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Highlights of daily transcripts of the audio dispatches... |
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Punta Arenas (10/19/01) - This is Doug Stoup with the North Face Beyond Endurance Expedition...Team Warren Miller finally made it down to the southernmost city of the Southern Hemisphere...we are in Punta Arenas, Chile... All of our luggage and gear made it... we depart tomorrow morning for the airport... it took us almost 18 hours to get down here and we're heading off for another three hour flight to the Falkland Islands... we'll board the he Golden Fleece tomorrow afternoon... setting sail directly east toward the island of South Georgia; a long, five day sailing excursion... South Atlantic (10/21/01) - We just set sail and left the...Falklands... we are in some fairly heavy seas, it should be an interesting trip... we have already sighted a few dolphins as well as a couple of seals back at shore... It's a beautiful sunset over the Falkland Islands... South Atlantic (10/23/01) We are currently on the Golden Fleece and we sailed, as of midday today, halfway. The seas are quite rough and we're all hanging in there. Most everyone is horizontal and not… feeling very well at this point. Hilaree and I climbed the mast today and got a beautiful view. The sun's been out strong; we have a tailwind so we've been making incredible time to South Georgia. We're in the middle of the Scotia Sea and all you can see is a few albatross and some heavy waves…everything is copecetic. We've had sails up pretty much the whole time and a tailwind, we've been making between 8 and10 knots per hour. So sailing conditions have been good and we are making good time…that's not to say we are all feeling quite ill… South Atlantic (10/24/01) Hey, this is Rick Armstrong coming at you from way deep in the South Atlantic. We're about 180 knots... east of South Georgia Island. We just passed our first iceberg today...50-100 feet which is pretty insane...everybody's holding up pretty good...as soon as we found...dramamine... We're out in the middle of the biggest pond in the world. We plan to be on South Georgia and skiing beautiful peaks really, really soon... South Georgia (10/25/01) Hey out there, this is John Teaford from the Beyond Endurance Expedition. I'm talking to you from Grytiviken Harbour. We have pulled up; we are at ground after eight days in transit, four and a half days aboard the Golden Fleece. We've finally come to ground here in the old whaling station of Grytivikin. The harbormaster came by tonight just to say hi and remind of us what the do's and don't s are here. And, believe me, it's a relief to finally be on good solid ground. The first steps were a bit wobbly. You can probably hear from the wind in the background it's a pretty exposed place... it's open on all sides of us. And the total confusion of the sky of the Southern Hemisphere. You never know how well you know the stars until you come down here and they're all different...even the face of the moon right now is upside down. It's a little disconcerting...this is the only place we wanted to be this time of year, so we're glad to be here. South Georgia (10/26/01) Hello everybody, John Griber, North Face Beyond Endurance Expedition... wish you all could see what we're watching right now. We're at Grytiviken Whaling Station... started operation at around 1900 and stopped whaling around 1960. Everything's dilapidated and falling down... we had a great day here, pretty foul weather, though...lot's of snow, the snow is not as far down as we're hoping, patchy here and there...we had a great day poking around the whaling station... old harpoons...old ships that were sunk, lot's of metal, everything's rusted, just wild colors, all the wood's stained...beautiful museum done by Tim and Pauline Carr. They have a great book, if you ever want to look at it, called Antarctic Oasis...if you are ever interested in South Georgia, it's a must-see book... absolutely amazing museum. They have all kinds of artifacts from Shackleton, early explorers, everything... first day we were able to see some King Penguins...I've seen them in books, in magazines...but once you see them...you just can't believe your eyes...we saw a whole bunch of beautiful Elephant Seals all around the bay, they make this amazing sound -- it's hard to even imagine the sound... today we packed up a bunch of our gear in hopes that, maybe, [we could] make a go at Mount Padget...but it looks like maybe the weather's not going to cooperate... so we have Plan B. We're going to try to make it to St. Andrews Bay, where Jerome, our skipper, tells me, there's 150,000 pairs of King Penguins and 8,000 female seals... the males are vying for the females... you can feel the wind; it's really ripping out here... the weather's really turning bad, it's raining. it's intense... this is Antartica at its raw... it is incredible... Tommorow we get to sail back out... |
