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Dispatch
#10 January 17, 2002. Summit, Mt. Vinson,
Antarctica. This
is Vern Tejas with the Alpine Ascents Vinson summit
team. We're standing on the top of the bottom
of the world!! We have just made the summit of
Mt. Vinson! Our whole team is here, and
everybody's doing well. We're taking pictures
and giving handshakes and hugs all the way around.
The Kazakhs are the first ones ever to make it from
their country. They're celebrating, what fun
what joy! Everybody's taking photographs,
right now all of our eagle scouts are taking a
photograph on the summit. Literally we are
having so much fun here we can hardly even tell you
guys. This is a riot of color, a riot of
happiness. All of our persistence paid off all
of our patience finally came to bear. So Team
Patience and Persistence is now standing on the top
and having a gay old time! Woo Hoo! Thanks the
powers that be. It is dead calm up here,
fingers are out of gloves, faces are totally
exposed, it must have been 60 degrees on the
way up here, we can't believe it. We
have down clothing good to 50 below and yet most of
us are just burying our faces in our hands in this
wonderful beautiful weather.
It's
now about 7, 7:30 in the evening and it's a
beautiful evening. The mountains to the south,
Shinn and Garndner and and Epperly are standing
boldly above all of the clouds. They flatten
out and provide a nice beautiful plane of pure white
out to the North and to the South of us, all the way
around. You can see the curvature of the Earth
it is so fantastic! Mountains everywhere, but
you know what, because there are also all those
clouds and we know we won't be flying anytime soon.
So Team Persistence and Patience will be standing by
to fly back. Anyway, celebrate with us, Whoo!
We have finally reached the top of the bottom of the
world, ciao for now talk to you later.
 Dispatches
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