up torrents of snow. It was the most apocalyptic scene I’ve witnessed.

I crawled in to my tent, balaclava frozen into a block of ice, three-inch long icicles jutting out, from my breath instantly freezing as it exited my mouth.

Continue to “The Ice Prison”