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From the Top of Mt. Vinson
Tuesday, December 07, 1999: Daily Stats

Koch

The Team's Call from Antarctica
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Hello Mountain Zone, this is Stephen Koch on the top of Mount Vinson in Antarctica with the Ski and Snowboard Expedition.

We are standing around in complete sunshine at 9:40pm looking out to the vast horizon. It's just absolutely beautiful, and we're all getting amped up for our ski and snowboard descent — couldn't ask for better weather, really. It's been just a gorgeous day, relatively warm temps right now. Heck, only Doug Coombs has his down jacket on, everyone else is walking around comfortably in their shells, and we're writing in the registry which was really cool to find because it has the first ascent party of 1966 in there, and we were thumbing through and found from Jackson Hole, Barry Corbett, that's right now. But Mark Newcomb really led the way today and broke trail because we took a variation on the route that Dave Hahn and the ANI group took yesterday — a steeper, more direct line. That's about it from here, we're all stoked and we're going to do a little filming and then head on down. Thanks a lot.

Temperatures are.. Mark did you get the temperatures, okay well, we'll hold on while Mark gets the temperatures.

We had a 7mph wind when we started from Camp III. Right now there's just no wind at all. It's just unbelievable. It's so spectacular looking at all the big mountains around, Shinn and Tyree, and they're poking up out of the clouds and ice, Wade wanted me to say. Doug Stoup is writing in the registry now, Mark's right on the summit — this is just phenomenal. I wish you all could share this with us with live video, but this is as good as it gets for right now. We're happy you're out there listening and reading. Mark's about to tell us the temp and then we'll sign off becuase I know this is a lengthy call. Hmmmmmnn... -20 on top with no wind-chill. That's just the air temperature, -20, and we're out here just loving it. Alright Mountain Zone, thanks a lot. We'll talk to you next time. Bye bye.

— Stephen Koch, MountainZone.com Correspondent

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