South Georgia (10/27/01) This is Doug Stoup with the North Face Beyond Endurance Expedition...... there's 400 Elephant Seals right near me, maybe you can hear them barking in the background; there's also some reindeer on the hillside... today we had a great day; we climbed a peak called 2243 which is the elevation of the peak...... there was a reindeer herd that we had to walk through as well as Elephant Seals... It's quite windy today; there's a big low-pressure right over us right now... we're buttoning down the hatches and plan to ski tomorrow as well as, maybe, check out some wildlife... South Georgia (10/28/01) Hilaree Nelson ...It's beautiful...we've been weathered out the whole afternoon...incredible winds up to 50-60 miles-per-hour blowing -- made for a really interesting ride back in the zodiac. We just made it before the big winds set in. Also it's snowing... snow down to the waterline that we didn't have before... we can just make out the bottoms of the glaciers ... other big 8000 ft. peaks but we haven't been able to see them yet... have seen some of the younger penguins but didn't get around that far on the beach...just seen a lot of the big bull elephants fighting and whatnot -- it's just incredible, the noise and just the sheer number of wildlife... South Georgia (10/30/01) This is Doug Stoup live from the island of South Georgia. I'm standing in the middle of 300,000 King penguins...and, we had an epic evening last night. We were aboard the Golden Fleece. Earlier in the evening, John and I were looking across St. Andrews Bay and we saw huge waterspouts across the water which represented very strong winds coming across the bay. And, we were sort of joking, saying "wouldn't it be intense if you were in the middle of that?" Around 2 a.m., we were awakened by the boat almost capsizing almost three or four times...started the engine and the anchors being pulled by Captain Jerome Poncet... we... went to the bridge to meet the rest of the team who couldn't sleep either. For three or four hours, Jerome fought the seas and high winds...actually up to 80-85 knots and the boat was almost at 60 degrees. We held tight and Jerome was an incredible, incredible captain who kept us directly right into the wind. He pretty much didn't sleep either so we're ashore at St. Andrews Bay waiting for the weather to clear a little bit... it's an amazing sight in front of all these beautiful little chicks, making some noises, looking for their moms, trying to get fed. They still have their brown fur on; the King Penguin has a white belly and a yellow neck and black head -- quite a beautiful animal... South Georgia (10/31/01) Hello, this is Tom Day calling from the Nordenskjold Glacier here in South Georgia. Everything's going well; we had a hike up to base camp today and hauled all our camera gear and food and everything. Just pitched tents...everyone's cooking up a little dinner...had a wonderful sunset...the weather has improved, so that's nice. We don't know how long the weather will last but hopefully we can start heading higher up the mountain tomorrow.. South Georgia (11/1/01) Hello, this is Doug Stoup with the North Face Beyond Endurance Expedition. November 1 and we are at the head of Nordenskjold Glacier. Today was an interesting day, it's storming and we went for a foray to the base of Mt. Nordenskjold this morning, did a little bit of skiing until the weather came in. We had to return to base camp or abort our objective and come back to the tent... skiied down and I look down and I see Hilaree, who has reached the camp first, holding down one of the tents that almost blew away -- got crushed and had a few holes in it...I immediately snowboarded down to base camp and helped Hilaree get the tent together... it has a couple of holes in it...Rick and Hilaree repaired the tent. We built up our walls to almost ten feet and hunkered down a little bit better for this storm that's gusting approximately 50-60 knots at times... it's snowing...we're just hanging out in our tents; we had a little late lunch and we are now just waiting a few days to see what we can do. We have about five days food left at our base camp here. Hopefully we can try to climb Nordenskjold Peak...
