Dispatches

December 26, 2006

Hi folks,

Hope everyone had a great x-mas and is gearing up for a fun New Years!

Our summit day was beautiful and we didn't have to don the big puffy clothes until we were on the summit. Troy was feeling well and we did a little steeper summit climb variation. Summit day is a long day with about 4000 feet of elevation gain over a large distance(10 miles round trip). Only one other group summitted that day. The next day we headed all the way down to Vinson BC and caught the otter back to Patriot Hills. We had large loads coming down the headwall and also assisted another team in getting down from high camp.

Being on the summit was bittersweet as Alan and Kim were not there and the last time I was on the top of Vinson was with Christine... She is a very special lady and an inspiration for me. It has been great working with her and also becoming a friend of hers. For someone to be so strong and yet so humble is a rare thing. Imagine being a woman running a guiding company in such a male-dominated industry! She has led a bunch of climber types(usually opinionated, stubborn, selfish, etc.) with grace, style and a great sense of humour. Cheers to her for pursuing her passions and living life to it's fullest. I hope you are well my friend...

Troy and I flew out on the Illuyshin on the 24th and got flights out of Punta Arenas later that day. The last few days were spent at Patriot Hills enjoying steak, chicken, pizzas and wine. The night we got back from Vinson BC we had a great party with all the groups. The Russians provided vodka, cognac and caviar and we enjoyed hanging out with people of all nationalities. I think we got to bed around 4-5 AM. It was great being on the "international" continent with people from all over the world. Antarctica is the 5th largest continent and owned by no one country. We all have a common bond in our love of the mountains, and it was special for everyone to acknowledge the significance of that. When we were on the mountain, all of the teams helped each other and were concerned for everyone's well-being. It was a great atmosphere.

The rest of our time there was spent exploring the hills some more and playing cards/reading. Some time was spent stressing over whether we would make it out for x-mas too!

I hope Troy, Kim and Alan had fun and I look forward to climbing with them again sometime soon. Antarctica is a beautiful, remote place and it is an honor to just be there. Congrats to everyone!

Cheers, Casey


December 24, 2006

Hello this is Casey calling in from Patriot Hills.

It is the 24th of December and we are about to board the Illuyshin and fly back to Punta Arenas.

Everyone is scrambling to get back for Christmas We have had a great trip. What an amazing/beautiful place and it is somewhat sad to leave the connections we've made and all the fine people we've met.

I will do a final dispatch soon.Hope everyone is doing well at home.

Casey


December 21, 2006

Hello this is Casey calling in from Patriot Hills.

Troy and I flew after coming down from high camp the day after summiting. We flew back to Patriot Hills and we are now waiting for another group to come off the mountain. Hopefully we will be able to fly the Alutian in.

Kim was able to catch a flight on the Alutian out of Patriot Hills on the 18th. We wish her a Merry Christmas if we dont see her and Alan as well.

Hopefully we will be home for Christmas. Hope everyone is doing well back home and I will give an update soon.

Casey


December 18, 2006

Hello this is Casey calling in from Vinson high camp.

Just wanted to let you know that Troy and I summited today. Unfortunately Kim had to turn around. Hopefully we will be going down to basecamp tommorow if the weather is good.

Hope everyone is doing well at home and I will try to check in tommorow.

Casey


December 17, 2006

Hello this is Casey calling in from Vinson high camp.

We are going to get up tommorow morning, make our summit bid and hopefully be up and down in anywhere from 12-16 hours. After that hopefully have another night up here at high camp and the next day hike up to base camp.

Hope everyone is doing well at home and I will try to check in tommorow.

Casey


December 16, 2006

Hello this is Casey calling in from Camp II on Vinson.

We had a busy last few days. We flew 2 days ago and carried to half camp which is halfway to camp I and now we are at Old Camp II which is above Camp 1 & 1/2 (this is the new way people are calling it). Today we are going to do a carry up to Camp III, or high camp, and move up to high camp tommorow, hopefully, and summit the next day.

Everyone here is doing well. Hope everyone is doing good at home and we are going to hopefully climb & be out of here soon.

Casey


December 13, 2006

Hello this is Casey calling in from Patriot Hills.

Yes, we are still in Patriot Hills. We aren't going to fly today, the 13th, so there is a chance we could fly tommorow to Vinson basecamp. If we are still here in a couple days then we will probably catch our scheduled flight back on the 16th to Puta Arenas.

We have had some strange weather here and hopefully we will get out of Patriot Hills tommorow but we will see.

Unfortunately Alan Pace had to head out today to get back to his family for the holidays. Hopefully he will be back for the next trip.

This is the end of my dispatch from Patriot Hills signing off and we will talk to folks a lttle bit later. Everyone here sends their love back hom.

Casey


December 11, 2006

Hello this is Casey calling in from Patriot Hills.

As you know we got in on the Alutian a couple days ago where we got some warm weather there for a little while. We are now hunkered down in Patriot Hills eating good food, sleeping and reading lots.

Yesterday we climbed across some of the Patriot Hills peaks. Everyone had a good day with beautiful views. If we are stuck here tommorrow we may hike up to an old plane wreck about 6 miles away using our GPS coordinates and then work our way back to Patriot Hills camp.

Everyone is healthy and doing well, obviously getting a little stressed about the time. We are still waiting for this big huge weather system in Antarctica to move away. There is no news on when we are going to fly to the mountain. It might be another day, two days, three days or 4 or we may have to call it if we cant get to the mountain soon enough.

