The January Mountain Trip Vinson Expedition made the flight from the Union Glacier Base to the Mount Vinson Base Camp yesterday evening and is settled in to their comfortable base camp.   The weather in camp is pretty nice, but sounds windy and stormy up higher on the mountain today so they’ll spend the day preparing and getting ready for the move on up to Camp 1.

Teams will often spend several days at Vinson Base Camp (VBC) preparing to move up, and can get stuck for a few days at VBC waiting to fly back to Union Glacier on the return.  Several years ago we decided to fly a big dome tent and some camp chairs down to Antarctica to give our teams a nice and relatively warm place to hang out and enjoy meals during these waits at base camp.   This year the fly on the big Mountain Hardwear Stronghold tent finally gave out in a storm, but we were able to send a new one down with one of the team members (Thanks Rich!).  Now they are settled in with their new bright orange fly and hoping not to have too many days to enjoy it before moving on up to Camp 1 and getting on with the climb.

Here’s Mathij calling in on the satellite phone from Vinson Base Camp

recording