Good things come to those who wait!
December 16th, 2007    
Summit! We did it! On the morning of the 15th, we woke to sunshine, very light dimenishing winds and blue skies! What a shock after seven days of serious winds and cold. Almost didnt know what to do, but we figured it out fast, time to go for the top! Conditions were very good, some cloud and very light winds for the first 5 or 6 hours up. Its a long day, over 3400 vertical ft gain and 3.5 miles from high camp. As we approached the summit ridge some clouds blew in obscuring the view, but thats ok as it was a moment we had waited long and hard for. The summit of Vinson Massif! Eight hrs up and it would take us another 3 to get back down. Nicki and Brice did fantastic, tired but solid.
Congrats to Nicki who is 6 for 6 in her seven summits mission.
I am writing this from Vinson Base Camp as we had run out of batteries at high camp to do a report. So today we enjoyed a perfect morning at high camp, sunshine and calm. So we slept in, took our time packing camp, then started the long descent. Great weather to descend, sunny and hot. Down the fixed lines to Lower Camp, some time to reshuffle loads, visit with Dave Hahn and then start down to Vinson Base Camp. A long day and now its 2 am here in Base Camp and I'm trying to get this out before crashing. So we are all down safe, very tired, happy and now hopefully, with some luck, home before Christmas! We are tenativly scheduled for the second Twin Otter flight back to Patriot Hills, maybe tomorrow.
Quite a number of people from other groups are also here waiting to fly out after not summiting for various reasons, mostly after waiting for days for the week long storm to end, also there's
a couple folks that have frostbite and need to get out as quickly as possible (not from our group).
This has been an epic storm, several injuries, 8 tents blown apart, winds clocked at over 70 mph in Camp 1, and seven days of constant high winds over 30 in high camp. We were lucky and just waited up high for it to end, then ended up being the first group to summit, with another couple groups summiting this afternoon and tonight. So should be lots of people heading home now.
Sorry for the delay and any anxiety around this report. Will post some photos tomorrow from the summit!

Scott Woolums reporting from Vinson Base Camp.