Mt. Vinson Expedition

Departing high camp with Mike Roberts.
Max Ratio – 10 climbers with 2 guides

Capacity – 10 climbers

Duration – 16 days

​Some expeditions do offer the opportunity to ski the last degree to the South Pole. Inquire for details.

Inclusions:

• Flights to and from Union Glacier in Antarctica
• Flights from Union Glacier to Vinson Massif base camp and return
• Professional Mountain Guides’ services
• All expedition organizational requirements
• Tents and group cooking equipment
• Group climbing equipment
• Use of expedition satellite phone for outgoing calls
• Dispatch webpage updated throughout the trip for friends and family to follow
• Transport of 50 lbs (23 kg) of personal equipment

​Exclusions: Air travel to and from Punta Arenas, Chile; Hotel and meals in Punta Arenas; visa and airport fees; personal insurance – full travel, trip cancellation, medical, and rescue insurance is required. Medical evacuation insurance coverage of US$150,000 is required; personal clothing and equipment; excess baggage transport charges of US$77 per kg for any baggage exceeding the personal equipment weight limit; cost of satellite phone call while on the expedition.

The American Alpine Institute strives to provide the highest quality service and leadership to our climbers around the world. On certain expeditions, we reach out to our partners to combine resources and offer an experience unmatched by any other guide service. This is a joint expedition with Adventure Consultants who maintains the same standards for excellence as AAI.

Rob Hall and Gary Ball, the founders of Adventure Consultants, ran their first commercial expedition to Vinson Massif in December 1992. They worked together with Adventure Network International (ANI) whom they had established a relationship with in 1990 for the Vinson climb that completed their “Seven Summits in Seven Months” project. Rob had already climbed the mountain in 1989 as a field assistant to geologists Ed Stumps and Paul Fitzgerald; theirs was a United States Antarctic Research Program expedition that also included Ed’s brother Mugs, an accomplished American alpinist.

Antarctic wilderness reflected in a climber’s goggles on Vinson. Guy Cotter.

Vinson and most of the other high Ellsworth peaks were first climbed in 1967 by American alpinists supported from McMurdo Station by the United Sates government program.

Giles Kershaw was a veteran polar pilot who during the 1980’s pioneered landing large wheeled aircraft on natural ice runways. He founded ANI and established a tent camp at Patriot Hills, accessed by DC6 aircraft flying direct from Punta Arenas. This made the Ellsworth Mountains accessible to private adventurers.

AAI and Adventure Consultants have continued to take advantage of the relative accessibility of Patriot Hills (now called Union Glacier) to stage Antarctic expeditions including ascents of Vinson Massif. We’ve been consistently running these expeditions since 1994.

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We meet in Punta Arenas in Chilean Patagonia and then fly to a base by the Patriot Hills at 80 degrees South, called Union Glacier Camp, where there is a seasonal tent encampment and where our aircraft can make a wheeled landing on a natural blue-ice runway. We spend one night there and the next morning fly about an hour north in smaller, ski-equipped aircraft to our base camp at 7,874 feet on the Branscomb Glacier at the base of Vinson. Here we will review the Leave No Trace techniques that we will be using, go over crevasse rescue and glacier travel procedures, and do the final organizing of our gear.

The climb involves interesting glacier travel on the wide and gently sloping lower reaches of the Branscomb Glacier. We pull our sleds up the glacier far below the impressive ice falls that cascade from the main Vinson plateau, 1,500m/5,000ft above.

The Base Camp is situated on the Branscomb Glacier at approximately 2,100m/6,900ft and we use two higher camps at approximately 2,700m/8,850ft and 3,850m/12,600ft. The Low Camp is situated further up the glacier just beyond the second icefall, below an ice-wall, which drops directly from the main summit which is about a 7-hour walk from Base Camp punctuated by regular breaks to take in the scenery. We carry half of our equipment in a rucksack and the other half we tow behind on a small plastic sledge.

From Low Camp, we climb a 1,200m/4,000ft snow arête (up to 40 degrees steep) on fixed rope for approximately 800m/2,600ft. Fixed rope techniques will be taught during the expedition. The snow arête leads us to High Camp which takes about 6–9 hours. High Camp is nestled beside a rocky ridge adjacent to the main summit plateau.

The climb from High Camp to the summit normally takes between 7 and 10 hours, depending on the speed of the party. The descent back to the top camp takes around 2½ hours. On summit day as you climb the glacial plateau, you will first pass Branscomb Peak on the left and the final Vinson summit pyramid then lies directly ahead. From here we climb the picturesque East Ridge, weaving in and out of small rock steps until we arrive at the stunningly beautiful summit and the highest point on the Antarctic continent.

There is a Sierra Club book in a metal tin on the summit of the peak for those wishing to record their ascent–only about 1,200 climbers have reached the peak since it’s first ascent in 1966. The descent from High Camp down to Base Camp can be achieved reasonably comfortably in one day. We collect the toilet bags and other waste on the way down the mountain.​

Transport aircraft near SL. AAI/AC Collection.