Burleson

Hear the Satellite Call from Greenland

Base Camp [click to zoom] (photo: AAI)

The sun is overhead, looks like we get 24 hours of sunlight here. The glacier looks good. A little less snow than last year and a little bit harder surface, so it will be better for steeper climbing, and we'll probably move a little quicker, and that's good.

I just want to give you a quick update on Dierk [Mass] and Bene [Perren Benedikt]. Dierk is 55 years old, he's a cardiac surgeon from Switzerland and runs a clinic there. He's climbed 25 peaks over 4,000 meters in Switzerland. Almost all the highest peaks in South America including Huascaran, Aconcagua, peaks of Ecuador, Sahoma, Illimani, and he's climbed Vinson in Antarctica, and he was very high on Everest with us in 1996 just before the accident. He's also climbed McKinley and several other peaks. So, I'm here with some superstars. Bene is about the same except he's been a professional guide for about 12 years. He lives in Zermatt. So I've got some serious people to keep up with this year.

Iceland was great. It's so expensive there — I paid $60 for four rolls of film, but we've had a great time so far, and everybody is in great health. The mountains look fabulous. Again it takes a little while to get used to the 24 hours of sunlight. I didn't get much sleep last night, still getting over the jet lag, but I feel great. We are in heaven right now; it's gorgeous! I can't believe the food we're eating: fried chicken, fresh corn and a variety of things. We're just at the freezing level here — we're on a huge glacier that goes to the ocean, but it's so warm because we have the sun all the time that the temperature is just below freezing, so we're able keep our vegetables from freezing and our frozen meat frozen.

Tomorrow we are going to go off and ski and climb a 3,200 meter peak, not very high. It's only, I guess, about 12,000 feet, and we're at 7,000 feet now, so we'll do a 5,000 foot peak tomorrow (in elevation gain.) So, we'll see how that goes, just to get warmed up and to take a look around.

One of our possible goals was pointed out to us today is still to climb the highest unclimbed peak in Greenland which is about 3,600 meters, and there is a possibility we'll do that. We'll go up and take a look at it. Probably in the next couple of days we'll go up and try Gunnbjornsfjeld. Things are great, life is good.

Iceland again was magical. I'm so used to going to northern places and there are usually small villages and Eskimos and things like that, and when we pulled into Iceland, it was blonde-headed, six foot tall people everywhere we went. It was interesting; it's a great place. It's amazing: there is only 250,000 people in all of Iceland, so... you'd think everybody would get to know each other pretty well. Anyway, things are good here. I've got to get back to flipping the chicken, and we will call you after our next climb. Hope everybody's good there. Bye.

— Todd Burleson, Expedition Leader

EXPEDITION