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Living a Dream
Wednesday, February 16, 2000

Koch

The Team's Call from the Antarctic Peninsula
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Hello Mountain Zone, this is Stephen Koch calling with the Antarctic Peninsula Climb/Cruise Expedition, aboard the Akademik Shuleykin. It is the 17th of February and what's gone on today is, earlier, we were at Port Lockroy, which is one of the safest harbors on the entire Peninsula. We went aboard there and saw some Gentoo penguins, and also some Leopard seals, and that was quite exciting. And then, we left there and continued down south to our present position, which is the Verdansky Station.

And to get here, we went through the Lemaire Channel, and it's an amazing place. It's one mile wide, averaging one mile wide, and jagged peaks rise up over 2,000 vertical feet on either side. It's quite spectacular, and it's a bit cloudy about halfway up, but we got a really good idea of what was looming above, and we also saw a number of whales and more penguins, of course — always penguins down here.

What we did, after that, when we arrived after lunch, we went to do some reconnaissance of Mount Shackleton and climbed part way up this peak De Maria, which is 684 meters. And it was quite an exciting Zodiac ride with Christy and Dave; in with Christy and out with Dave. But we ended up getting a lot more wet from the boat ride than we actually did from the rain, because it's been raining quite a bit. There's some blue patches now, it's actually just getting dark now, it's around 2:45pm.

We got a lot of great filming done, and had a good time doing that and then charged up to the top, into the clouds and didn't realize how close we were to the top, because we probably would have continued. But we didn't want to keep the ship waiting for us, as the Zodiac was there waiting for us, to head back.

It was very wet snowpack, very saturated with rain — something most of us from the Rockies aren't used to. But the guides here who are from the Seattle area and the Northwest are familiar with that and they said it's quite common there. But it was pretty new to us and pretty interesting there, but it felt pretty good and we got some good turns in, as well.

What we've got going tomorrow, is we'll be probably heading out to Mount Shackleton, it just depends on the weather. And also, we'll find out what the other groups are doing, even though we're on our own program here. I really want to thank Adventure Network International, because they put together this fantastic trip, which has just been a treat. You know, we've had some good weather, but even when we're not, it's such a luxury to be here in this ship, and to get picked up and dropped off wherever we want to go with the Zodiac. It's just been a truly, truly magical experience.

That's pretty much about it from here, I'm going to give you the weather now. The temperature now is about 33º, the wind speed is variable — the wind speed is about 14-20 miles an hour and direction is variable. Humidity: 79%. Altitude gain today is about 1,300 feet. Hours of daylight is still about 18. Barometer is ... And our location here is, the longitude is 65.13 and the latitude is 64.14, and our location, again, is Verdansky Station. And the team condition is absolutely outstanding, everyone is just really thrilled to be here. You know, we're living a dream on this trip. We get back...[Transmission Fails]

Hello Mountain Zone, this is Stephen Koch calling back. Basically, in short, it is fantastic. We get fed really well, and it's unbelievable to be able to see whales and penguins and seals and icebergs and, you know, once you get over the rocking of the boat, so to speak, it's quite, quite lovely. And that's about it from here, take it away. We're just looking forward to checking out some more couloirs and faces, which are just — it's limitless down here. It's fully, fully amazing. Thanks, and we'll talk to you later. Bye-bye.

—Stephen Koch, MountainZone.com Corespondent

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