Mountaineering in Antarctica with Gianluca Cavalli, Manrico Dell'Agnola, Marcello Sanguineti

The Antarctic Peninsula is mountainous terrain and, like all of Antarctica, partially unexplored. Another purpose of the expedition carried out by Gianluca Cavalli, Manrico Dell'Agnola, Marcello Sanguineti is to explore new valleys and be the first to ascend some peaks via climbing routes. But to reach the base of these walls they were forced to cross some very treacherous glaciers filled with crevasses... Check out the third and last of the Karpos web series.

16 January. Normally the Antarctic coast consists of frozen walls that are sometimes more than 50 meters high and at times even overhanging. The great difficulty is finding the approach points, that is, those points where the glaciers allow you to climb up to the plateaus. They are usually rocky spurs that lead to easily climbable snowslides. We are led to the only point where the glacier can be accessed. It’s no longer raining and it’s not cold, but the sky is black; the forecasts were wrong today too. After a steep slope we cross the glacier, zigzagging between the crevasses. Large, dark holes force us to take long detours, sometimes even losing elevation. We advance with great caution, roped up; an accident here would be fatal. After a rappel, large blue “toboggans” take us to the base of the wall, which we reach after about three hours of ups and downs. Now the weather is a bit better, but a cold, damp fog continues to rise from below. The couloir is above us and the blue of the good ice encourages us. Less auspicious are the huge meringues on the sides of the chute; considering the landslides of the previous days, they worry us a lot. It’s nearly noon when we attack, but here it’s almost never dark and we don’t think it will take long to get to the top anyway. Ice, like snow and water, is not my favorite element, but up here it’s so beautiful that I easily forget the fatigue and especially what looms over our heads.

After a few hours we finally emerge on top. Now it’s really cold! It’s after 9 p.m. and the sun is still above the horizon, so low it casts a bluish light on the glacier, highlighting the crevasses and any other ripples, no matter how small. From above, the sea appears motionless and smooth, dotted with large blue blocks. Everything went well. The ice meringues remained in place. The descent takes hours on a very complicated glacier, and at 1 a.m., without headlamps, we land directly on the dinghy with the last rappel.

Link: www.karpos-outdoor.com