{"id":4185,"date":"2010-12-09T18:10:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T01:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alan3460"},"modified":"2016-05-27T12:55:29","modified_gmt":"2016-05-27T18:55:29","slug":"summit-success-and-more-patience-required","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/09\/summit-success-and-more-patience-required\/","title":{"rendered":"Summit Success and More Patience Required"},"content":{"rendered":"

It has been a world wind the last few days. After spending 8 nights at Low Camp, we successfully summited Mt. Vinson 16, <\/a> 160’\/4892m at 5:40 PM on December 9, check<\/a> 2010.<\/p>\n

Today, we await the Ilyusion to fly from Punta Arenas to Union Glacier to ferry us off the ice – and on our way back home.<\/p>\n

And we don’t know when the big Russian Jet will arrive. Yes, we just don’t know when.<\/p>\n

And so goes an Antarctic expedition – almost always 100% weather dependent.<\/p>\n

I will write a complete trip report on our climb but a few snippets from summit day.<\/p>\n

The key to a successful expedition is to maximize success while minimizing risks. Thus we waited out a week of dangerously high summit winds and below zero temps before making our attempt.<\/p>\n

\"Team<\/a>
Team Working the Ridge to Vinson's Summit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We took a careful 8 hours to summit by way of a variation of the normal route. Phil Ershler, IMG co-owner and leader of our climb, did a great job of leading this twist on the normal route. It was Phil’s 15th+ summit of Vinson.<\/p>\n

Our climb started with a few hours of straightforward glacier travel, followed by a climb of the somewhat steep headwall to the rocky West Ridge on to the summit. We utilized a technique called a running belay given the steepness of the headwall.<\/p>\n

The normal route follows a snow slope up to the east ridge and then to the summit. This our decent route.<\/p>\n

The true summit is quite tiny, room for two people with quite a drop-off. But the large summit plateau allowed our entire team of ten to spread out for pictures, videos and push-ups.<\/p>\n

The view was spectacular. I will post my pictures and a panoramic video when I get home but let me say it was my summit view ever.<\/p>\n

This was an emotional moment for me thinking of our goal, my supporters, and my family. I want to dedicate this 1st of the 7 summits to those with early onset Alzheimer’s.<\/p>\n

The return to High Camp was fast completing a long 12 hour climb followed a nice sleep.<\/p>\n

With a deteriorating weather forecast, we made a quick trip down from High Camp the next day to Vinson Base Camp – carrying all our tents and climbing gear – to catch the Twin Otter back to Union Glacier. From there the flight back to Punta – eventually.<\/p>\n

So, the schedule? We understand that the current poor weather pattern will continue for the next 48 hours meaning the earliest we could leave would be Monday, December 13.<\/p>\n

We are passing the time in somewhat heated ‘storm port’ shelter during the day and our tents at night – all relative since the sun never sets.<\/p>\n

As I reflect on the past few weeks, I am grateful to work your support. Each step on summit day was accompanied by a mantra of “one penny, two penny, three pennies, more” All for research.<\/p>\n

Climb On!<\/p>\n

Alan<\/p>\n

Memories are Everything<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has been a world wind the last few days. After spending 8 nights at Low Camp, we successfully summited Mt. Vinson 16,160’\/4892m at 5:40 PM on December 9, 2010.<\/p>\n

Today, we await the Ilyusion to fly from Punta Arenas to Union Glacier to ferry us off t…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[11,115],"tags":[438,441],"class_list":["post-4185","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-7-summit","category-vinson-2010","tag-7-summits","tag-vinson-2010"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/12\/IMG_0397.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4185"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4185\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4185"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4185"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alanarnette.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4185"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}