Dispatches
The climbers used a satellite telephone to keep us posted on their progress. Click below to view an index of all the archived dispatches:
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Wally Berg

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You're always looking for trends as you look at the forecast, and you talk on your short-wave down to Patriot Hills to see what's happening. You know what all the situation is now about the snow coverage on the runway.

The winds that were existing yesterday did do us a lot of good. Now the report is that there's 40% coverage with a 3-4 inch depth on the runway. I mentioned yesterday that they have a tractor down there and a snow-blower, and they were doing some work to kick this stuff up and let the wind transport it.

Unfortunately, though, in terms of the trend and the current situation, things are not continuing to work in our favor. At the time for the 9 o'clock schedule for the radio talk with Patriot Hills we had six knot winds gusting to 11 knots. This is not moving any snow.

So we're going to be in Punta Arenas awhile. Certainly we had to put a time schedule on it where we know it's going to be a minimum of 48 hours now, because there will be a fuel flight going down onto the ice prior to ours. This is the Herc, the C-130, that will be transporting the fuel which will allow us to do the flying out to the Ellsworth Range.

So we're on hold in Punta Arenas. Currently right now the big thing we're looking forward to, other than just enjoying being here, being tourists in this town, is Joe LeRoy tells us that he makes really great Italian spaghetti — real Italian spaghetti — and he has been talking to the chefs here at our hotel, the Los Navidantes in Punta, and has arranged for use of the kitchen tomorrow to make a big spaghetti dinner for us. Joe tells us this takes all day, so he knows what he's going to be doing tomorrow, and I'm really happy that he has undertaken this project.

In the meantime, Pete Athans and I have continued to work squaring away a little big of equipment. We inspected these new North Face tents that we brought down yesterday and they look great. We're piddling away with details and just getting ourselves ready for our transport down onto the ice.

We'll be entering a time that can be difficult because of the weight. But those who followed our adventure down here last year will remember that five full days of delay, basically, did not affect us having an excellent climb when we got down there, and actually returning off the ice and back to the United States on-schedule. You have to allow some margin when you're undertaking transport down into the interior of Antarctica via air. It's a huge deal. Things have to go right for you.

So we're in a big time holding pattern now, but hopefully the wind will begin to blow and we can get that runway cleared and go on down and, as I was saying earlier, dip our toes into a big, vast world of adventure and effort to climb Vinson.

Hope everyone is doing well. Take care.

—Wally Berg, Expedition Leader

DISPATCHES