Berg

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Good morning, Mountain Zone. It's Wally Berg calling you again finally from Punta Arenas once again, November 24. We decided this year that I would not do the day-by-day, blow-by-blow dispatches about what it's like to wait in Punta. That was all documented last January during my wait. But it's time to update you and tell you been what's going on.

I am still in Punta Arenas this morning. In fact it is my 17th day of waiting for transport down to the ice this month, and I hate to say, sorry to say, it's my 36th day in the calendar year of 1999, waiting in Punta Arenas to get down to the ice. It is huge to get transported down there. I lay awake at night in anticipation of what it's going to be like. I can't wait to return, but air transport onto that continent is a big deal. We've had our setbacks. We're underway in some regards though.

Yesterday morning Bob Elias did board the C130, it was a touch and go few hours as they were en route because the winds were up and down at Patriot Hills, but in fact at about 15:56 Zulu time yesterday, Greenwich Mean Time, the C130 was put down on the ice. Bob and I decided that he would go and do his Vinson climb, with Dave Hahn and with our friends from South Africa, Roy and Ruth, and get that climb out of the way. And let some of the aircraft problems get ironed out down there.

Specifically we heard that Art Mortvedt, the Cessna pilot, was sitting at the South Pole with some mechanical problems. Ol' Art, this colorful character from the north, from Alaska, who comes south once a year and is a Cessna pilot for A and I, is stuck down at the South Pole as we speak and may have some stories to tell about that. But his was the plane that was going to get Bob and I out to the Embree Glacier. With that plane tied up at the South Pole, Bob and I decided to come back in January for the Embree Glacier Project. Bob, much to my envy, is going to get to go climbing. I've been on Vinson; Bob hasn't so he's going to get that experience with a great set of companions over the next few days. We'll wish him luck.

Meantime I'm going back north to get ready to come back here in January. We'll keep you posted. I'll give you a science update on the MIT weather probes and some other matters in a separate dispatch. But we're just at this point wishing those guys that did get down to the ice last night in Antarctica, the best of luck. And we'll be getting word back from them as the days go on and they continue with their climbs and their adventures down there.

— Wally Berg, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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