Landing on the ice Photo: Wally Berg

Editor's Note: Veteran mountaineer Wally Berg is leading yet another adventure; this time, the Berg Adventures' 2003 Mt. Vinson expedition. The team will journey to the highest point on the "cold continent," the summit of Vinson Massif. Setting off from the town of Punta Arenas, Chile, the team flew by Russian jet over the Drake Passage to the settlement at Patriot Hills, Antartica. From there, they traveled to Vinson base camp.

The team consists of expedition leader Wally Berg, Gus Pope from Cayman, who climbed Elbrus with Berg in 2002; and Will Cross, who last year walked to the geographic North Pole on the Novolog Ultimate Walk to Cure Diabetes.

Dispatch from Wally
It's December 12 and Gus Pope, Will Cross and Wally Berg are reporting from the Branscombe Glacier. We've only been pulling our sleds and our packs above Base Camp for about an hour. But I'm looking down and the tents of Vinson Base are already becoming tiny little dots.

Beyond that, it's a perfectly clear day. I see the last foothills of the Ellsworth Mountains diminishing and beyond that I see the vastness of Antarctica. The icecap out there is almost surreal from here. It looks more like cloud than what it is. It's actually just the expanse of ice, the horizon is all you see out there and it really looks very hard to tell or imagine that it's thousands of feet of ice rather than just a layer of clouds.

Above us now is Mount Vinson. We don't know for sure how far we'll pull today. But it's good to finally be underway. We'll give you a report from some camp tomorrow when we get ourselves situated.

Our meals are already what I was referring to last night as "Antarctic Soul Food." I know Will Cross is used to it after doing a two-month pull last year when he did his trip to the South Pole. We eat just simple one-pot meals. I cooked some pasta, stuffed some of those frozen vegetables I told you about in at the last minute. The most important thing is I dumped a big wad of butter into both pots and we got our calories. We need it in these conditions.

So we're off and we're feeling great. It feels good to be moving finally and Mt. Vinson's before us here. We'll get there in a few days.

— Wally Berg, Expedition Leader