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South Georgia (11/2/01) Hey everybody, it's John Griber up here at base camp. We're at the base of Nordenskjold still. It's dumping right now...snow...I'm sitting here in my tent right now with John Teaford. We're hanging out, trying to keep warm... We're making up a little backpack... I think I'm going to have the Thai Beef; I think John's going to have the chicken, should be pretty good... Anyway, we had a big day today. I don't know if you heard, last night was some incredible winds. We had a big storm; blew down some of the tents, had to repair some of that stuff, had to build the retaining walls up a bit more...sitting inside one of the tents, playing some cards around 9 o'clock last night and the storm came up. It was absolutely unbelievable. We thought we'd be pinned down for a couple of days. Unbelievably, it was crystal-clear blue skies today -- kind of threw everybody off guard but we charged out as fast as we could...we were really kind of blown away...the wind has just been absolutely phenomenal. The weather is like nothing I've ever seen, like we've ever seen. We did what we could; we went up on the peak of the base of Nordenskjold. We confirmed that it's definately not skiable. It's absolutely blue ice. We got right to the base of around 4000 feet up. At the very base of the peak...was blowing in about a foot of snow; looking up, it was about 45-50 degrees around 4000 feet -- 3600. We're going to try to climb that maybe in the next couple of days. We got about four or five days left at this camp...and see if we can tag that peak...that would be a real gem; apparently it's only been climbed once. We got a great view of Paget, today, too...that was all blue ice. As far as our captain, Jerome, has told us, this is the worst snow he's seen here in 30 years. So it's really becoming evident that we're not going to..?? .the conditions we had hoped for. Although it's snowing now, it probably won't stick that much on blue ice. We'll see, hopefully we won't have that wind... It was unbelievable; how bad that was. It's not that cold here, really. It's mostly really damp, wet, a lot of moisture, a lot of snow. You can never predict this weather. We've been trying to ?match? it with our altimeters and barometers; it's just not constant. Everything's coming and going. We see a cloud cycle come over our peak. It just comes in -- high winds... usually shut us down right away. Right now, it's about 25 degrees outside which isn't terrible. It's high winds again...it's just constant; everything's damp. We're doing great though...got a great camp set up...a great group... everybody's just having a ball with each other... even though we've been locked down for a couple of days...we've had a great time, playing lots of cards, hanging out... you know how tent time is... South Georgia (11/3/01) Hey everybody, it's me (John Griber). We're actually back on the ship. It was an amazing day yesterday. Hilaree and I ended up trailing Doug and Rick for a little bit...we got up on the face...and two days prior to this it was massively blue ice...went back to Hilaree and said "Hey, what do you think?" It snowed last night, came in kind of wet, snow set up really good and she goes "You know, we came here to ski." And so we down-climbe about 200 feet, grabbed our gear and started heading back up the face. At that point, Hilaree got a little bit tired so I...up to Rick and Doug...snow definately came in...it was more snow than ice, that's for sure...but, yes, it was very firm. We were using two ice tools... it was 50-55 degrees the whole way up, super, really giant face, absolutely spectacular...Rick was up about 800 vert, maybe a little more, he got hit with a gust of wind. I'll tell you the wind here is absolutely unbelievable... on a sidebar, our tents were completely flattened last night, had to bail this morning...out of three tents, two were literally flattened; all the poles broken out of them... somebody else will tell you about that...Anyway, these guys started down, since I had my snowboard and the conditions, in my opinion, were looking pretty good...Becca, I hate to have you hear this, I decided to go up, and, uh, solo...it ended up being a great climb, really great. The weather broke in my favor; I made it up to about 7000 feet, from that point the weather rolled in and I didn't want to go up any higher...it was just an enormous face. I felt really gifted to be up there, it [had a ] spectacular sheen to it... I rode down...survival turns...got down-face; we rejoiced, had a big meal and some great skiing after that...just a great accomplishment...I'm really proud I was able to do that face... it's awesome here; the weather is just so amazing...you can't believe what happens here. Today we had, literally, 80 mile-per-hour winds in the morning...it was gusting a little bit, the wind came up and, no kidding, put the tents into our face, absolutely flattened them, broke the poles, the tent poles, tent poles were going through the tent material; we just had to get out of there as