The East Side of the Vinson Massif
Flowers Hills - the beginning of our climb. For the next two weeks, we made our way 40km and 15,000' up through the mountains in the background. The Vinson Massif can just barely be seen in the distance, right about in the center of the photo.
The Steel Glove of Love - aka shadows, that could drop the temperature to -25 within just a few feet. The unclimbed Mt. Tuck looms in the background. One of our camps was located at the base of the righthand spur.
Dave Hahn approaching the most technical section of the climb - The Hahn Headwall. This was deceivingly large and had two basic lines on it - one was steeper with no cornices above it, and the other was mellower, but had cornices and crevasses to contend with. Dave was able to pick a safe line through all of this and get us to the 13,000' plateau.
A big part of our trip was digging 2m x 2m x 2m pits and trying to decipher the stratigraphy. Dan Stone (center) from Boulder, CO came along as a climber and Glaciologist. He would take isotope samples every 10cm, check densities, look for annual layers (hard to find) and document the crystal types.
Mt. Mohl and the Dater Glacier. We camped right near the base of Mohl and I was able to climb and ski the sun/shadow line during a half day of bad weather. The line was 3,750' of 45 - 50 degree skiing with wild conditions.
Approaching the summit of the Vinson Massif. A third climber can be seen about 1/2 a mile ahead. Vinson is known as a "Massif" as it is a large dome shaped mound with many small peaks on top, all of which look like they could be the high point. Luckily, Conrad and Dave knew where to go and directed us to the true high point.
Dave and Liesl near the top of the Arctic Continent. Our route came up through the mountains in the background.
Minus seventy-five and still filming! John Armstrong, Rob Raker and Dan Stone on the summit of Vinson at about 8:00pm. The ski pole was left many years ago by Chris Bonnington and must have seen some incredibly nasty weather!
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