This is Robert Anderson calling in from the Antarctica 2003 team. When we flew out of New York tonight there was a single green Christmas tree light right at the top of the Empire State Building, and that was capped by a red Christmas bauble hanging out there in the mist, which reminded us we've got a very long ways to go.

We're going south for the next 20 hours. It's kind of called the deep south, the far south, or way south. Got to go through Miami, Santiago, Portamonte and then Punta Arenas, Chile, where we've got a few days there. Over the last month we've packed, unpacked, repacked, purchased, sent back and re-ordered all of our equipment.

I remember the first time I went to Antarctica, about 10 years ago with Conrad Anker and Jay Smith, Jay commented, "Well, it's not like we can really send the porters back down for sugar, Robert," which is something we'd been able to do on some of our previous Everest expeditions together.

I'm joined here by Chris Heintz and Intesar Haider. We'll be meeting up with Peggy Foster and Bob Guthrie, who are flying down a bit later in the day. I think there's, at the start of any trip, a little bit of doubt and uncertainty, and since we're going into an area that we haven't been to before it's going to be pretty exciting at the same time. We've got skis along with us, and there's a lot of anticipation of some great climbing ahead.

We'll give you an update once we get to Punta Arenas, because we've got a lot of plans and a lot of things happening there that you'll probably want to hear about. So, we'll report back soon. Thanks.

— Robert Andersen, Expedition Leader and MountainZone.com Correspondent