Mt. Vinson is a beautiful mountain reaching 16,067 feet in the heart of the Ellsworth Mountains, about 700 miles from the South Pole and 3,400 miles from the tip of South America. The mountain was first climbed by an American expedition in 1966-1967 and was not ascended a second time until 1979.

Vinson Massif on the approach to the Ellsworth Mountains. Guy Cotter

The ascent of Vinson is not a technical one, and its altitude challenge is moderate. But not surprisingly, because of its position in the Antarctic, it can be a very cold and challenging climb. As on Alaska’s Denali, we have experienced temperatures as low as -40 Fahrenheit, so in addition to having sound alpine and glacier travel skills, you will need to have experience in winter mountaineering. If you have or gain that alpine and cold weather background prior to the expedition, you should have an excellent chance to summit. This is a joint trip with Adventure Consultants, whose eight previous expeditions to Vinson have all been successful.

Ascending the icefall between Camps 2 and 3 on Mt. Vinson with the endless ice beyond. Guy Cotter

We meet in Punta Arenas in Chilean Patagonia and then fly to a base by the Patriot Hills at 80 degrees South 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 from our base involves extensive glacier travel on gentle and moderate slopes, and as we move up the mountain we’ll establish three camps at approximately 8,850 feet, 9,850 feet, and 12,150 feet. We take about six hours to climb to Camp 1 which is located at a beautiful vantage point below an ice-wall that drops directly from the main summit.

This first day is straightforward and a good way to ‘clear the cobwebs’ from the system after the sedentary nature of the access flights, and we also have the opportunity to further practice and apply our glacier travel and self-rescue procedures. As we begin to ascend the Branscomb Glacier we gain views of Mt Shinn, Antarctica’s second highest peak which sits adjacent to Camp 3.

From Camp 1 we’ll have a fairly easy four-hour climb to Camp 2 at 9,850 feet. As we move to both of our first two camps, we carefully skirt crevasses on the broken glacier while ascending slopes of moderate enough angle that we will be able to climb with roughly half our gear on our backs and tow the rest in sleds. When we move to Camp 3 at 12,150 feet, we carry expedition packs with enough supplies to last us five days (about 60 lbs. each). This is a six-hour climb that includes movement through a fairly simple icefall and which takes us to a sheltered position just below the windy summit plateau.

Climber high on Mt. Vinson with Mt. Shinn behind. Guy Cotter

From Camp 3 our climb to the summit will take seven to ten hours, and while not including technical terrain, will involve a careful threading of the heavily crevassed summit plateau. The summit rises dramatically from the plateau and we ascend it via a snow face increasing in angle to over 45 degrees on its west face. Once on the summit ridge we scramble over snow and rock steps for 200 feet to the summit itself. When we leave this grand place, our descent to high camp only takes a few hours and the next day we make it all the way to base camp where we prepare for the flights back to Patriot Hills and Punta Arenas.

Views throughout this climb are excellent, but the one from the summit is especially rewarding as we look out over the icecap stretching to the horizon, broken only by mountain summits rising through the ice which is thousands of feet thick. The scenery we take in from the top of Vinson is absolutely unique in the world and provides a major, additional reward to our achievement of reaching the summit of Antarctica.