Berg

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Good morning, Mountain Zone. This is Wally Berg calling you Sunday, January 9th at about 9am local time, from Punta Arenas, Chile.

I told you earlier in the season that I didn't want to get started doing dispatches about the "Punta Hang." I covered that very thoroughly last season. And just to set the record straight, I believe this is the 41st or the 42nd day of waiting for transport to Antarctica that I've put in since I last set foot on the ice back in January 1998 with an Alpine Ascents climb of Mt. Vinson.

I've watched Willi Prittie's adventures on the internet. I've been very interested in the Coombs, Mark Newcomb, Jackson Hole crowd and their ski and snowboard adventures. And as you might imagine, I've been very frustrated.

This time — might as well catch up, I didn't even want to get started, but — on January 5th, our scheduled departure date, in fact Bob Elias and myself with this Omega Embree Glacier Expedition, were mobilized. We were off deck at Punta Arenas in the Hercules C-130. And we flew in the C-130 with the rest of our companions for this trip down to Antarctica. We flew the 1,888 statute miles down to Punta Arenas [Patriot Hills] in a little over six hours. As we were descending to land on the blue-ice runway on January 5th, the clouds closed in quite suddenly, we had to pull back up and fly all the way back to Punta Arenas: thirteen hours in a noisy C-130 and the frustration of ending back in Punta Arenas, Chile, in the middle of the night.

This morning we mobilized again. As you might imagine, we've been watching the weather, talking to Patriot Hills via shortwave radio or iridium phone virtually hourly since that time. The pilots, Barry and Clyve, or the captain of the C-130 crew, they've been standing by with their crew, ready to get off deck again. Finally ready, we're ready to make it happen this morning and we're very excited about this. So we're under way. You'll be hearing more from me down on the ice.

I ought to mention it, in this crew with us today there's a really interesting group. Some folks that I flew down with, Paul Shaperia and other people from the Planetary Studies Expedition. They're going to be going to the Theil Mountains at 85º south to look for meteorites and conduct some other science experiments, so we're very interested in these guys, what our projects have in common and friendships we've developed with them. Richard Hoover from NASA is along with these guys and one fellow that was particularly not very phased by the turn-around we did the other day is this guy Jim Lovell — this is Jim Lovell from Apollo VIII.

He and Owen Garriet are two astronauts that are accompanying us to Antarctica this time. They're with Shaperia's Planetary Studies Expedition. It's been a real pleasure and honor to get to know these guys. And I noted, when we did this turn-around, trying to get to Antarctica January 5th that Jim Lovell, most of you will know about the turn-around that he had to do at the moon in 1970 and can appreciate a fellow like that, an adventurer like that, was not particularly shaken or discouraged by our setback of a couple of days in our departure to get down onto the ice, rather than just circle above.

So we'll be back in Antarctica hopefully in about seven or eight hours. The iridium phone will allow me to contact you soon after that and I certainly plan to do so.

— Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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