Finally out at Vinson. I have been out here for a little over a week. It
feels good to be back here. When we arrived we immediately began digging.
The weather haven had been covered by snow, so we spent most of our first
day digging it out. Once inside the dormant structure we found that the
floor had buckled and the plywood floor look as though it had been through
an earth quake. We had eight guides all working hard to get Vinson Base
Camp up and running, last year we had four. It is funny that the work has
grown exponentially with the staff. The next day four of the guides, me
included were meant to go up to low camp, but weather prevented us from
moving. We sat the next few days in a whiteout storm waiting to go. In the
mean time we got organized, inventoried equipment, established comms, and
Andy our solar panels up and running. The following day the weather
cleared and four guides were sent up the mountain. Myself, Tim (US), Namgya
Sherpa (Nepal), Darren (Scotland), and Pachi (Chile) were sent up to low
camp with the tasks of digging up the old cache of equipment, inventorying
kit, establishing the fixed lines that I worked on last season and to
install the repeater (enabling us to have comms over the entire mountain).
The weather was perfect and considering the heavy loads we all moved
quickly, everyone felt strong. Namgya had a bit of trouble, but it was due
in part to the fact he had never carried with a sled and never skied before.
His strength would come into play in the days following. It was strange
skiing back up to low camp, things were relatively unchanged. The glacier
doesn't move much here. In Alaska it is common for crevasses to open and
glaciers to move in a matter of days and in the course of a year the route
can entirely change. Vinson is an ice desert, and nothing had changed.
Cracks were in the same place, the GPS points were the exact same and the
route un glacier was relatively unchanged. We arrived at low camp around
8pm, the sun was shining bright, we put up tents, made food and went to bed.
The sun never sets here, but it does go behind the mountains, and when it
does the temperature turns from tolerable to intolerable in a matter of
minutes. For this reason it is not wise to get out of your sleeping bag at
low camp until at least 11.30am. Even at 11.30 am you awake in an ice cave.
The inner wall of the tent is covered in ice crystals. Much of the time I
sleep with my head inside my sleeping bag, with only a small zippered hole
open for ventilation near my mouth, it is always frozen from the
condensation. We do our scheduled communication with VBC at noon and plan
our day. On this day Tim, Namgya, and Darren are planning on going up the
fixed line route to the repeater, install the repeater, and then move up and
check the high camp cache. Myself and Pachi were charged with the task of
reinstalling the fixed lines, all 1,000 meters of rope. Mind you this task
took two weeks last season, luckily the ropes were packaged at their anchor
points so it would only be a matter of flaking out the rope and attaching
them to their bottom anchors, or so we thought. Since Pachi and I carried
light I decided to carry a rescue sled and Gamow bag (basically an plastic
hyperbaric chamber for victims with altitude sickness) behind me that would
eventually move up to just below the summit pyramid in the event of a rescue
situation the future. I didn't think that carrying this sled would be much
of a challenge, I was dead wrong. Moving up a 45 degree slope pulling a
60lb pulk for 3,000 feet sucks, almost as bad as dragging 200 meters of rope
up. The only difference is the bottom of the sled is meant to glide over
the snow, this means it wants to slide down hill, constantly pulling on me
and pushing the limitations of my balance. It was a tough haul. Once we
got to the top of the fixed lines Tim's team split off to install the
repeater while Pachi and began breaking out the 200 m sections of rope to
rappelled down. We anchored the sled down with the intent to pick it up and
move it further up hill at a later date. The first rappelled went smoothly,
and both the anchor and the rope were in good shape. The second anchor and
rope were in good shape, we installed a few more intermediate pieces of
protection. The next anchor needed to be moved. Last season this anchor
set so close to a rock band that when the wind would blow the rope around it
would rub on the rock creating weak spots and failure points, so it was
moved away from the rocks. When we opened the next bag of rope we found
that it had been shredded on the rocks the season prior. The entire 200 m
length needed to be replaced, unfortunately the rope we needed sat at the
top of the fixed lines 2 hours up from where we were now, half way down the
lines. Tim had gotten the repeater up and running and we were able to talk
back and forth. I asked if Namgya could bring a 200 m spool down from the
top of the fixed lines. What impressed me about Namgya wasn't that he
carried the rope down to me, because I had carried that load many times,
what amazed me was the speed in which he did it. It seems that Namgya gets
stronger the higher he gets, I guess summiting Everest 6 times will do that
to a person's physiology. Tim had also finished his tasks and was down with
Namgya to help us finish the install. Tim hunkered down in the snow, we
thread the spool of rope through his ice axe, and with one end clipped to
the bag full of the old destroyed rope, I kicked it down the hill. As is
descended rapidly the rope paid out off the spool and Tim and his axe
allowed the rope to pay out quickly. The rest of the install was
uneventful, although it did take us quite o bit of time, we ended up getting
off route and back to camp close the 3 am. Like I mentioned earlier the sun
is still shinning, but again the sun drifts behind the mountain around 3 am,
so we had little time to get into our tents before the brutal temps fell. I
did not eat, I just slept. The next morning, or rather the next afternoon
we all arose very tired. I was asked to inventory the low camp cache and
the team was asked to build snow walls (to protect the tents from high
winds) around the tents and toilet. We all got busy. I looked to the north
and could see violent winds coming. Tim, Pachi, and I needed to get back to
VBC and Darren and Namgya were asked to stay up high and help with the first
rounds of guided groups coming up the hill. Tim and I saw the winds coming
and spurred a flurry activity and camp building. Around 2 pm, I looked up
and saw the mountain to the north of Mount Shinn being enveloped by this
dark grey cloud that looked like a giant hand reaching out to collect its
prized poker chips. I had a strange feeling, like I had had the year before
when a violent storm ripped through low camp causing 2 evacuations and
destroying camp. I won't lie, I wanted to get the F out of there, so around
5 pm we skied off as the winds began to blow heavy. We said by to the two
we left behind as they scrambled into tents. As we skied down glacier the
weather improved and we passed many groups going up to low camp, glad we
were not walking into that maelstrom. Now back at base camp we 3 rest and
prepare to go up again tomorrow. Around Thanksgiving Pachi and I will make
an ascent of the ice stream, a rarely climbed direct line to the summit with
the intent to guide a client up the same route the beginning of December.
So wish me luck, to my knowledge it has never been guided. Well, that is
all I have for now, thanks for reading all of this and I hope you have a
great Thanksgiving, eat some turkey for me, wait check that, only if it is a
Tofurkey! Miss you guys.
Chris
Vinson Base Camp
Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions
vinson.base@antarctic-logistics.com
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