quick as we could...now we're sitting in harbor; I'm listening to elephant seals, looking at an old sunken whaling ship, just an amazing situation. South Georgia (11/4/01) (John Teaford) Hello, we're finally back on the Golden Fleece and pretty happy about it. As I said to Doug when we got down today, this is the longest short day any of us have ever had. It goes right to the top of our list for everybody in terms of the challenges, the stress, the conditions we've faced. Doug recorded wind speeds of nearly 80 miles-per-hour, and that was in some moderate gusts...so we're thinking we must've [had] some 100 mile-per-hour gusts crossing the glacier to get back to St. Andrew's Bay. It was serious conditions. Sometimes a filmmaking expedition becomes survival just like any other expedition. We really got challenged...we have some great pictures; we did stop to take a few...we're glad to be back on the Golden Fleece; just getting ready for dinner right now; most of us have had a shower right now and [are] feeling pretty happy about survival day...that's pretty much it; everybody's healthy, lots of pictures...to prove we're here...looking forward to going back out again... South Georgia (11/5/01) Hello everyone, this is Hilaree...had a beautiful calm day...we just sailed a little farther south... Jerome took the sailboat really close to some of the glaciers; a really beautiful sight ...we're all rested; really needed it [from] fighting the winds, trying to get back down to safety...right now, we're looking at seals and penguins... some beautiful snow that comes down to the water ... We're all well-fed from Jerome's mutton and starting to get our strength back..Rick was out catching ice so we could make ourselves some nice cocktails this evening |
South Georgia (11/6/01) Hey this is Doug Stoup
live from the island of South Georgia for IceAxe TV... We
were going to climb some peaks right out of the bay,
attempted to do some skiing and snowboarding but the weather
turned bad... [we did see] an elephant seal being
born and, we looked across at the Twitcher Glacier that was
calving off... that was pretty cool... South Georgia (11/7/01) We've been up for about 17 hours straight, trying to battle 80 mile-per-hour winds in the boat, The Golden Fleece. Jerome has been an amazing captain, staying up the whole time, trying to keep the boat into the wind...in the fjord...We're now positioned at Larsen Bay, around the corner from Drygalski Fjord... 80 mile-per-hour gusts have been coming up and down the fjord...currently a low-pressure over us right now and we have five to eight inches of snow on the boat itself and minimal visibility -- so we're just sort of hunkering down and waiting for the weather to break... South Georgia (11/8/01) This is Rick Armstrong, live from the island of South Georgia, hanging out on the Golden Fleece...we are waiting for the weather to subside. It's storming; we watched the barometric pressure go down to 28.5 which is very low as the barometric pressure gauge goes...We are in the Drygalsky Fjord... it's beautiful...but we can't see...the visibility is so bad... I should say hi to Brian from Telluride... there's some 140-footers... I'm just waiting for him to come and show me how to go off one...and Jamie Howard, I hope I can make fishing in the Bahamas...I will be back on the 27th or 28th of November... and Lee... John and Tom, hola, que pasa, thank you for the note...everything's well; I lost my last game of cards...we will go on to the next enterprise...hopefully the weather will clear and we'll get back out on the mountain... two to three inches of snow at least... there's a drift of a foot, foot and a half on the back of the boat... South Georgia (11/9/01) This is John Griber in Larsen Harbour...waiting out the storm...this is our third day of super stormy weather...over 100 mile-per-hour gusts in a very narrow channel -- spectacular place... a steep fjord-like area...different from the rest of the island...much more steep; a lot of snow right to the water... did a little trip on shore today, got close to a couple seals, almost was able to touch them... South Georgia (11/10/01) Hello, today is Saturday, Novemeber 10... we got up this morning...made it to shore...the weather started clearing up...found really good snow and conditions...had a good afternoon...climbed a 2000-foot face, skied incredible snow... the winds, though strong, made for some really beautiful turns... we were all sort of rewarded for our six -day vigil in the boat, playing cards, reading books and twiddling our thumbs... South Georgia (11/11/01) This is Doug Stoup... had a really busy day...the sun was out almost all day... we ended up climbing and skiing [out of Larsen Harbour]...it's been an incredible day...everyone's just exhausted from skiing all day... the weather turned bad around 5 p.m... it started to drizzle a little bit... Tom had a hard day today...he was running around all over the slopes, trying to film all of us South Georgia (11/12/01) [Tom Day]... it's another wonderful day here; the wind has picked up which has