Thurs 30 Nov '06 – High Camp 3700 mts

As I’ve already said quality sleep was hard to come by in these conditions & by 11.00 am I still felt pretty bad & decided that my only chance of any decent recovery physically & mentally would mean staying in my bag for the day resting, eating & taking on board as much fluids as I could. I was also conscious that this was not the place to be taking any chances because on this mountain if you drain the tank dry high up on summit day, you’re going to have a very tough & potentially dangerous time getting down not just to High Camp but all the way back to Camp 1 & VBC. Vinson at 4897mts is not a high peak, nor is it a technical climb apart from a short section on the summit ridge. The summit day effort from High Camp is basically a long snow plod with an altitude gain of 1200 mts which usually takes 12 – 15 hrs for the ascent & decent (9 hrs+ up & 3 hrs+ down).

So why is it regarded as a difficult mountain?

Firstly, whilst the 4897mts is not high, the combination of very cold temperatures in Antarctica at this altitude & the already low air pressure at these latitudes causes the air pressure to drop even lower resulting in a level of oxygen in the air similar to a 6000mt peak anywhere else. Acclimatisation is therefore vital.
Secondly there is the extreme cold to deal with. Good clothing & gear plus spares generally take care of this issue but if you haven’t got the right gear, you cannot & will not be successful on Vinson. Thirdly, it is regarded as one of the toughest in terms of the sheer physical effort required to transport all the gear, equipment & food required for 8 days on the mountain. There are no sherpas, porters, donkeys, yaks or camels to carry the heavy loads. On most other big mountains you have donkeys or yaks to carry a lot of the way & then sherpas to set up camps & cook etc. which takes a lot of the physical effort out of it.
Fourthly, there is the mental strain of knowing that you cannot push yourself so far that you put yourself into the exhaustion danger zone simply because there is no support team or mountain rescue to fall back on.

If you’re on an Alpine mountain & you really push yourself beyond where you should, you know that within 2 hrs you can get yourself down to a cosy mountain hut or refuge where you can get food & rest & that 2 hrs later you can get back to the valley. You will also have the option of a cable car. If you’re really in trouble you can dial up a helicopter to come & airlift you out to a hospital. There is no such safety net here in Antarctica. You are on your own. There is no professional mountain rescue, no helicopter lifts, no huts and no cable car down. There will be limited medical assistance at VBC (8 hrs away) & after that at Patriot Hills (1 / 4 days away if lucky) & repatriation to Punta Arenas can then take up to 7 days after that. But this is what we all signed up for, so we’re not complaining & anyway we are on holidays after all & surely it beats being in the office ?

This is truly a barren, hostile & dangerous place to be & this forces you to operate well within your normal safety margin in terms of pushing yourself beyond where you would normally go. I have regularly on other mountains pushed myself way beyond what I thought I was capable of, but here I’m taking a more cautious approach. Yesterday I had to go beyond the limit because at that late point there was no option & right now at this stage I’m not sure that I want to go there again on summit day, so I will be setting my own limits & turnaround point to avoid that. The problem you have in a mixed ability team is that once you’re well on your way on summit day if one member genuinely can’t continue & has to descend, then the full team has to do like wise & this denies the stronger people of their opportunity to summit. The team can’t split up because we only have one guide. If someone has to turn back after just 1 hr due to illness or whatever, it’s not too bad because you can usually see him down to camp & then catch up & carry on. But if you’re 6 or 7 hrs into a 9 hr summit effort & someone can’t go on, it’s a tough decision. But each person is aware of this from the outset & has to make their own decision.

his is where team work & supporting & encouraging one another are very important along with the guide setting the pace to suit the weakest or slowest of the team regardless of how fit or strong the others are. That is of course providing that the pace is not so slow that it means you can’t summit within the normal time limit. The guide also has to set & communicate to all what the turn-around time limit will be. We’d set 9 hrs as our turn-around time which simply means that if haven’t reached the summit within 9 hrs, we were turning around & descending regardless. Remember when you summit any mountain, you’re only half way there because you’ve then got to descend & if you’ve burnt yourself out on the ascent, you could be in really big trouble descending. It is very important to remember that whilst summiting is the primary objective, survival & returning safely is the ultimate objective. This is what I had to think about all day while I rested, ate & drank & listened to the wind outside. Bed & sleep ( hah! ) followed dinner that night.