January 22, 2011

Sunset at High Camp on Aconcagua

We received word from Phil today after a great day training on the lower glaciers of Cayambe. If all goes as planned they’ll get an alpine start in the morning and be on the summit by mid-morning.

Further South on Aconcagua, Eben and his team made the move to High Camp today and will get an early start for the summit tomorrow morning. They’re anticipating a cold & windy summit day so they’ll get up a little later than Phil’s team hoping to take advantage of the warmer temps later in the morning. Back at Base Camp Peter Anderson and his team took advantage of a rest day before they make their carry to C1 tomorrow.

And down in Chile our Vinson Team made it back to Punta Arenas and are en route home…finally! We’ll recap this with some photos later on, but for now they’re heading home and that’s all they can ask for.

Tye Chapman

January 21, 2011

We received word from Antarctica & Punta Arenas, Chile today that ALE called in the IL76 for a flight! This is great news for our team who’s been waiting at Union Glacier for a couple weeks now and especially great news for IMG Guide, and ping-pong champion (see yesterday’s blog post) Aaron Mainer who has been there since late November. Two trips and two summits of Vinson for Aaron, but like the rest of the team,  he’s ready to get home. It’s a small weather window so we’ll hope for the best!

Camp 2 on Aconcagua. (Photo by Diana Rehborn)

Further north on Aconcagua, IMG Guide Eben Reckord called in from C2 today after a successful carry to High Camp. They’ll move up tomorrow and hopefully summit on the 23rd.  All continues to go smoothly for these guys.

And even further north in Ecuador Phil reports that they continue to enjoy great weather and are en route to the hut on Cayambe. They’ll train/acclimatize tomorrow and shoot for the summit on Sunday.  Maybe we can arrange a Sat phone call from the Cayambe summit to the Aconcagua summit from Phil to Eben…

That’s all for now.

Tye Chapman