By: randosteve|Posted on: November 1, 2009|Posted in: Antartica, International, South America | 14 comments

Kind of mellow dramatic, but click here for
some musical accompaniment to this post.

Antarctica MapWow, the day is finally here and today I am off to Ushuaia, and the southern most point of Argentina and South America. It will take two full days to get there, but luckily the longest flight to the southern hemisphere is overnight, so hopefully I can get some rest and sleep during that time. I think I’m traveling on most of the flights with John Griber, Andrew McLean and Doug Workman, so with all of us together, it could be a bit of a peanut gallery.

The IceAxe.TV ship to the Antarctica Peninsula (The Clipper Adventurer) doesn’t leave Ushuaia until the morning of Nov 6th, so we should have time for a few days of skiing and stretching the legs in the mountains outside of Ushuaia before the two day voyage across theIceAxe.TV Drake Passage to the Antarctic Peninsula. During the time on the ship, I believe I will have access to the internet, so I will hopefully be able to post updates every so often. Be sure to check out IceAxe.TV and Skiing Magazine as weel, because I think there will be update posted there as well.

The ship is due back in Ushuaia on Nov 17th, where I will spend one day regrouping, before heading to Mendoza, Argentina with Glen Poulsen, one of my partners in the next adventure to ski the Polish Glacier on Aconcagua, one of aconcagua-update8the seven summits. A lot of this part of the trip is up in the air regarding when we will be able to head in to basecamp, since we will be there at the beginning of the season, but none-the-less…will soon be joined by Kim Havell, Dan Smith and Kelli Okonek to make our attempt at the summit. The permit to climb the peak is for 21 days and I am scheduled to leave on Dec 11th, bringing me back to Jackson on the 12th. Internet access will be non-existent on the mountain, but we will have a satellite phone and I may be able to contact Randokitty, who has graciously offed to update TetonAT while I’m away. What a good Kitty!!!

Anyway, the trip will be just over six weeks, the longest time I will have been away from Jackson at one time, so it is a little intimidating, especially since I only packed three pairs of underwear.  The hardest part will be being away from the Kitty for so lng, but i printed off some pictures to remind me of her while I’m away, so I can at least imagine some purring next to me each night. Well, I’ll do my best to post updates when I can…so ciao…for now!!!

Pl