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Omega High Antarctic GPS Expedition 2004 - The expedition plan
Oct 6, 2004 13: 45 EST
The primary objective of the Omega High Antarctic GPS Expedition 2004 is to accurately locate and measure all the high peaks of Vinson Massif. Here is part 2 of the Omega series - The team's expedition plan:
Stage 1 – Vinson – The High Peaks
Several of the Vinson high peaks have been climbed over the years but at least two of the highest remain unclimbed. The Omega team will place high camps on the Vinson summit plateau to access these peaks, in addition to occupying and measuring the main summit of Vinson itself.
The main summit has now been climbed over 700 times since the first ascent on 21st December 1966. It is planned that the Omega team will use the normal route to ascend Vinson, but may also use another shorter route from the lower Branscombe Glacier to access some of the more westerly of the high peaks. This option will be considered once on location, after assessing conditions on the mountain and the progress of the team to that point.
After several of the Vinson high peaks are occupied, the team will return to a lower camp and submit the data to the AUSPOS website for processing, as Omega teams have done on their last two Antarctic GPS projects – Mt. Shinn 2002 and Livingston Island 2003.
AUSPOS is a free GPS data processing service run by Geosciences Australia. Omega teams access AUSPOS via the Iridium satellite network, with data uploaded from their laptop containing the data downloaded from the Trimble 5700 GPS receiver. The data is collected by operating the receiver on the highest point of the summit for at least six hours.
Once the results of that work are confirmed and the equipment recharged, the team will then return to the upper mountain. For a full description of the data processing routine and technology, see the Shinn 2002 report at www.theomegafoundation.org.
A secondary science objective for the Omega team is to collect data on atmospheric conditions at different locations and elevations in the area. The thin, cold, dry and clean atmosphere of Antarctica is valuable for astronomy and these qualities are magnified at its higher altitudes.
By measuring atmospheric conditions at various points the team will be able to ascertain the utility of such locations for future infrared observations to help develop Antarctic astronomy. Such work is already carried out in other high areas of the continent, but not as high as the Omega team will be.
Stage 2 – Mt. Craddock – The Long Traverse
The second stage of the Expedition will be to traverse south across the Vinson summit plateau and ascend Mt. Craddock by the north ridge. Mt. Craddock is currently considered to be the fourth-highest mountain in Antarctica at 4650m. However, in December 2002 an Omega Foundation team (Damien & Rodrigo) measured Mt. Shinn, Antarctica’s third-highest mountain and found it to be 4661m – around 140m lower than previously thought.
Therefore there is a good chance that Mt. Craddock is lower than its currently accepted height. If a similar discrepancy exists on Craddock as on Mt. Shinn, then Craddock could in fact be lower than Mt. Gardner, which at 4587m is currently accepted as the fifth highest mountain in Antarctica.
Traversing to Craddock from Vinson has never been done and will require at least two high camps to be placed to the south, past the summit of Vinson. The 18km traverse from Vinson to the summmit of Craddock and back is expected to take several days, all spent climbing above 4000m.
Mt. Craddock has only one previous ascent, by the West Spur in December 1992. A few climbers have traversed sections of the summit plateau when finishing climbs on the southern and western sides of Vinson, usually encountering long flat sections of hard windblown ice, accompanied by extremely low temperatures and high winds.
Tomorrow: Part 3 final: Stage 3 - Beyond Vinson, Access & Logistics.
This will be Damien’s sixth expedition to Antarctica. He led the successful Omega Foundation projects on Mt. Shinn (2002) and Livingston Island (2003) and previously summited Vinson Massif on an Omega expedition in 2001. He is the author of The Antarctic Mountaineering Chronology (1998), the only reference book on mountaineering in Antarctica and is currently working on a second book due out in 2005.
In 1998 Rodrigo Fica and some friends made the first complete north to south crossing of the Southern Patagonian Icecap, a gruelling journey recounted in his upcoming book Bajo la Marca de la Ira. Since then he has been on successful Omega Foundation Antarctic expeditions to Mt. Shinn (2002) and Livingston Island (2003). A computer engineer by training, he now makes his living in the mountains, in addition to writing and photography and often climbs with his wife Patricia Sotos, the first Chilean woman to climb Mt. Everest.
Camilo Rada studies astronomy at Universidad Catolica in Santiago. On recent expeditions with friends he has made the coveted first winter ascent of San Lorenzo, the second-highest peak in Patagonia and before that, the second winter ascent of San Valentin, the highest mountain in Patagonia. Camilo has made other expeditions in Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, including the first ascent of Volcan Melimoyu. This will be his first trip to Antarctica.
The Omega Foundation is a Non-Profit Organization dedicated to supporting scientific, environmental, educational and literary endeavor in the Antarctic region.
Image an old USGS shot of the summit plateau of Vinson from the West, courtesy Damien Gildea.
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