been the story of our trip but always adds another level of excitement to whatever it is we're doing...We had a great filming day yesterday with a lot of good skiing...Today is kind of a day off...woke up to gray skies and drizzle... we're pulling into the bay, fighting the winds and trying to find a place to anchor so we can get a good night's rest and not drift out to sea or anything like that...We saw some new penguins...Chinstraps and others... we got attacked by several fur seals...those things are ferocious, man, they come after you; you have to carry a stick and beat them off...it's kind of funny when you walk around a corner and they start chasing you... because they're protecting their territory... you've got to be kind of careful where you walk... that was kind of cool... [about equipment]... we're using (several different kinds of cameras) including 16 mm...several kinds of DV cameras for video and a DAT machine for film sync sound... South Georgia (11/13/01) [Rick Armstrong]...the water is glass perfect...we can see the reflections of the mountains all around us...today we climbed and skied and [are now] checking the route...to Mt. Norman a beautiful peak which hasn't been climbed... ..everybody's got a camera and shooting a lot of photos; it's a group effort...most of our attention has been on 16 mm film... We're very far removed from the rest of the world... and we'll be out on the mountain tomorrow... South Georgia (11/14/01) This is Doug Stoup from the Beyond Endurance Expedition... we woke up early this morning to do Mt. Norman which is basically 4000-feet out of the water but the weather wasn't cooperating so we're going to attempt it tomorrow in the a.m. ... spent most of the morning on the boat... this afternoon [the weather cleared a bit]... we took the zodiac ...hiked up the hill and spent the afternoon until recently, checking out the Gentoo penguins and also Macaroni penguins which is a new species to us... the Gentoos had two eggs that the moms were sitting on and the Macaronis were just about ready to lay some eggs... saw all sorts of wildlife... We were across the bay when we heard a huge crash and the Golden Fleece was about 75-feet from a huge hanging glacier... half the glacial wall calved in the water... right now, the boat is totally surrounded by glacial ice...that huge boom we heard across the bay, about two miles away, was the result of a huge calving of the glacier... |
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South Georgia (11/15/01) Today was a successful day... yesterday, an earthquake in the South Sandwich Islands may have caused the glacial calving we mentioned earlier... we had an Alpine start this morning...we started around 6 a.m., some clouds started rolling in about 500 feet and continued to about 2000 feet... we climbed above the clouds and were in the sun all day long in some heavily crevassed areas... the 4000-foot peak came right out of the water so basically we went straight up...there was a sick ridge that went for about a half mile... that was nice edge...that went right to a round summit with a 10 meter rock spire at the top...and we skied most of the way down...into the clouds and had to find our way back... took all day... and that was our first successful summit here on the island of South Georgia... in the future we'll probably head a little north... everyone's pumped about getting a long day in and being above the clouds in the beautiful Salveson Range... The show we're filming will be on Global Adventures on the Outdoor Life Network, stay tuned, log onto Outdoor Life (olntv.com) to find out when the show'll be on...thank you all for tuning in, catch you tomorrow... South Georgia (11/16/01) This is Rick Armstrong... right now we're in Leith Harbor which was the end of Shackleton's journey... it's kind of a statement of what man can do to nature... there's rust and metal, things blowing in the wind, oil containers, things that were left in the 60s, I believe... it's like everybody hopped on the boat, took off out of the harbor leaving -- rust... It's such a contrast to the rest of the island of South Georgia [with its] pristine wildlife... [here] it's almost as if you can still smell the remains of dead whales...it teaches you that we need to watch what we're doing and keep it beautiful for future generations... We had a great day yesterday on Mt. Norman... it was super glaciated, extremely hard for us to travel... [one spot] had huge crevasses on both sides...quite scary but we made it up... a beautiful summit...overlooked South Georgia, Paget, many of the other peaks on the island... we were looking at the tops of mountains and it was gorgeous... returned to the boat at 6:30... so it was about a 12-hour event... [at Grytviken] we saw Tim and Pauline of the museum, they wished us well as we ventured back... we're going to try to go to.... Albatross Island... and then back out to the open seas.. South Georgia (11/17/01) This is Doug Stoup, here on the Beyond Endurance Expedition we had a beautiful day and I'm going to give you John Griber with today's dispatch... We woke up at Leith Harbor at the old whaling station, closed in the mid-sixties...everything's pretty intact, a bit vandalized by people but nonetheless it's pretty amazing to see what actually went on here...this place is in the middle of nowhere but there were up to 800 people living, there, working there and whaling for about 60 years... Got up this morning, got underway and went to an island called Albatross Island... 