Mountaineering In Antarctica
At the end of December 2015 my dad and I left for a trip to Antarctica. I actually spent NYE on a ship by the Antarctic Peninsula…first time thinking of that and it seems pretty neat to me! Tourism to Antarctica is limited but still popular and common. Different trips have different activities available. For example, there is camping, snowshoeing, kayaking, mountaineering, SUPing, and scuba diving available.
The idea is that if you’re signing up for mountaineering, you have a) done it before and b) have the proper equipment (i.e mountaineering boots). So many people signed up on our boat to do mountaineering that just didn’t have the experience or proper equipment, that they made it into a snowshoeing-based mountaineering excursion- which meant I was able to participate in it as well. I felt bad for my dad though since he had spent $$$ on some new boots! Definitely frustrating. The mountaineering excursion we went on was at Orne Harbour.
About Orne Harbour - from Wikipedia. lol.
Orne Harbor (64°37′S 62°32′WCoordinates: 64°37′S 62°32′W) is a cove one mile wide, indenting the west coast of Graham Land two miles southwest of Cape Anna along the Danco Coast on the west side of the Antarctic Peninsula. Discovered by the Belgian Antarctic Expedition under Gerlache in 1898. The name Orne Harbor was probably in use by Norwegian whalers, because it was used by Scottish geologist David Ferguson following his geologic reconnaissance of this area aboard the whaler Hanka in 1913.[1]
Orne Harbor is a popular excursion site for tourist expeditions to the Antarctic Peninsula. Activities including kayaking in the harbor and visiting a nearby chinstrap penguin colony.
The weather conditions were ok, a bit cloudy, a bit windy, but nothing too extreme. The zodiac ride from the ship to land was slow, with lots of maneuvering around ice floats. It was very serene and we were all quiet, taking in our surroundings.
The mountaineering trip was to a colony of Chinstrap Penguins. Not gonna lie- not the cutest penguins I’ve seen, their eyes were a bit beady. But, nonetheless a penguin in the wild is a penguin in the wild. Super neat.
Going up was the easy part. All in single file with one guide at the top and one guide at the bottom of the chain, it was very systematic and a smooth hike up to the penguin colony. Once we were at the top we unclipped from each other and explored the ridge a bit. We were up higher than I thought we would be and we had a view of the entire harbour.
Going back down was an entirely different story. Climbing down a steep incline can be harder than climbing up it, and I think since we were pseudo-mountaineering in snowshoes that made it more difficult than a descent normally may have been. While our guides were experienced in mountaineering, they had to take a step back and put their heads together to make sure we all got down as safely as possible. I don’t remember the details but I remember going down one-by-one and it being a bit sketchy, albeit exhilarating.
While it may not have been a proper mountaineering trip, it was such a unique experience that I am glad that I was able to tag on! Also… if you need mountaineering boots… hit me up because I’m sure he would be glad to sell them. (I think they were these La Sportiva Nepal EVO GTX ones)
