Valery Pershin and Evgeny Vinogradsky (Ekaterinburg, Russia).
Translated by Anna Piunova, www.Mountain.RU

Antarctica

The 13 expedition members arrived from Cape Town in Novolazarevskaya on January 25 on board of the cargo aircraft IL-76. A day later, we started out exploring the heart of the ice continent. None of us has ever been there.

We packed haul bags in two new experimental ATVs (all-terrain vehicles) and set off for the Base Camp where the advance team has already been awaiting our arrival. The terrain had countless crevasses on but it didn’t seem to pose any problems for our ATVs. On our way to the BC at elevation 1641 m in the Woltat Massive we could see a lot of magnificent mountains with real walls and many potential lines for climbing.

The weather was fine – the impressive Antarctic summer with endless days and serenely beautiful sky. The temperature was about –10C. We came to the Antarctic with hopes of doing at least four virgin peaks; one of them should be modern big-wall climbing.

Evgeny Vinogradsky, the expedition doctor, took daily stats on our respiration, pulses, and blood pressure, and have prepared little medical emergency bags for us.

Peak Valery Chkalov, 6A (Russian grade), 800 meter South wall.

The following day on January 28 we divided into two groups. The team from Krasnoyarsk city (Russia, Siberia) started pressing the South beautiful granite 800-meter wall of peak 2510m, noted in some sources as peak Schvartze. They shared their work, one day Oleg Khvostenko partnered with Gleb Sokolov would lead on a route completely void of snow and ice (about 14 working hours), then they finished and abseiled to Base Camp for having a day off while the pair Peter Kuznetsov-Pavel Zaharov went on pitch pre-fixing, etc. The job was rather hard, they succeeded in fixing two and a half pitches per day. The climb basically followed fractured ridge up the middle of the face. It took five full days to do 14 difficult aid pitches with a bit of free climbing to attain a good ledge wide enough to set up a tent. On February 1^st the team gathered all together on that ledge for next push. They had lifted food and water to that point but later they managed to find some snow in the buttress. The team of 4 spent their next nights in the tent on the route. The same day they set out to do their ascent from a bivy, they found excellent crack climbing on sound granite, placing stoppers, friends, fifis, anchors and sometimes free climbed, encountering crack climbing up to 6A (Russian grade). They placed bolts for belays only. Having fixed the slightly overhanging final pitches, the team started out for the summit push.

On February 5 by 2 a.m. they pulled onto the top of the route. They completed the first ascent after 21 rope-stretching pitches; the descent took them a full day. Perfect weather was a key to their success. Some days were deliciously snap frozen; the temperature was from –10C to –25/-30C. And a magnificent climbing, too! They found that there were a lot of lines with free climbing potential.

The climbers gave this mountain name Peak Valery Chkalov - after the name of legendary Russian pilot who performed the first non-stop flight from Moscow to Vancouver over North Pole in 1937.

Peak Georgy Zhukov (2180m).

Meanwhile on January 29^th we set out to do the first single-day ascent of a beautiful nameless peak, (2180m) via snowy and icy Northern slope up to the Western ridge, finding 3B (Russian grade) climbing, placing friends, stoppers, eccentrics where it was necessary. We proceeded up a 45 degrees ridge, covered with snow and ice, alternating. The wind was blowing hard. It took us seven hours to ascend. While descending we lost a few hours to find good way for abseiling. The entire time elapsed was about 11 hours. We named this mountain after Georgy Zhukov (named after Soviet marshal of World War 2 who was leading the Eastern front against nazi). Absolute 2180 m, with 540 m height difference from basement. Team members were E.Vinogradsky, Valery Pershin, Alexander Foigt.

Peak Vladimir

Peak Georgy Zhukov

Peak Gesser

Peak Valery Chkalov

Peak of St. Boris and Gleb (2355m).

On February 1^st we started out for a peak St. Boris and Gleb (2355m, overfall is 1000m) climbing it by its south arête, and encountered several pitches of 3B. We made it to the col but from this point up it was getting steeper and rather dangerous, and the stretch of bad weather forced us to divide. Visibility was down to five meters. Following the orders of the team leader (Evgeny Vinogradsky) Valery Kuzin and Maxim Volkov returned to Base Camp. The other members of this ascent were: Yury Baikovsky, Evgeny Vinogradsky, Valery Pershin and Georgy Gatagov. The rest of the way up took us four hours. Upon achieving the summit, we placed there an orthodox cross which was brought from Russian Church of St. Boris and Gleb.

Peak Vladimir (2239m), height difference is 600m.

Two days later, the weather hasn’t changed. It was blowing hard. While into vehicle we put on all equipment, drove up to the mountain as close as possible, and dove into lee cupola side. Within a few moments we were on the rather steep ridge. We continued roped climbing along ridge then crossed it for another side. The wind calmed down. We passed several ice pitches, then two more rock pitches to the summit, finding 4B climbing.

Peak Gesser (2060m), height difference is 660m.

We saw the beautiful summit of the Gesser peak (named after Buriat epic hero) while climbing the peak of St. Boris and Gleb. We made it on its south arête; having basically unroped climbing without any technical difficulties. Everything went well. 3B climbing over two summit pitches with some loose rock demanded fixing the rope. The members were V.Kuzin, M.Volkov, E. Vinogradsky, G.Gatagov, Y. Baikovsky.

When we summited on February 5 we knew that would be the last episode of our Antarctic climbing.

It was time to return home. But we had an unexpected problem - one of two vehicles was broken down and it seemed impossible to repair it under that circumstances. The situation was critical, we had only one vehicle, and if anything would go wrong we’d find ourselves in an ice captivity, 200 km from Novolazorevskaya. Valery Kuzin started developing a way of airplane demobilization. But for it a landing ground would be required. We hoped everything would be OK.

The only way to return was in two raids. We packed our stuff and set off, the rest awaiting their turn in the BC. The vehicle crashed 30 km from the aerodrome. A wheel fell off. It was awesome! A stop in the snow desert in the depth of night. We got in touch with the pilot of another vehicle, and he promised to do his best and find us. It took him about three hours in spite of GPS and signal rockets. It was freezing hard.

Never mind, made one out of two, swapping wheels from one to another, left one right out in the field and departed on the second one. Later on, when we fetched the second party, we returned for it and towed it back. Involved an airplane to evacuate people. That’s the way it was. In fact, it was fairly tough. No one would lose their heads, there was some spare rigidity, we certainly would not get frozen, would put on our skis and go, we had the logistics, tents, sleeping bags.

Thus our expedition ended successfully. An amazing region. An outstanding beauty. Looking down from the top, it’s like the Himalaya. Peaks peeking through the clouds, but it’s not through the clouds but through ice. Unusual colors We were fortunate in climbing five virgin peaks.

Expedition members:

The wall team:

Gleb Sokolov (Novosibirsk), Oleg Khvostenko, Peter Kuznetsov, Nikolay Zaharov (three from Krasnoyarsk);

Other climbers:

Evgeny Vinogradsky (Ekaterinburg) - the leader of the team and high-altitude doctor, Valery Pershin (also Ekaterinburg), Alexander Foigt (Novoskuznetsk).

Yury Baikovsky (Moscow) – the chief coach.

Valery Kuzin (Moscow) – the director of the expedition, first vice-president of Russian Olympic Committee, the deputy of the State Duma of Russian Federation.

Maxim Volkov, Georgy Gatagov (Moscow) – coordinators of the expedition.

ATV drivers: Victor Aksenov and Nikolay Kuptsov (both from Ryasan).

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