Sheep Shearing and Getting Philosophical

Wally Berg

January 11, 1999 — Punta Arenas, Chile


CLICK TO HEAR THE CALL:

Hi, Mountain Zone. It's Wally Berg again on Monday, the 11th. Just a little update. What you do out in Punta Arenas while you're waiting for something to develop down there on the continent — on the ice — so we can fly south... I know with penguino rodeos and other tales you may be anxiously awaiting the next move, and a little surprised, based on "dipping our toes into the vast world of adventure down there on the ice" and all the images there that we come with. Penguino rodeos is one of them. Today it's sheep shearing.

[click to zoom]

The Adventure Network vans, two of them actually, just loaded up Chuck and Dana and Victor from our group and some of the other passengers for this flight down south and out on the estancio, where it's sheep shearing time, which is a big event down here in this region of Chile where fortunes have been made in the wool industry and I think still are, to some extent. So a little local color going on this afternoon.

Hempstead didn't go with his rope, so I suppose there's probably some sheep ranchers out there that are happy about that. Joe LeRoy took off a few minutes ago, said he was going to go buy a pair of shorts and start getting back into shape, so I imagine he's out running the hills around Punta Arenas now trying to keep his edge physically, so he can still be strong when he goes down to the ice.

So that's really it for now, I'll keep you posted on developments.

You know, one thing that's on our mind as we ponder the developments, the lack of development, if you will, is the situation of those people who are down on the ice now, working on that runway so we can get down there. They're part of what you might say — I'm sure they had a great adventure — but what you might call the ill-fated Christmas day turnaround crew. The people that are down there now had a December 14th scheduled departure from Punta Arenas down on to the ice. They were actually delayed nine days. This is only our sixth day of delay here, although it's certainly longer than I had been delayed before. It still could've been worse. These folks were delayed nine days, and actually on December 25th, Christmas Day, took off for Patriot Hills, flew the six-and-a-half hours down there and due to an engine failure which the captain didn't feel was appropriate to land and try to take off with them again, they turned around and flew back to Punta Arenas. Merry Christmas!

And then on December 28th, after three days more delay, they were in fact transported down for their adventures on the ice. These are the folks that are out working on that runway now, along with the ANI staff, to clear it and get themselves out of there and allow us to begin our adventure.

So, just when you think you got it bad, you realize that penguino rodeos and sheep shearing and the options we all have, living back here in Punta Arenas, probably would seem pretty appealing to those people that have been down on the ice for that length of time.

So, I'll keep you posted with regard to word from the 3 o'clock radio call, and as things go along. And I'll try to get some of these sheep shearers to get on the phone and tell you some stories once I got 'em back in Punta Arenas. I'll put them on the SAT phone and I'll let 'em tell you about their adventures.

—Wally Berg, Expedition Leader

DISPATCHES