Touching The Top Of The Bottom Of The Planet: Mystic Climber Scales Antarctica's Tallest Mountain
Experienced mountaineers realize that reaching the peak isn’t the most important goal of any climb. The fact is, it doesn’t count unless you get back down.
Members of a five-man expedition to Antarctica’s 16,050-ft. Vinson Massif, including Todd Bausch of Mystic, understood that dictum a few weeks ago when, after clambering across glaciers and ascending with fixed ropes the remotest of Earth’s “Seven Summits,” were battered by four days of relentless, furious storms during their hellacious descent.
“Temps were -30 to -40 with sustained 60-90 mph winds from Sunday night to middle of night on Wednesday. Not once did the wind take a break. The first two days I kept my boots on in the tent in case it ripped apart. The last two I gave up and needed to sleep,” Bausch, safe at home after the 21-day excursion, said the other day.
Bausch, a marketing host at Foxwoods Resort Casino, often climbs with his wife, Jen – together the couple scaled 18,510-ft. Mount Elbrus in Russia, Europe’s tallest peak, and 19,341-ft. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Africa’s highest mountain, and also have tagged all 48 of New Hampshire’s 4,000-plus-foot mountains in summer and winter, accompanied by their black Lab, Denali.
Having tagged Vinson, Bausch, 45, now has knocked off six of the seven highest points on each continent, including Carstensz Pyramid in Oceania (16,024 ft.); Denali in North America (20,322 ft.); and Aconcagua in South America (22,841 ft.), along with Elbrus and Kilimanjaro.
That leaves only one, the biggest notch in any serious climber’s belt: Everest.
“Every mountaineer is intrigued by it,” Bausch said, when asked if he’s considering taking on the planet’s tallest mountain.
For the time being, though, Bausch is less focused on any future ascent of the 29,030-ft. Himalayan peak than on the enduring memory of Vinson, where conditions were much more challenging than anticipated.
“In all honesty I had no idea it was going to be that bad,” he said.
The savage gale made it impossible to venture more than a few yards, but luckily Bausch’s team was able to hole up in a sturdy tent normally occupied by rangers, who had descended to their quarters at the base.
“We were the only ones on the mountain,” he said. “One thing helped all of us was the 24-hour daylight.” Bausch said he couldn’t imagine what it would have been like to endure shrieking gusts in the dark.
The team followed the traditional mountaineering regimen – climb high, sleep low – in hauling gear to higher camps and then descending for the night, as part of their acclimatization to extreme cold and high altitude. They each dragged sleds loaded with about 80 pounds of supplies, plus carried another 50 pounds or so on their backs from the 7,000-ft. Base Camp to Camp 1 at about 9,000 feet.
It was there that Bausch awakened to a terrifying sound: a serac, or column of glacial ice, broke off an overhead cliff and thundered down the steep slope less than 100 yards from his tent.
He raced outside in time to see a great cloud of cascading ice crystals that fortunately veered away from their camp.
“It sounded a lot worse than it was,” Bausch said.
After a day’s rest the team then abandoned their sleds and used packs to carry gear to Camp 2 at about 12,400 feet.
It was from this high camp that climbers made their summit push.
Bausch credits guide Garrett Madison not just for expert leadership and technical skills but for keeping the group’s spirits elevated.
“Everybody remained positive. We ate well, nobody got crazy,” he said. Madison, based in Seattle, is regarded one of the world's top high altitude mountaineering guides, having on seven expeditions led 37 clients to the summit of Mt Everest between the years 2009-2015, more than any other American. He also has guided 10 expeditions to Vinson and many other formidable peaks around the globe.
On Vinson, Bausch felt strong but developed a nagging cough due to Antarctica’s extreme low humidity.
Though the 5.4-million square-mile continent is almost totally covered with an ice sheet that is the largest body of fresh water on Earth, precipitation is so minimal – only about an inch of snow a year, and scientists report no rain has fallen in the Victoria Land valleys for two million years – that Antarctica has been called “the world’s coldest desert.”
Bausch is grateful the storm hit on the way down rather than the way up, because if the timing were reversed they may have decided to turn back at the onset and therefore miss out on a dazzling summit view on an outrageously cold (-40 degrees) but mercifully windless day.
“It was incredible,” Bausch said, describing the blinding expanse of whiteness comprising the polar ice shelf that extended as far as the eye could see. It was both exhilarating and humbling to realize so few people have had that experience.
The mountain – named for Carl G. Vinson, a Georgia congressman who championed Antarctic exploration – was discovered in 1958 by a U.S. Navy aircraft, and first climbed in 1966. It was the last of the Seven Summits to be discovered and the last to be conquered. To date only about 1,600 people have reached the summit.
By comparison more than 4,000 have climbed Everest following the celebrated 1953 ascent by Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay.
The journey to Antarctica was an adventure in itself. The team assembled in Chile’s southernmost city of Punta Arenas in Tierra del Fuego, then boarded a Boeing 757 jet for a 4 ½-hour flight over the Drake Passage to Antarctica– by chance, a first-time landing for the twin-engine jet on the continent.
The landing strip consisted of a large strip of blue ice near the Union Glacier camp, and half an hour before touchdown the flight crew turned off the heat in the cabin so climbers could don layers of polypropylene, fleece and down clothing in preparation for the sub-zero temperatures they would encounter upon disembarking
The team then flew aboard a DC-3 and a Twin Otter to Vinson Base Camp to begin the climb.
Vinson doesn’t have sheer faces or yawning chasms, but is steep enough to require fixed ropes – especially helpful on the descent.
Bausch posed for pictures and unfurled an American flag at the top, but the team didn’t linger long knowing foul weather was approaching. They soon learned just how bad and made the right choice in delaying their descent for four days until skies cleared and winds subsided.
In do doing they abided by another mountaineering adage: A climbing expedition is like a plane landing; any one you can walk away from is a good one.
Bausch will present a program of the expedition at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 1, at Pawcatuck Middle School, 40 Field St. The event is open to the public, with all money raised through voluntary contributions benefiting the Stonington Education Fund.
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