Hello cybernauts, this is Vern Tejas with MountainZone, and today we flew to Patriot Hills from the tip of South America. It's over 1,600 miles, and put us down at latitude 80 south and 81 west, right here on the big icy continent of Antarctica.

We were briefed that the weather was fly-able, so we loaded all of our equipment into the Russian jet known as an Alleutian. It's a huge cargo craft, large enough to swallow a truck...a big semi truck...and yet dainty enough to land on a runway made out of ice.

We landed quite smoothly, with over 20 wheels to suck up the impact of this huge jet, and put it down and we unloaded and all around us, the great continent opened up. We've got the mountains to the south of us, known as Patriot Hills, and on our way in, we were able to look out the window and see the Ellsworth, which is where Mount Vinson is located.

What enabled us to land here with wheels is a very rare glacialogical feature known as the blue-ice runway. Where the ice comes from is the Katabatic winds pouring down off the upper plateaus of Antarctica, over the Patriot Hills, and polishing the snow right down to the ice of the glacier itself. It only happens a few places throughout the continent, and we were fortunate that one of them is about 120 miles from the base of Vinson.

From here, at this transfer camp operated by Adventure Network International, we will jump into a smaller aircraft, either a Twin Otter or a Cessna 185, and then we will proceed onto the mountain itself. However, the weather there is not fly-able today. So therefore, we're on standby, and we just wanted to tell you hello from the big continent to all our loved ones out there, and we want you to stay tuned, as things develop.

Knock on wood, we'll get some good weather, and we'll update you from there.

Now, for statistics for today, we woke up with a nice saturation of 98 percent oxygen, 49 volts, minus 7 degrees here at Patriot Hills, and the pressure is 907 millibars. The wind is 21 kilometers out of the south, and this morning we have 8 octers of cloud cover, a stratus cloud covering the full sky. The altimeter says we're at 815 meters, and the lat and the long is, Latitude South 80° 18’, West 81° 21’. That gives you an idea of where we're located, in Patriot Hills, Antarctica.

Ciao for now, we'll see you in a little while. Bye.

— Vern Tejas, expedition leader and MountainZone.com correspondent