Wally Berg

Peter Hillary's South Pole Attempt
January 14, 1999 — Punta Arenas, Chile


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Wally Berg calling on the 14th. Looks like it's going to be a pretty big day here in terms of our assessing developments down on the ice and moving forward with our plans to climb here. I'll keep you posted as things transpire. We've been standing by the radio 6 a.m., 8 a.m., 10 a.m. schedule contact today. I am not confident at all there's going to be a C-130 fuel flight, which of course as you remember will have to go down on the ice prior to us being transported. I don't think that fuel flight is going to leave today, but we haven't given it up. Basically the weather has improved down at Patriot Hills, but there's still not permissible cloud ceiling that's going to allow us to go. And the clouds in the area, the layers of clouds, are discouraging in the next few hours.

We've been watching these lows out in the Wendell Sea for a couple of days with a great deal of interest. Two big lows out there, one of which we began to realize was going to track southwest towards the Ellsworth Mountains and Patriot Hills. It did, in fact, do that and is responsible for this weather that's keeping the C-130 on the ground at this moment. But as it moved into the continent it is filling — basically no longer a system, it's just become scattered clouds in the area. When that's gone, we're very encouraged now out a few days for our flight, after the fuel flight, because the area low tracked out to the east, back out to sea, and will probably not influence weather there in Patriot over the next period of time.

But we still have decisions to make today about what the team is going to be doing. I'll keep you apprised of that.

Just in terms of other teams, other things that are going on, on the continent, I'll try to keep you apprised of that information as we get it. We are all very interested about developments of projects that we know about down here.

In particular Peter Hillary is someone I asked about when I first showed up, knowing about his trip this year. Peter Hillary's Iridium Ice Track team as of two days ago, we have a report they're still about 300 km from the South Pole. They actually intended to reach the South Pole by Christmas. They dealt with some delays: not favorable winds. They dealt with various problems including frostbite, food poisoning, poor weather, etc. So they have, in fact, abandoned their plan to return from the South Pole back to Ross Island, and are just now carrying on and trying to reach the South Pole. They are telling us that they think they can get there January 22nd. So it will be interesting to follow their progress, wish them the best, and hope that they can get to the South Pole.

As now, of course, everyone is watching the impending end of the light season. It's still weeks away, but certainly as February comes around we're all thinking about things closing down and projects like this needing to get their success completed or find other ways to get out of there. But I'm sure Peter and his Iridium Ice Track team are going to at least make it to the Pole.

So I'll continue to post what I can find out, Mountain Zone, about our own team's chances here to get down onto the ice and get our ascent of Vinson accomplished. I'll have an update about individual members and their plans as they develop during our day-to-day. I'm sure I'll have a lot of news for you before the day's over.

—Wally Berg, Expedition Leader

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