We hope everyone back home is safe and doing well. I will call in again when we have some news.

This is Casey signing out.


December 10, 2006

Hello,

Casey calling in from Patriot Hills. We flew today to Antarctica and have successfully set-up our tents @ Patriot Hills. We have claimed our piece of land down here and hopfully tommorow we will fly to Vinson. We were going to fly as soon as we got here but the clouds came in and we werent able to. So hopefully tommorrow we will be able to fly out.

Everyone says hello back home and hopefully we will get to the mountain. Hope everyone is doing well and I will try to check in tommorrow.

Cheers,

Casey


December 9, 2006

Hey Folks,

We made a 3rd carry today and moved back to our most recent camp 2...! Actually we were moving hotels again(from our 3rd back to the 2nd). We also found a couple nice restaurants we hadn´t been to yet.

The wind is still gusting too much at Patriot Hills for the Illushyin 76 to land there. Hopefully this weather trend changes soon as there is a big chance right now that we will be on the ice for x-mas! We are also getting fat and out of shape from all our dining and lounging! Yeesh, we are already through numerous books and there are no english book stores around.

Troy and Alan say hello to folks back home and Kim sends her love to Lance and Alexis.

Talk to you soon.

Cheers, Casey


December 8, 2006

Hi folks,

We are ready to conclude our dining review of Punta Arenas. There are a few great options while here.

You guessed it...we are still in Punta Arenas! The winds just do not want to cooperate with us. We did a little excursion to see the Otto Senway Penguin Colony yesterday and then a few of us took in 10:30 showing of the latest James Bond movie. Kim, Troy and Alan are all taking the delay very well. It is very important that right conditions exist for us to fly and folks at home can rest assured that the flight crew will fly when it is safe. Having flown to the ice and on the continent before I can attest to the need for good visibility and low wind speeds.

There is a slim chance we will fly mid-day today as there may be a weather window that we can take advantage of. If this is so, I will call in from the ice.

The next group of climbers and skiers are arriving so it may be a little busy down there once we can fly!

Soooo, hopefully we fly soon as we are starting to cut into our realistic climbing time.

Wish us luck!

Cheers, Casey



December 5, 2006

Hi Folks,

Hope all is well back home. We are still in Punta Arenas. The weather is not cooperating at Patriot Hills and also at Vinson so we are waiting for a large window when we can fly in. We have been enjoying some fine dining and exploring the Punta Arenas area.


You may have heard in the news of an incident on Vinson...I just want to assure you that we are still in Punta Arenas and NOT on the mountain! It looks like a climbing group had an accident and everyone will be OK. They are hopefully getting down to Vinson basecamp today.


The weather has not been good on the mountain and some teams have not summitted. A team was descending in a whiteout from high camp after a summit attempt and a member fell 20-30ft. into a crevasse. After being extracted the team decided to "dig in" and stay until the conditions improved. Many hours later they called into basecamp for help and a rescue was started. The team has been brought down to camp 1 and will hopefully be in Vinson B.C. today. Hopefully the weather will start improving and fly in the next day or two. Everyone says hello and they miss their loved ones! So until my next dispatch, take care.

Cheers, Casey


December 2, 2006

Hello from Punta Arenas

All is going well here and all team members have arrived with all of their gear! We all attended an orientation/slideshow for the Antarctic operations side of this trip and then we had a couple hours to put the last of our gear for the mountain together. I had to do some last second running around for random things like a toilet/poo bucket and other glamourous things that us guides get to think about. Imagine the store clerks looks as I am fitting a toilet seat to a bucket in the store and making sure it will not slip and slide around too much! Do not a mishap down on the mountain!

Our gear was picked up and taken to the plane we will fly down to the ice in. It is a huge plane and needs to be loaded and ready for the flight that we all hope will happen within the next couple days. A perfect weather window is needed for the plane to land on the blue ice runway in Patriot Hills. I am happy to announce we were well under our 500 lb. weight limit(means I need to run off and buy some vino tinto for our possible extra days down there!).

Tonight we are going to go to a really great restaurant called Broccolini...the chef is very eccentric and the food is amazing. As you can imagine the seafood, steaks and lamb are excellent. Not a bad way to spend some time playing the waiting game down here.

Tomorrow I will get a call regarding the weather and our flight status...this is how it will go until we depart for Patriot Hills. If we get a full day of waiting (where we are not on standby) we may go see the penguin colonies nearby. Alan, Troy and Kim send their love back home(I do too).

Talk to you soon!

Cheers, Casey



November 30, 2006

Hey folks!

Hope all is well back home. I am in sunny Punta Arenas getting ready for our Vinson climb. Today I will meeting with some folks to talk about logistics and also buying a BUNCH of food. I arrived late last night and found that all my bags had arrived(that´s a first)! The flight from Santiago is beautiful as you fly down the spine of the high andes and down the patagonia peninsula. Kim, Troy and Alan all arrive tomorrow and then the fun begins! We will have a day of packing and an orientation to the logistics before starting the waiting game...hopefully we get lucky and can fly to the ice as soon as possible. Currently we are scheduled for a Dec. 3rd departure from P.A. The flight is an amazing one and I am excited to guide this adventure again. Climbing Vinson is the definition of a "remote mountain expedition". Once on the mountain we are 1800 miles from the nearest village/town! Well, I will write again tomorrow and hopefully be calling in my dispatches after that!

Ciao!

Casey Henley