Traveling to Antarctica

Yesterday I made the five hour flight here to McMurdo Base on Ross Island.  McMurdo is the main US base in Antarctica.  Due to our roll as search and rescue we were on the first plane to arrive for the summer deployment.  Our plane was an A319 which is modified with extra fuel capacity to be able to fly to Antarctica and back to Christchurch.  There were 54 other people on our flight. 

The inflight entertainment

The views of the continent from 30,000ft.

 Once over the Ross Sea we descended to 20,000ft which gave us a great view of the glaciers and sea ice.

Landing on the ice runway.

Getting ready to exit the plane.   Outside temperature was about -20.

Ivan the Terrabus.  The vehicle used to get us to the base.

Some Birds of the Bolivian Altiplano

Here are a few photos of some Bolivian birds that I have shot in the last week or so.  I have not figured out what some of them are yet, but I will label them when I figure it out.

La Paz, Bolivia

I am currently in La Paz, Bolivia and have spent the week preparing for a trek into the mountains of the Cordillera Real.   La Paz is a huge city in a valley at 11,000ft elevation.  The photos below give an idea of the scale of the city.

Some photos of the people in La Paz.

Not a local

Today we went to El Alto to see some Cholita wrestling.  Words can not really describe this.  Only a video clip does it justice.  The most entertainment $10 can buy.

I will post more photos as soon as I return from our trek.  There may also be some additional Cholita videos...

American Alpine Institute Denali Team 5, 2012

I just got back from my second Denali trip of the year, and once again the weather ruled the trip.   This was my second trip of the season, and unlike the first was quite warm.  Unfortunately the high winds were still present, and were accompanied by lots of snow. 
With the strongest team I have had on the mountain I left Talkeetna fairly optimistic about our summit chances.  The first few days on the lower glacier were perfect.  Not too hot and not too stormy. 

When we got to 11,200ft camp the weather changed, and as is typical for that area of the mountain we got a lot of snow overnight.  So much in fact that it collapsed our cook tent and broke all our poles.  This combined with a little stove accident pretty much ended the life of our cook tent.  We spent the next day repairing the tent.

We did manage to carry a load up and around windy corner after a short delay. 

The following day we moved to camp at 14,200ft.

Once arriving at 14,200 the weather took a turn for the worse and the snow started falling. 

We did manage to carry a load up to a cache spot of 16,700 ft.  Little did we know on this day that the weather would never improve enough for us to return and retrieve our cache. 

After returning to camp a storm rolled in and dropped several feet of snow, which is fairly uncommon at 14k this time of year.  In addition to the heavy snow there were very strong winds which caused some very dangerous avalanche conditions all over the mountain.  See the previous post for some photos and a short movie. 
We had cached 4 days of food just below Washburn’s Thumb, and then sat at 14 camp day after day watching the winds hammer the upper mountain, and load the leeward slopes.  We were stuck at 14 camp unable to go up and get our cache, and unable to go down.  Below are some photos of some of our time at 14. 

With only a single dinner left and no lunch to hand out until we got down to a cache at 11k camp we had to descend without ever returning to the upper mountain.   The only team that summited within a week of us leaving was a group that had been sitting at 17 camp for 11 days.  Each person in the group sustained serious frostbite injuries in what might be one of the worst pieces of decision making I heard of on the mountain this year. 
The move down from 14 camp was not a simple walk.  Thigh deep snow around windy corner made travel difficult. 
We walked through the night to get to basecamp for the flight out the following morning.  It was truly a beautiful night…

Avalanches at 14k Camp on Denali.

Just got back from my second Denali trip of the season.  Here is a video of some photos I shot of an avalanche running through camp at 14k.  The news has just been released that there was four climbers from Japan killed in an avalanche on Motorcycle hill just a few hours after I shot these photos.  I have never seen such unstable snow conditions on Denali as I did on this trip and the video below shows just one of the many avalanches we witnessed over a 48 hour period.  

Lots of new snow and very high winds created very unstable snow conditions over much of the mountain.  This made it too dangerous for us to continue up the mountain, and just as dangerous to go down.  We were stuck at 14,000ft camp for several days waiting for the conditions to improve.  During this time several other parties were either climbing or descending the fixed lines.  Two of these groups were caught in separate avalanches.  One group of three was caught just below the fixed lines and lost much of their gear and sustained numerous puncture wounds.  The other party was caught just above camp and sustained relatively minor injuries.  The decision to move higher or lower on the mountain is often a difficult one, but in the conditions that we observed there was no disagreement that our group would not be moving until conditions stabilized.  When conditions were safe for us to descend we had only one meal left, and we were forced to abandon our cache of gear and food higher on the mountain due to safety concerns.  Luckily our cache will almost certainly be removed from the mountain by another American Alpine Institute group later this week.

Avalanche debris from a slide of the Messner Coulour.

A huge debris pile from a slide on the Orient Express.

The photo below is looking back toward Motorcycle hill, and clearly shows the debris and crown from the avalanche which is now believed to have killed 4 climbers.  Upon deciding to leave camp at 14,000ft we had heard from a group at 11,000ft camp that the hill had avalanched in the night and therefore was safe for us to  descend.  At that point no one knew that the avalanche was human triggered and underneath the debris were 4 climbers.

More details of the accident can be found here: Anchorage Daily News.