Red Team Blog

The last few days have seen Phil, Ivar, Alex and Will out clocking up some more much sought after pulking miles to resupply the Blue Team to enable their safe return to Base Camp.

We set off at a very leisurely pace to Camp 1 where we intended to spend a couple of nights while pulking the supplies up to Camp 3. The journey is all to familiar to us now. The weather that appeared through the night was however far from anything the expedition is familiar with. Winds of over 90 mph and white out conditions.

Talking with Blue Team it was even worse in Camp 5; this left us with no choice but to hide in the tents and hope the winds dropped so we could make our way towards them. The forecast which Green Team relayed to both teams did not make for pleasant news: a break in the winds for a short period then a few days of even worse weather than we were currently experiencing.

The only option that we had was to make the run to Camp 3 and then try and get back to Base Camp. The idea of trying to race the weather in Antarctica is not a pleasant one as we have all experienced the rapid changes that occur here. So we made a very early start and with our expert snow-bridge-finding-hound, Phil, leading the way, we managed to make fast progress up to Camp 3.

It was a welcome sound as we approached, we got a radio message that Blue Team could see us and would be down with us shortly. It was great to see their happy smiles and laughter after not seeing them for 3 weeks. After a short period of the exchange of banter and delivering our supplies we had to depart as we still had the return to Base Camp to think about.

As we returned to Camp 1 we left marker wands out to enable Blue Team to save time on their journey. We swiftly packed Camp 1 up as we could feel the winds just starting to pick up. It wasn’t long before we had raced back along the glacier and had the final descent into Base Camp in sight. With our pulks full of the remaining equipment from Camp 1 it made the ski into base very amusing to watch. The best part was that we had won the race and were tucked up in our sleeping bags as the wind lashed our tents.
Will

Camp 3: 67°49.234′ S 066°26.276′ W

After being pinned down in Base Camp for a day by high winds, today was a very successful day for the Red Team.

Stu, Paul, Rich and Ali on their summit

Stu Fletcher

Paul, Rich, Ali and I got up early to load our two small inflatable boats with kit to make a journey around the coast to see what we could climb from a previously unexplored glacier that we’d spotted a few days before. Not many ski tours start at sea level and there are a number of difficulties involved in that sort of day out. For a start you have to climb the mountain from the lowest point possible to its top and after a spell in an open boat in the Antarctic Ocean you’re not generally as warm and dry as you’d like to be! Add to that the problem of getting a boat that normally takes 8 men to lift out of the sea before you can leave the beach and you’ve got some idea of the problems involved.
Those problems overcome by a combination of cunning and brute force we set off for a fantastic day touring straight up to one of the highest peaks in the area, a beautiful dome of snow sitting at the head of the glacier. We skied to within a few hundred meters of the top before swapping skis and poles for crampons and axes for the final steep bit. About 45 minutes after the last summit photo had been taken, we were standing back by the beach having made short work of the descent through a combination of fantastic soft powdery snow, six inch high rock hard wind blasted snow waves and scoured glacial ice, all in pretty much equal measure and each fun in their own way!

Summit location:
1165m
S 67 49.400
W 066 44.868″

Alex Thorpe

Will and I headed north up the glacier from base camp to a mountain we had previously been eyeing up on the many journeys up and down the glacier. We had seen a line up though some pretty nasty looking serac fields and onto a steep face leading to a pointed summit. Unknown to us it also was to be the highest in this mountain range realising only after a fare effort from sea level to 1272m.

The face proved to be very cold as wind pelted the mountain and saw us stopping to get the feeling back in our fingers a number of times. We were rewarded for our efforts with stunning 360° views of over 50 miles of the peninsular as this was our first cloud free summit. The way down proved to be interesting with the mountain stripped of snow by the recent high winds we found ourselves skiing steep slopes with sastrugii forming breaks and barriers just ready to catch the edge of your ski and send you on a speedy descent. Luckily we both found our way down without incident and were soon in base camp.

Summit location:
1272m
S 67 50.182
W 066 46.377″

Phil Carrotte

After a quick skin up the South bank of Narrow Glacier, Ivar and I arrived at the base of a broad snow filled gulley which we thought (and hoped) would lead to the summit ridge of the mountain above our Base Camp. At the beginning of our trip we had climbed some new routes on the mountain’s East Flank but failed to make the summit due to bad weather; so today was very much about unfinished business.

With the exception of a short section of ice we moved together up the 600m gulley system and were chuffed when getting to the top to find that we were only a further 50m from the previously unclimbed summit. The weather was beautifully clear and not too breezy so we took our time to enjoy lunch and take photos before re-tracing our steps to Base Camp.

Summit location:
890m
S 67 52.198
W 066 45.972″
So three unclimbed peaks ticked, all in all a pretty good day at the office!!

On what may turn out to be the day of best weather of the expedition Red Team set out from the new base camp on the Lliboutry Glacier to attempt some new peaks. To our knowledge none of the ones attempted had been previously climbed, which made for rich pickings.

Paul and Rich set off first, closely followed by Phil and Al, Ivar, Will and Stu (Quinn: adopted from Green Team for the day), and Stu F and Ali. Following the same route around to the north we soon split with Red 1 heading straight up a complex sinuous route through some impressive crevasses and seracs towards the southernmost point of the Boyle Mountains, whilst Red 2 aimed up and across the icy south face of the central promontory.

After a quick and early lunch break we were soon forced onto crampons to complete the last few hundred metres of the route

over wind polished blue ice to a broad snow dome summit with incredible views over the Mount Rendu and Blaiklock Island. Shortly afterwards Paul and Rich reached their summit and confirmed that the route onto the main massif of the Boyle Mountains was barred by a dramatic serrated ridge "attemptable only by madmen". Not long after
that, a triumphant radio call indicated Stu and Ali's success on the northern promontory.

The ski down encompassed every snow condition available from the polished ice to crusted waves of sastrugi and small bowls of powder, ensuring an exhilarating ride back to base camp in a fraction of the time it took to ascend and the end of another successful triple summit day for the Red Team.

Ivar Milligan

The expedition is now into its final phase. We have 7 days of mountaineering time left before we have to transition into preparation for the return journey. The teams are all well placed to make the most of this final opportunity and the weather is being kind to us on the Lliboutry Glacier with clear skies, albeit with a biting cold wind.

As I write Red 2 are already deployed some 20 kilometres from Base Camp 2 and are attempting a peak on the Boyle Mountains. At the same time Green 2 and a composite Red/Green team are preparing to head out tomorrow morning to explore and seek out potential mountaineering objectives. I will also lead a separate composite Red/Green team attempting to gain the summit plateau of the Boyle Mountains from the South. Blue Team remain occupied with the science objectives of the expedition and have had some significant success. They currently have a scientist on board Australis from the British Antarctic Survey base at Rothera in order to assist with some of the sampling that they need to undertake.

As the end of the expedition approaches, each of us is looking to fulfil the last of our ambition. I now truly have an insight into how Scott and his men must have felt early on during their return from the pole, tired and defeated in the race to the pole, but unbowed and trusting to a safe return. Our fate will not be the same as theirs, but an understanding of their hardships and emotions will live with us.
To Strive, To Seek, To Find and not to Yield.

Paul Edwards
Lieutenant Colonel
Expedition Leader