150 breeding pairs of Wandering Albatross... this bird has the largest wingspan [of any bird in the world]...the record's around 11 feet...they're just huge... Jerome said they're 20-plus pounds...they're really docile...they'll let you walk right up to them. If you're sitting down, they'll come right up and peck at your shoe...we've seen them flying...it's a spectacular sight... they live, some to 80 years...the juveniles sit on the nest for eight months...the parents come back and forth to feed them... We kind of put the ski gear away and now we're being tourists...one more full day left... too bad we couldn't ski any more because I'm looking across at some giant peaks.. South Georgia (11/18/01) This is Doug Stoup...we woke up this morning to a beautiful day, the sun was out, all kinds of peaks around us, fur seals, elephant seals, some King penguins, too... We started up the boat and headed north, stopped and went ashore... All kinds of penguins, 100,000; they had their chicks with them that still had the brown fluff on them...the male fur seals were gaining position on the beach; we had to dodge a bunch of them...They're actually very aggressive and come after you -- you're in their territory and in a week or so, the females will come ashore to mate with them...It was a stellar afternoon with waterfalls coming down, unnamed, beautiful peaks that I'd love to ski if we had more time ..right now we're heading east on our 800 and some odd mile journey to the Falkland Islands and Stanley Harbor...Looks like that storm is still coming our way; the sun stays out until 11:00 so we have a long day but we are in a huge cloudbank and can't see what's going on... |
South Georgia (11/19/01) This is Doug Stoup live from... not from the island of South Georgia but the Scotia Seas, crossing the South Atlantic Ocean. It's been quite an eventful 24 hours. We departed the tip of South Georgia, Willis and Trinity islands at 11:00 last night to a beautiful sunset... We have experienced heavy seas continually to this point - 15 to 20 foot swells. Everybody's doing good except for Sick Rick and John Teaford -- they seem to be horizontal. John Griber's well, Tom's doing well, Hilaree's doing fantastic and, myself, I'm doing o.k.... Unusual circumstance, we just passed shag rocks, rock formations in the middle of the Scotia Sea; it's quite humbling... Hilaree, Tom and I have bunks in the bow of the boat and we've been lifted off our bunks numerous times in the last 18 hours, almost airborne... South Georgia (11/20/01) [Tom Day] We're on our journey back home now and today was a little mellower than yesterday. The sea's [calmed] down a bit, just kind of a roly-poly ride... everybody's in la-la land, spent a lot of time [in our bunks]...It's pretty amazing to think that for five or six days, all we'll see is seas and sky... we'll see a bunch of Wandering Albatross and it's amazing to see those guys fly... Some time early in the morning we'll be at our halfway point, at least it looks that way on a map unless [weather slows us down]...everyone's just mellowed out and enjoying the cruise home... South Georgia (11/21/01) This is Doug Stoup... we're sitting here, the seas have dramatically increased last night and most of today; we're getting 15 to 20-foot swells and most everyone is sort of down and out in the safe havens of their bunks except for Hilaree and Tom Day and Jerome... they're the only ones who have been walking around and doing stuff...it's quite difficult to maneuver about the boat because it pitches over sometimes 25, 30 degrees and makes it quite arduous to get around...most everyone is horizontal...We're about 240 nautical miles from the Falkland Islands, so we're about half-way which is good news... South Georgia (11/22/01) [John Griber]...It's kind of a nice, sunny day. We've got swells but the waves have definitely calmed down; we're way over our halfway mark; we've only got 100 nautical miles to go to get to Stanley. Pretty easy crossing the Scotia. Two nights ago, it was pretty rough... We're all sitting up on the bridge, admiring the water.... looks almost tropical...The whole crossing to Stanley is 300 miles and when we get back, we will have traveled 1900 miles via South Georgia...in and out of all the different coves... We're just enjoying a casual Thanksgiving with mutton probably. I don't know what we're going to eat...I don't think anybody's got an appetite because of all the rocking and rolling... the whole group's horizontal... I'mstanding on the deck of the Golden Fleece in bare feet -- it's not terribly cold, in the forties...
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