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 | Rob DesLauriers John Falkiner Frederik Jacobi Kit Katzenbach Ace Kvale Kasha Rigby Scot Schmidt Jim Zellers | | ||
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Moonrise Over Mongolia
Monday, March 29, 1999 — 4:41am (PST)
(continued from previous call)
 Ace Kvale | |
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Hear Ace's Call(Requires free Windows Media Player)
It's Ace Kvale calling. I know Scot already talked to you and I just want to add a couple things. I know that you guys have those maps and you can follow our route on the map [75k]. We went up toward that huge north wall and then we went east up that big valley and then headed south up a small ice cliff — it was big for us, probably 500 or 600ft — and now we're kind of approaching from the southeast on the Kazakhstan-Russian border.
There's a mountain that you can almost see from our snowcave camp now that's the — on that mountain is the border of Russia, Mongolia and China and we're camping in snowcaves. It's pretty wild, we've had a lot of snow in the last day. Hopefully we've got enough food and fuel to last another three or four days. And if it clears tonight like it's starting to, we'll make a summit attempt tomorrow.
They tell us it's about six hours to the summmit from here, and filming and stuff we're not that fast, but skiing — we hope we can make it down pretty quick.
It's really been one of the most beautiful, unbelievable, majestic places. The mountain — you know it's not as high as those Himalayan peaks — but it's certainly just as big when you view it from the valleys... the vertical relief from the valley floor, the summit, it's just huge. And gigantic glaciers, ice walls everywhere and it's just a remote and beautiful place.
That's all I can think of to say for now. Things are going good. We're held up in snow caves — there warmer than tents, you know, overall in there, and things are going really good.
And if it's possible, I'd like to say hi to my mom — love you, in Minnesota — hope you're getting these messages and dispatches. And I guess that's all for now.
Last night we didn't get through. We'll keep trying every night. If you stop hearing from us it's because our batteries are dying but things are going really good. Morale is good and the moon's coming up over Mongolia right now. So we'll talk to you later. Thanks.
— Ace Kvale, skier, photographer and expedition organizer
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