Tim arrives in Punta

The flights down to Punta all went well, with only one close shave, a dash to catch the connecting flight leaving Santiago and Punta. I met several other Antarctic climbers in Madrid, it is difficult to miss us as we travel wearing our high altitude boots and outer jackets with the pockets stuffed full to endeavour to reduce the weight of the luggage we are checking in.

I arrived in Punta on Tuesday afternoon, it is now Thursday, we have been delayed due to high winds at the landing strip at Patriot Hills. This runway is one of only a few in the world that is on blue ice and has to be kept free of snow. It rarely snows in Antarctica, but it blows a bit. Last Sunday saw 100 knot winds. We can only fly down and land when the wind speeds are below 15 to 20 knots as the runway is prone to cross winds. Our plane is massive, a Russia Ilushin, it comes into land and due to ice cannot brake, so we ´skid´ for a long distance until finally coming to rest. We have been advised that great care is needed when we get off, as accidents involving broken bones have happened after climbers have slipped getting onto the ice from the plane, (that would be the end of any climbers dream of summiting Vinson. I have met a good friend who I climbed Carstensz Pyramid with last year, (CP is the highest mountain on the Australasia continent. We have also met up with another climber who we met on Denali in Alaska. Here in Punta it remains light for most of the time, it is light when we go to bed and light when we wake up. In Antarctica it will be light for 24/7. Temperatures at the moment are not too bad at minus 17 to 20 degrees C.