14,200ft Camp

Basin Camp

It’s time to move on to Talkeetna

It’s raining in Anchorage and I believe it’s snowing on Mt McKinley so the chances of our landing on the Kahiltna Glacier tomorrow as scheduled are under a cloud (in more ways than one).

I arrived in Anchorage well after midnight on the 3rd May.  Delays out of Seattle and then my pick to take the Hotel shuttle worked against an earlier arrival at my hotel.  Forgetting to make the 1 hour time zone adjustment then led to confusion on Sunday morning as I arrived at REI and AMH outdoor stores well before they opened – thankfully the local cafe was open and I found myself another “best Mocha in the city” location at Kaladji Brothers in the Northern Lights strip mall.

The melee that is my gear list. Now to get it into some form of order!

After 3 days in Anchorage I’m ready to move onto Talkeetna.  I’ve started my usual “have I got everything?” pre trip panic and the sooner I get this phase behind me the better.

This afternoon I meet the other members of the expedition at the airport and then we have the drive through to Talkeetna before the final gear review and pack down, including all of the group equipment and food before we check in at the National Park Service office early tomorrow afternoon.

Maybe we’ll fly, maybe we won;t but at least I’ll then be focused on setting foot on the glacier and getting underway.  There will be no more time to second guess myself about equipment, training or ability on the mountain.

Hopefully I’ll get one more post to you before we fly and then my posts will be via audio.

Stay in touch.

GAVIN

 

Successful

Fantastic news  – the revised Heard Island Expedition 2016 roster is out and I’ve made the cut so I’m heading south from Cape Town in March 2016.

The team is down to 14 in total from the original 35.   It’s going to be an intensive 3 weeks on Heard Island as each of us will have to make a much bigger contribution to maintaining daily operations.

DELAYED

There’s nothing easy about getting to Heard Island.  Our expedition has been delayed until March 2016 as the charter for the vessel we were to sail from Fremantle on did not come through.

And in a good example of “it’s who you know” a few phone calls later a replacement charter has been arranged – but there’s a down side, the expedition roster has been cut from 35 to 15!!  I’m clinging to a hope that I’ll make the cut and be on the very reduced team that will now leave Cape Town for Heard Island in March next year.

Fingers and toes crossed – I really want to be heading deep into the Southern Ocean next year….

Time to get serious about Heard Island Expedition

It’s now only 7 months until we sail from Freemantle to Heard Island.  In the next week the charter of the vessel Akademik Shokalskiy will be confirmed and the permits from Australian Antarctic Division will be applied for.  It’s all go from here on in.

Several weeks back I returned to my local gym to be confronted by scales telling me I had stacked on 7kg’s of “conditioning” while I’ve been resident at the hotel in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea.  A more strict diet is now in place and my training programme has stepped up a gear.  Thankfully I’ve managed to shed 3 kg’s so far as I head back down to the low 80kg’s I hope.

Soon it will be time to start carrying a heavily weighted back pack around the local streets – I can’t wait !!

A step closer to Heard Island

Last week the Sydney based participants of the Heard Island Expedition meet with Bob Schmeider, the Californian based expedition organiser.

And with that meeting it was proved to me that this really is happening.  The idea to visit Heard Island was first planted in my mind 2 years ago and it wasn’t until last week that I really accepted that this was a real extreme adventure that I fortunate enough to be involved in.

Bob was excited to tell us about the planning that’s going on in California, the chartering of the Akademik Shokalskiy, the discussions with Australian Antarctic Division representatives for the permit to land on the island.  There is now only 8 months until we depart and still much to do.  But now it’s real!

And then to spend time with  Grahame Budd, Mr Heard Island for me.  He’s been to the Heard Island 8 times already, he was the first to summit Big Ben and he has authored many publications about the island.

1 year on…

Today in Australian everybody is celebrating Australia day, B-B-Q and a cold beer (or 2 maybe).  One year ago it much different for me – I had reached the summit of Mt Aconcagua – 6,692 metres, my personal best altitude before descending back to High Camp in a white out!!

I’m looking forward to another big year as I prepare for Heard Island in Nov/Dec.