Mount Vinson is one of the 7summits, the highest peaks on every continent, located in Antarctica. This month the climbing season will begin and one of the climbers will be fellow climber Alan Arnette.

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The above image is available as a personalized poster print in the dedicated EP poster store . I will donate all profits from sales of this poster during the Vinson climbing season (November 2010-February 2011) to Alan’s charity, so check it out and order one today!

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Alan will not just go to the cold continent to summit a mountain, but to raise awareness and money for Alheimer research:

Fundraising

Our goal is to raise $1 million dollars as people follow the climbs. Remember all donations go directly to Alzheimer’s research and none to Alan or to support the climbs. All donations are tax deductible in the US.

Here is how you can help:

• Make a flat rate donation per summit, $100 for example
• Make a one time donation for all the climbs anytime.
• Host Alan for a local fund raiser before, during or after the climbs.
• Bid on having a message sent via Twitter during the summit day for each climb
• Host an auction after each climb for a signed summit banner.

First was Memories are Everything: The Road Back to Mt. Everest – that raised $25,000 and now Memories are Everything: The 7 Summits Climbs for Alzheimer’s- a journey to raise $1 million dollars through climbing the 7 Summits.

While climbing is the activity, fund raising is the goal. 100% of your donations go directly to Alzheimer’s research, education and awareness! None go to Alan’s climbing expenses. I encourage you to read more about my partner, the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund and make your tax deductible donation today.

100% for research

So help where you can. Good luck and be safe Alan!

The above image is available as a personalized poster print in the dedicated EP poster store . I will donate all profits from sales of this poster during the climbing season (November 2010-February 2011) to Alan’s charity, so check it out and order one today!

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A row of climbers with their sleds, returning to basecamp after a succesfull climb of Mt Vinson, the highest mountain of Antarctica..

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It might be light 24 hours per day, but boy what was it cold once this little wind started blowing.

We were packing to get ready to fly with the Twinotter planes you see in the back, to Mt Vinson, the highest mountain of Antarctica and therefore one of the 7 summits.

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My apologies for the horizontal scrolling, but I thought it would be a shame to crop this to regular ExposedPlanet.com size…
This is a composite shot, created from about 9 separate shots, showing 180 degrees view from the BaseCamp f Mount Vinson, the highest mountain of Antarctica.

Shot at 02.00 (AM) at -20 (Celsius) at about -80 (degrees South) :)
Shot with Canon Eos 20d with Sigma 50mm fixed, using a tripod.

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Strangely enough this large plane lands on wheels on the Patriot Hills base (seen in the far right), Antarctica, 5 hour flight from Punta Arenas, Chile.

It uses a runway of hard blue ice, but it can only land when weather conditions are perfect. The freight plane carries supplies, machinery and climbers as well as scientists. See this other picture for a view into the plane if you want to see how luxurious this most expensive flight in the world is :)

Composite of 3 images, stitched together, shot with Canon EOS 20d and likely 70-200mm IS L lens.

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Patriot Hills is the small range where the commercial and scientific bases of the same name are based.

Most people only stay a short while to take a connecting Twinotter flight to the South Pole or to Mt Vinson, but there are actually some nice hikes in the area, like this ridge hike over the hills. It is very hard to estimate how far the other mountains are, the air is so pure that estimates are normally far off from the truth and a seemingly short walk can take hours in practice!

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Wikipedia:
About 98% of Antarctica is covered by the Antarctic ice sheet. The ice sheet is, on average, 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles) thick. The continent has approximately 90% of the world’s ice (approximately 70% of the world’s fresh water). If all of this ice were melted sea levels would rise about 61 m (200 feet). In most of the interior of the continent precipitation is very low, down to 20 mm/yr; in a few “blue ice” areas precipitation is lower than mass loss by sublimation and so the local mass balance is negative. In the dry valleys the same effect occurs over a rock base, leading to a desiccated landscape..

Welcome to the driest, highest and coldest continent…

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After 5 days in India, I thought it would be a good idea to go back to the cold :-)
This is the view from the toilet of Vinson BaseCamp, the highest mountain of Antarctica and therefore one of the 7 summits. You fly onto the continent in a huge Ilyushin freightplane, to get to the basecamp, you need to take a second, smaller Twinotter plane.

The toilet itself is a 180 degrees snow wall with a view. All urine and faeces are collected and all is flown out to South America, leaving no trace of the few dozen climbers per year..

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After being on the ice for almost 2 weeks, we headed back towards the mainland of South America. Most people were asleep, so I could see out of one of only 2 small windows this huge Ilyushin freightplane possessed. We passed the edge of the continent here, in the back you can still see a distant mountain range, in the foreground you can see the huge chunks of ice breaking off into enormous icebergs.

A little while later the sun was almost down the horizon -for the first time in 2 weeks- but then at about 4 in the morning it came up again.. One more day until our first moment of real darkness..

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As Antarctica is covered by a thick layer of ice, up to thousands meters high, many mountains and ranges are completely covered. But close to the Patriot Hills base you can see this range with many -likely unclimbed- peaks. It is really hard to tell how far it is, not only was this shot with a 200mm lens on a 20D, (so effectively 320mm), but the air is so clean and clear that distances are impossible to estimate.

To actually get to the spot where I took this picture, we thought we would have to walk for maybe 20 minutes, but only after more than an hour we came close..

Many clouds cover the ice but the ever present sun was shining through a series of small holes creating nice patches of light on this bright blue-grey scenery, shot in the very last hours of 2005..

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