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

Chile & Antarctica
Greg and his team continue their “standby” status to leave Antarctica while Mike and his crew weigh their options in Punta Arenas.

So what do you do with 20 hours of daylight and literally nothing to do…well,  you play volleyball and ping-pong of course. IMG Guide Aaron Mainer (who’s been on the ice since November by the way) won the first ever Union Glacier International Ping Pong Tournament besting over 30 competitors from all over the world. Our team has also participated in the first ever Union Glacier Olympic Games as well as a the Volleyball Tournament.  We’re not sure how the volleyball tournament played out but we like our chances with Greg on the team…he did win a National Title at Pepperdine and played professionally in Europe. It looks like their flight from the ice will be weather delayed once again to Sunday or early next week. Sounds like they’re making the best of a difficult situation.

Ecuador

A proper dinner for our team in Ecuador.

Phil called in this afternoon to check on the other IMG teams to his South, and to report more good weather as they ride the high from their recent summit of Cotopaxi. Today the team  enjoyed some personal time to clean-up, tend to their gear and maybe crank out an email or two. Right now they’re currently at San Augustine enjoying a fantastic dinner featuring some authentic high Andean Incan cuisine.

Argentina
Eben called in from C2 to report that they didn’t carry today, instead they hung tight at camp hoping to match their summit day with an anticipated weather window. Everybody is doing just fine – in fact they’re enjoying some fresh camp-made pizza! Eben mixed up some dough, Mike is tossing & forming the dough and Martin is tending to the stoves. Two pizzas each – proper fuel for their carry to High Camp Tomorrow!

Lower on the mountain IMG Aconcagua Team #3 led by Peter Anderson made their way to our trekking camp #2 en route to Base Camp.  They’ll hit BC tomorrow and enjoy a rest day on Saturday.

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Tye Chapman