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The true summit of Vinson!
Dec 8, 2004 11: 31 EST
November 28, the Antarctica Vinson season had not yet started, when Damien Gildea and his mates spent the night on a lonely Vinson summit, shooting over a voice dispatch to ExWeb straight from the top. Here's Damien's latest:
A summit night sans sleeping bags
On Nov 28th we reached the summit of Vinson - the first of the season - which you may have heard on our live voice dispatch at www.thepoles.com. We slept on the summit, another first, for 6hrs while the GPS was running. Our data logger recorded -46C for that night, around midnight, and we didn't even have sleeping bags, just lying in our down suits on one foam mat each in the tent. Luckily it was a sunny and calm night, though brutally cold if you stepped outside. We left the summit in the early hours of the morning and quickly got back to C3 to rest all day the 29th.
2d summit and vintage ski poles
Afternoon of the 30th we set off again up the normal route but diverted to a long south-north ridge east of Vinson itself. After setting up a windy high camp on a narrow part of the ridge, we quickly reached the summit of 'Peak Kershaw' an unofficially named sub-peak of the Vinson Massif that was one of our targets.
It was a spectacular small summit, just a bit lower than the main Vinson summit and around 1km to the east, with amazing views around the range. We even found the green Grivel ski pole that Brits Sundheep Dhillon and Andre Hedger left on the summit after their Dec 1992 ascent. We slept a good 7hrs back at our ridge camp (only -43C this time, but with sleeping bags) then Camilo and Rodrigo retrieved the GPS while I packed up the tent. After that it was too windy to stay up high so we bailed back down to C3.
Human zoo
Remainder of the 30th we rested then the Dec 1st we ran down to C2 to get our solar recharging gear, this laptop and some more food and fuel. On the way we ran in to Guy Cotter, Phil Ershler and some of the others on the mountain. Dec 2nd we spent recharging at C3 in good weather but Dec 3rd - 6th were bad weather - cloud, blowing snow and winds - with the other groups stuck down around C1.
Vern Tejas' AAI group made it up to C3 late on Dec 6th and now everyone else arrived here en masse Dec 7th, a relatively nice day but now a total human zoo. From 3 people yesterday to over 30 right now.
Hopefully tomorrow will be nice and we can head off up again, through the small col east of Vinson and out on to the high summit plateau to the south of the main Vinson summit to continue our GPS work. All the little sub-peaks for us to measure there are unclimbed.
Summit of Vinson in winter coldest place in the world?
Our secondary scientific project, taking atmospheric measurements to compare with other high Antarctic areas is progressing well. By extrapolating temp and pressure data it is looking good that the summit of Vinson in winter could in fact be the coldest place in the world (and maybe a good place for a telescope) beating the -89.6C recorded at Vostok base years ago. We'll see!
Did I forget something ? Oh yes, we measured Vinson and ran it through AUSPOS. The result ? 4891.684m! That's around 5m lower than the existing official height. We'll be gone for another few days at least."
This is Damien’s sixth expedition to Antarctica. He led the successful Omega Foundation projects on Mt. Shinn (2002) and Livingston Island (2003) and previously summited Vinson Massif on an Omega expedition in 2001. He is the author of The Antarctic Mountaineering Chronology (1998), the only reference book on mountaineering in Antarctica and is currently working on a second book due out in 2005.
In 1998 Rodrigo Fica and some friends made the first complete north to south crossing of the Southern Patagonian Icecap, a grueling journey recounted in his upcoming book Bajo la Marca de la Ira.
Since then he has been on successful Omega Foundation Antarctic expeditions to Mt. Shinn (2002) and Livingston Island (2003). A computer engineer by training, he now makes his living in the mountains, in addition to writing and photography and often climbs with his wife Patricia Sotos, the first Chilean woman to climb Mt. Everest.
Camilo Rada studies astronomy at Universidad Catolica in Santiago. On recent expeditions with friends he has made the coveted first winter ascent of San Lorenzo, the second-highest peak in Patagonia and before that, the second winter ascent of San Valentin, the highest mountain in Patagonia. Camilo has made other expeditions in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, including the first ascent of Volcan Melimoyu. This will be his first trip to Antarctica.
The Omega Foundation is a Non-Profit Organization dedicated to supporting scientific, environmental, educational and literary endeavor in the Antarctic region.
Image of Damien; courtesy Damien Gildea.
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