Berg

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Mountain Zone, Wally Berg calling you from the Embree Glacier, morning of Thursday, January 20th. Mount Bentley is out on the north end of the Ellsworth Range and the ridge we climbed on Bentley, as you know last week, which as you know we're camped right at the base of that ridge, sits some 30-nautical miles north of Vinson Base, and, of course, quite a lot further from Patriot Hills. Our communication with those guys is becoming pretty important because of wanting to fly out of here. I'll talk primarily with Dave Hahn, at Vinson Base. He's giving me all the info I need, and this morning he reported they were quite flyable at Vinson. But wouldn't you know it, snow squalls at Patriot Hills.

If things improve, at Patriot Hills, these guys are going to be off deck and fly out to Vinson Base and pick up the Vinson climbers, who now are some six days past their successful summit of Mount Vinson. Now this group of Vinson climbers includes "The Sharks," this group of guys from California called "The Sharks" — call themselves "The Sharks" — Bob (?), Hank (?) and Les DeWitt, these guys became good friends of mine and Elias' last January, that would be January of '99 when we were all stuck here doing a long wait. Scott Lefky, from Arizona, was in that wait as well. These guys finally got their shot on Vinson and now being seasoned veterans of doing the 'Punta Hang,' they're doing the hang down on the ice, waiting to go home, but no doubt with a great sense of accomplishment after their Vinson climb.

Bob and I are really just as happy as clowns out here on the glacier. We wanted to be here; this is where we are. It was more fun two days ago when we had the great skiing and the good weather. But we've got a good scene here. We know our science is working: things are being uploaded, from our weather probes. We can communicate with the Iridium phone, that's how I talk to Dave Hahn; he talks to Patriot Hills on the VHF radio, and then we talk on the iridium phone. We're in touch, but we're enjoying the solitude...[Unintelligible]...and patience is a game that...or patience is something that the game of polar travel, living in Antarctica, climbing, doing research, skiing down here — whatever you're doing — patience is the defining characteristic you need.

So, we're down here doing the hang and happy, healthy, missing everyone, but we're fine and we know we're where we wanted to be — so, no complaints on this end. We'll keep you posted about the flying schedule — how things go. We do know that the DC-3 and the Twin Otter has made round trips out of Patriot Hills to the South Pole, in the last hours. And the pilots are reporting on the radio that — this is relayed through Dave, to me — that if the weather is clear to the south and all of this stuff is moving out to the north — as it typically does — sooner or later it is going to move even out of the north end of the Ellsworth Range, and we'll be on our way. I'll give you that report when it happens. If not, I'll give you some more reports about doing the hang.

— Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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