Berg

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Good morning, Mountain Zone. It's Wally Berg calling you from the Embree Glacier in Antarctica on January 13th. Sorry I didn't call yesterday. I nearly did last evening when we got back from the end of a very long and satisfying day of climbing, but I was just exhausted enough that I just didn't get it done. I'm sitting here in clear skies: great weather today. I'm recuperating from a wonderful mountaineering day yesterday and it's a good time to catch you up a bit.

That northwest ridge of Mt. Bentley was one of our primary objectives. It's about a 5,500/6,000-foot climb from where we are on the Embree Glacier and we undertook to do it yesterday. It was everything we thought it would be: long, aesthetic, relatively low-angle ice and rock. The style Bob and I elected to climb in was, we each took two tools in case we needed the security of that, but we did not take a rope. We just moved continuously and moved together and we had a fantastic day of it. It was everything we thought it would be including long. In about eight and a half hours, we had climbed the entire length of the northwest ridge of Bentley. I had expounded, at length I know, about the thrill of moving over terrain where no one's ever been before and I'll just leave it at that. All the way up yesterday we were really aware of that and it was really satisfying.

Bob and I climb in very much the same manner and we enjoy moving together over this type terrain. Eight and a half hours up at a good clip left us pretty tired, and then when we got up to the top rock face, just a few hundred feet below the summit. We elected to move left out of the low fifth-class rock we're on and get after the snow; so we'd know we'd have a good route to down climb, not knowing if we really wanted to reverse...[transmission fails].

Yeah, Mountain Zone. I'm not sure how good the satellite coverage is at this time with the Iridium system so I'll be brief. Bob and I are not claiming a second ascent of Mt. Bentley — Veikka having done the first ascent two years ago — because we did stop short of the summit, on the summit ridge, in high winds and a very thin snow ridge that we did not feel like traversing at that time of day, as tired as we were. We got back down here in about 12 and a half hours, total day. We did climb the complete northwest buttress as we intended. Enjoyed every minute of it, a really rewarding climb.

Now, today, I have just deployed this MIT weather beacon number 18889 and we're going to be under way with getting some of this equipment operating. I've been in touch with Patriot Hills doing our daily scheds. Weather seems to be good throughout all the areas of Antarctica where people have things going on now: Theil mountains, back at Patriot Hills, and certainly here on the Embree Glacier. We'll keep you posted day to day, as our project continues here. Everything is going really well, it's great to be out here and we'll keep you posted on further adventures as they come up.

— Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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