Wally Berg

Getting Hopeful
January 10, 1999 — Punta Arenas, Chile


CLICK TO HEAR THE CALL:

Good morning, Mountain Zone. It's Wally Berg calling you Sunday, the 10th, from Punta Arenas. Good news, basically, down on our scheduled 9 o'clock radio call with Patriot Halls base this morning. The runway, as the pilots sort of think about it, is basically... you can divide it into thirds. There is a threshold, the center, and what they call the roll-out. It turns out all of this work that's been going on down there with the people that have been stuck at Patriot Hills, has been on the roll-out, and the roll-out is now clear.

I think I can sense from the tone of this radio call that momentum, optimism, dedication to the manual labor of clearing this runway is building in a pretty big way. With regard to the center and threshold, those sections of the runway are still about two-thirds covered at a 4-inch depth... excuse me, about 50 to 60% covered at 4-inch depth. The winds are still too low. They picked up a little, 1350 knots doesn't really do that much transport.

But here's the critical thing, I think. The report is that the tractor is still running as it has been for some time with the snow-blower. And they're also working with Ski-Doos, draggers, shovels, and I get the idea virtually any implement available. And I know from here and stories in the past talking to ANI staff from Patriot Hills that basically when this gears-up in high gears and the runway's getting cleared and people realize it's time to make this happen, people work on eight, perhaps even 12 hour shifts, rest and sleep. Cook staff keeps the kitchen running. So, you know, it's a 24-hour operation.

Steve Kenfield, the station manager at Patriot Hills, basically said it cautiously on the radio... but he did say that he had not ruled out a flight tonight. That would be the fuel flight, the C-130 would go down first with the fuel that's required for us to operate the Twin Otters into the Ellsworth Range, and for some of the passengers who fly down with us to be transported onto the South Pole, etc.

This is certainly an upbeat Sunday morning report from Patriot Hills. So enjoy your weekend; we're going to enjoy the quiet, beautiful streets of Punta Arenas on this Sunday and know that four of our contingent who headed up to Patagonia, the Torres del Paine, will probably show up today. The four of us who have been staying on a little shorter leash will look forward, as they drive in here tonight, to giving them a thumbs-up on some good news for us continuing our adventure south very soon.

So best wishes for a good weekend, and I'll keep you updated as we get more information.

—Wally Berg, Expedition Leader

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