The first Mountain Trip Vinson expedition of the 2015/16 season is underway as the team flew to Antarctica this afternoon. They flew from Punta Arenas, Chile down to the big Antarctic base at Union Glacier where the Illyushin jet landed them on the blue ice runway. This is always a challenging flight as the weather can delay climbers for days waiting to get in (or out) so they are happy to have made that first big step of getting to Antarctica. They enjoyed a dinner at the Union Glacier camp this evening and will spend the night there before continuing to Vinson Base Camp as soon as tomorrow. To get to Mt Vinson base camp requires a 45 minute flight on a smaller Twin Otter 12 passenger airplane that is equipped with skis and can land on the snow at base camp. They’ll wake up tomorrow and hope for nice weather to make the next of their flights and be ready to start climbing Mount Vinson!
Here’s Jacob with an audio dispatch from Union Glacier Base in Antarctica: