Hello cybernauts of MountainZone, this is Vern Tejas reporting from Patriot Hills, Antarctica.

Well, well, well. Day Four of the weather ordeal. Goodness gracious. The wind's still blowing, however it has dropped a bit. It's down in the 20 range, miles an hour, that is. Temperature, everything else is the same. So we're still in a holding pattern because now some clouds have come over.

But with the wind dropping we've had quite a bit of activity today. People have been getting out and walking around. People have been digging out...as a matter of fact, we dug out the back of the kitchen, the Adventure Networks' main facility, so that we could dig out all of the bags of garbage and prepare them for transport on the silver bird, on the silver Alleutian when it comes in.

So we spent a little bit of time doing that today. And then, after a jam session, some music, we got the kites out. The 5-meter kite, built on the basis of a NASA parawing, was just a little bit too much cloth for me. I got drug quite a ways. So I put that away and popped up my little 3-meter kite, which is a stunt kite, but it's built for kiteboarding. And it was just the ticket. I've had quite a session. I feel like I've done about 500 chin-ups in a row, or skied at the edge of my ability for over an hour. It's quite a pump.

I also did an interview with Doug Stope, who's down here this year testing out a bicycle. His whole trick is to see if he can ride it around and maybe even go to the South Pole with it. So he's doing some testing and research this year. He did go off for three or four days, got caught in a big blow. He says the bicycle wasn't very good in deep snow, even though he's got wide tires on it. He had some troubles once he got into deep snow, light snow. Sixty knot headwinds also slowed him down. He said his sled was pulling him sideways, moved his back wheel around.

So anyway, it was fun. I got to test out his bicycle today. And that was a riot. (It's) a really interesting hybrid, something between a mini-bike and a bicycle. It's hard to believe. You've got to see it. So, I'll be taking some pictures of it, and maybe we'll post them on the Web site.

Uh, the lady who's missed her wedding is a little bit frustrated. We tried to cheer her up today. She's now three days overdue for her wedding, so please send your prayers and keep your fingers crossed and hopefully the weather will left enough that we can get out of here.

Everybody's in high spirits now that the sky's at least starting to break up. Just this evening, we can actually see some blue, the runway is clean enough. All we need now is just a little bit of a positive trend, and soon we'll be on our way.

So thinking of all you back home, think of us and send good thoughts our way for the weather. Ciao for now, this is Vern Tejas, signing off from Patriot Hills.

— Vern Tejas, expedition leader and MountainZone.com correspondent