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! 12/18/2007
 
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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The wild wild west scenery on way from Punta Arenas to Pueto Natales:
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Guanacos wandering around in the park of Torres del Paine:
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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.
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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:
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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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The first brief meeting
The first two days in Punta Arenas were centered around the trip preparation, of course. Yesterday, I got my gear checked. They were a little bit concerned about my down jacket, which is a 750-fill of LoweAlpine from my friend Jing. To be safe, I rented a bullet-proof 800 fill North Face one. They only have size XL in stock, which looks like a sleeping bag on me, but it´s guaranteed to be safe!

This morning, we had our first brief meeting. We have total 46 (or 47) people going in on this flight and are all for Mt Vinson climb, including 4 women climbers. My group under ALE´s guide has 5 members, including 2 Korean, 1 Ecuadorian, 1 Serbian, and me. This is going be a interesting group. One of the Korean member is a world famous climber HongGil Um, who was the number 8th person in the world to climb all 14 of the 8000m peaks and who has seen a lot of his team members perishing on the mountain! The Ecuadorian climber is Patricio Tisalema Torres, a professional guide himself who soloed Mt Everest last year without supplemental oxygen.
At the moment, it was snowing hard in Antarctica, and has been so for a week. The Dec 10 departure group is still waiting in Punta Arenas, because of Ilyum flight can only land on hard blue ice runway. Even if the snow is going to stop by tomorrow, it takes 36 hours to clean up the runway. The earliest possible date to fly is Tuesday. So we are talking about 72 hours’ guaranteed no-fly zone and are advised to have some fun traveling! So I’m taking off to visit Torres del Paine for the next couple days, and come back for update on Tuesday.
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Punta Arenas lies on the western shore of the Straits of Magellan, in Chile’s southernmost region of Magallanes and Chilean Antarctica. Punta Arenas means SandyPoint. With a population of approximately 125,000, Punta Arenas is a small city with remote and frontier character.
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Punta Arenas from a hill
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Punta Arenas seaport

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The green land that divides traffic on avenida:
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I’m en route to Punta Arenas, Chile, from where the flight to Antarctica would take off.

Current schedule is to depart from Punta Arenas on Dec 16 to climb Mt Vinson (4897m, 16,067ft), the highest peak on the Antarctica continent. It may take 2 weeks, depending on weather condition. Then I will ski the last degree to reach South Pole, and return to Punta Arenas on Jan 10. But obviously, weather is a critical factor here, delays of 1 or 2 weeks is not unusual.

After getting out of Antarctica, I will make my third attempt on Mt Aconcagua, the highest peak of South America, before I return to Boston in February.

The past few weeks have been very busy and stressful — leaving a job, keeping up with training, and pulling together the finance and logistics for all the upcoming expeditions for the next half year. I really appreciate the many friends who devoted so much time and energy to help me on fund raising, publicity campaign, training, and cheered me through hard times. I’m feeling kind of sentimental to take on such a long and hard journey, but I’m going with warm thoughts of all the heart-felt wishes from friends all over the places. Thank you!
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