Made it!

January 29, 2008 by admin.

I received a call from the guiding company today. Lei is on top of Aconcagua! She is doing great. Her message was, “Hi Mom!” She should be down in a couple of days with some pictures and a full report. Congratulations Lei on a successful set of expeditions!

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On her third attempt at Aconcagua

January 26, 2008 by admin.

Lei has been in basecamp for 4 days, and will go up to camp 1 this afternoon. She arrived at basecamp on Jan 22, rested for one day, did a carry to camp 1 on Jan 24, then another rest day. There is a weather system in the area and the forecast is not good until Jan 29, so she’s spending more time in basecamp to wait out the weather instead of waiting higher on the mountain. She’ll move up later this afternoon (Jan 26).

Lei reports:

Weather wise, this season has been good so far, most teams can get a decent summit window with a reasonable schedule. My planned summit day is after this storm system pass on Jan 29. Hopefully, I will have my luck this time.

Health wise, I´m in perfect condition. Having spent more time to slowly acclimatize, my oxygen saturation level is consistent at high 80%, near 90% (oxygen saturation level in blood at sea level is 100%). I am feeling very comfortable here.

On another note, there´s a change to my guide. My guide Damian left the mountain yesterday morning due to a family emergency. I was very depressed and sat in a corner of base camp by myself for several hours yesterday morning to gather my thoughts, and steer myself towards positive thinking. My new guide Esteban is a very caring person, his warmer personality and very positive attitude helped me feel better and cheered me up. We are looking forward to a happy and fast ascent ahead (given that I have acclimatized perfectly and am feeling strong).

Next update will be after summit.

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Moving on to the next

January 16, 2008 by Lei.

After a 5 days’ delay by storm, I just got out of Antarctica this morning, and caught my flight to Mendoza by a narrow margin. I’m sitting here in steaming Mendoza at a hotel with hot shower (the first real one in a month!) and flushing toilet. Then I will depart for a 5-day acclimatization training trip tomorrow before making my third attempt on Aconcagua.

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Ski the last degree to South Pole

January 16, 2008 by Lei.

Starting Point: South 89: 02.038, West 94:27.811,

Ending Point: South 90:00.000

Distance: 107 km

Date: Jan 3 - Jan 9, 2008, 7 days’ hard work.

I underestimated the workload of last degree ski before the trip. I never imagined the sled would be so big:

We started the trip with the sled weighing 50-60 kilos, and it looks even bigger than me. Though Antarctica is generally a big flat plain, it’s full of “sastrugi’, the snow drift. Though they may not be so high most of time, they are enough to hold up my sled from time to time. In addition to the snow drift, the journey is a gentle uphill all the way.

This trip is as much a mental game as a physical game. The big white plain, nothing else. You need a lot of patience to get through each “boring” day:

My skis point to due south

The average temperature for the trip is around -25 C, even with bright sunshine and blue sky. A light wind of 5-10 kts would bring significant wind chill effect. That makes cool picture though:

The last day was the hardest day. A constant head wind of 15-20 kts brought the wind chill to -40C:

We could see the destination from 7 miles away. What seemed so close was still many hours away:

South Pole Station on the horizon 3-4 miles away

It was the goal that kept me going even though I was very exhausted already:

I finally pulled into South Pole!

I bet no one expected such a modern structure at South Pole!

US Amundsen-Scott Station at South Pole

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Vinson

January 16, 2008 by Lei.

Vinson is called mini Denali by a lot of people.

They share very similar landscape and scenery:

You may think it’s cloud out there, but no, it’s just glacier:

First, we made a single carry trip from base camp to low camp by carrying a back pack and pulling a sled behind us:

Between low camp and high camp, we make a double carry to climb a steep slope along 1200m of fixed rope. By “double carry”, we climb this route twice to carry half of our load up each time, because the slope was too steep to pull a sled.

Summit day was a long day. I finally got good luck with weather with climbing on this trip, but it was a painful day for me because I was having a stomach cramp and diarrhea whole day, maybe from the insufficiently-hydrated dry-freeze food the night before. Nonetheless, I was very excited to make it even in such a weak condition:

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Another summit!

December 28, 2007 by admin.

Got a call from Lei on the summit tonight. She’s bagged another one. This was her weakest summit though, because she was suffering from a stomach bug. (Probably too much good food the week before…) She wasn’t able to eat much before the summit and constantly wanted to stop to empty what little was in her system, but she made it. Tomorrow they’ll head back down to base camp and then back to the main camp. Congratulations Lei!

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Christmas on Vinson

December 23, 2007 by admin.

Got a call from Lei. They are moving to base camp today! Tomorrow she expects to move to Camp 1 where they will spend 3days acclimatizing. Then they should carry and move. She expects to finish the entire climb in 5 to 7 days. We should get an update from her when she reaches camp 1.

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Living the high life

December 20, 2007 by admin.

Heard from Lei today. She’s in Antarctica and having a blast. She and the others stayed up all night watching the Antarctica marathon. Nineteen people ran it, and one woman ran 100k… in 22 hours.

They’ve been stuck there as they need another flight to the mountain base and weather has been pretty warm and a little cloudy. She’s thinking that tomorrow they may be able to make it.

Lei reports that the Antarctica food is great and the life there is excellent. Unlimited food and drinks, a nice toilet, and many interesting people to share them with. She even has a mattress for a bed! She’s been walking around in only 1 layer with her down jacket, so she’s quite comfortable. It’s truly a five star experience.

Her next update should be in a few days from the base of Mt. Vinson.

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Maybe tomorrow

December 18, 2007 by Lei.

This Afternoon, we had our second brief meeting. The snow finally stopped by Sunday, and it was said to be the longest snow storm in 22 years memory. This morning 7:30am, the Dec 10 group finally took off and landed at Patriot Hill after about 4 hours´s fly. As we speak at 4pm, the flight is carrying 54 climbers and skiers back from Antarctica, and is scheduled to land in Punta Arenas around 7:30pm. All patience on Vinson paid off — all the people who hunkered down on Mt Vinson during the snow storm last week made to the summit eventually, except a group of 3 under Dave Harn´s guide who is still making the second summit attempt. Skiers also reached south pole and being picked up before their tea supplies run out Everyone is safe.

There´s only one plane and one crew that can fly this route, and they need 12 hours break after a long trip. So we are planning to fly tomorrow morning. The weather forecast does not look so good though, another storm is closing in, but we will try our best to make an attempt. Every hour would count at this moment. Sometimes, the flight may have to turn around after 4.5 hours´ flight because the landing window is closed, so the crew is always prepared for a non-stop round trip.

Let´s pray for the weather!

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Torres del Paine

December 17, 2007 by Lei.

The wild wild west scenery on way from Punta Arenas to Pueto Natales:

Guanacos wandering around in the park of Torres del Paine:

The Torres del Paine, looking from faraway outside park:

I went up to the base of the Torres at 5am to see the sunrise. Unfortunately, the Torres didn’t turn all red as we hoped. Not sure how those postcard pictures got those mystical colors, maybe need some special geological event.

The Glacier Grey is a giant glacier river flow into Lago Grey (lake Grey). The ice from the glacier breaks off at water mouth and became icebergs on the lake:

The Cuernos del Paine:

This is a bridge near park entrance/exit. It’s amazing how the driver can manage to drive a van across without scratching the car!

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