Berg

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Mountain Zone, it's Wally Berg calling you from the Embree Glacier on Monday, January 17th. I haven't checked in for a couple of days. I'll tell you what's going on. We're now in our seventh day out here on the Embree. Bob Elias and myself, with this Omega Foundation Expedition, everything we wanted it to be, thrilled about the opportunity to spend this much time here, investigate, explore around. We've been going on long ski tours and looking at various features. I shot rolls and rolls of film trying to get all of this down. Of course, the weather is always a factor and it's been quite unsettled. It's kept us...[transmission fails].

[Transmission resumes] Okay, Mountain Zone, I got cut off there, but the rest of what's going on has been communication with Patriot Hills about the opportunity that may come up — will come up eventually, but may come up sooner rather than later — to fly Bob and I back to Patriot Hills. Haven't had that chance so far in this unsettled weather. There is a low off the coast. We basically watch it on the satellite images. Meteorologist Lucy, at Patriot Hills, does that, reports to us; we report what we've seen here. We hear from Vinson Base where Dave Hahn's hanging out with some Vinson climbers and we're all trying to make the judgement when this Twin Otter can get back out here and pulls up back into Patriot. Bob and I have some equipment we'd like to deploy there, as well, and, of course, once you're in this big serious place down here, you revel in the opportunity to explore and climb here, but you're also thinking about how am I going to get out of here.

We feel little, and privileged, and happy to be here, but let me emphasize little. Eventually, we need to be pulled back to Patriot Hills and get our trip home started. I don't think that's going to happen today, but I'll keep you posted. I talked to Steve [Unintelligible], station manager at Patriot, today, and given this low off the coast we have — we're closed down, I might say. Dave Hahn reporting from Vinson Base: no visibility. We have some visibility here and that will allow us to go move around some today, but it is certainly not flyable.

A couple of things to report from the Theil mountain expedition, we're always asking about those guys when we get to talk to Patriot Hills. These guys did, I understand, find 21 meteorites out there, which was the main object of their expedition — was to find meteorites — very successful. I'm sure they're thrilled about it and we'll be reporting that in great detail. South Pole, there's a DC-3 down there, Max [Unintelligible], my old Explorer Club buddy, and others are down there waiting for flyable weather to return to Patriot Hills.

We're spread all over this big continent, the group of us that flew down on the C-130 some eight or nine days ago. And we're all little specks in a big, wonderful place. We keep up with one another via radio and iridium phone messages, and when we're back together in that warm tent at Patriot Hills, sharing stories and accounts of adventures, it will be all the better. For now, I'll just close and keep you posted about anything we may get done over the next few hours, and the next big focus, which is when some flying can take place and pull us back to Patriot Hills.

— Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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