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A Bluebird Day
Saturday, February 19, 2000

Armstrong

The Team's Call from the Antarctic Peninsula
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Hello, this is Rick Armstrong, from the Antarctica Peninsula Expedition and we are skiing a lot of things. Today we got our first sunny day in the mountains. We've been skiing everything, even though it's been raining really hard.

But today we got a break and it was sunny and we skied a beautiful 1,900-foot peak that had a lot of seracs and cornices and steep pitches and all the fun stuff we're after. It was our first real steep ski line that we've been really trying to get. We're really excited about it.

Today the temperature was 36.1 degrees Fahrenheit, wind-speed and direction was light and variable, wind-chill 35.7 degrees, humidity 82%, the elevation climbed was 1,920 feet and the hours of daylight is 18 hours, basically. Barometric pressure is 992.1 and today our location was at the Rongé Islands in the Antarctic Peninsula.

Everybody's doing excellent. We're excited, ready to attempt a bigger mountain tomorrow. We're trying possibly to attempt a 9,000-foot peak, the highest on the whole peninsula. So, we're going to set off for that tomorrow.

You probably won't get an update from us tomorrow, but, or you might, you probably will, I guess we'll take this phone with us. Wish us luck and I hope everybody back there is doing great. I love my wife Hollee and hopefully she gets this. Thank you guys. Bye.

Stoup

Howdy, MountainZone folks, this is Doug Stoup with the Antarctic Peninsula Climb and Cruise Expedition. This morning we awoke to bluebird for the first time on the whole trip and we are going to take a pretty hefty objective of trying to climb Mt. Francais which is the highest peak in Antarctica [editor's note: Mt. Francais is the highest island peak in the Antarctic Peninsula region], about 9,000 feet.

It's eight miles in on a glacier, so we're leaving, subsequently, and we will try to traverse across the glacier and go to about 300 meters or a little over 2,000 feet to [Unintelligible]. We'll camp in a snowcave and then we will attempt to summit tomorrow and do the first ski and snowboard descent off Mt. Francais.

We'll call you back in a day or so, we won't be taking this satellite phone, due to trying to conserve on weight. But I just wanted to touch base and give you guys the game plan. [Unintelligible]. Everybody following the cybercast, just wish us luck. We'll talk to you soon, take care.

—Rick Armstrong and Douglas Stoup, MountainZone.com Correspondents

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