DISPATCHE 12 : February 5th

Monday 5 February : Hubert and René blocked by the storm, Kathelijne, Ronald and the others waiting at Blue One.

No doubt for one of the last times, the satellite phone between the expedition and HQ has been put to work. It was Alain Hubert who had just woken up and who was calling from his tent. In fact, Hubert and René had left Sanae five days previously, despite a storm warning and therefore unfavourable conditions for making progress. Yesterday, Sunday, the two men were blocked some 37 km away from the German station, Neumayer, where the research vessel Polarstern is currently berthed. "We have been stuck in our tent since yesterday", Alain explained, "with visibility of barely three metres… But we still have time to get to Neumayer, and the Polarstern is only leaving the ice station on or about 08 /09 February and the people there are waiting for us…"

Although the progress of the two men - for this latest journey on the 6th Continent - may have been held up by the weather conditions (on Thursday, for example, they were only able to cover 19 km in 9 hours of walking) it was also as a result of some stupid absentmindedness. When the DC3 from Blue One dropped René and Alain off at Sanae, they in fact forgot to unload their skis: the emotion in meeting up again with old chums and the hurry of the DC3 pilot to set off again as soon as possible, no doubt.

In short, Robert and Hubert found themselves without skis. So they had to borrow some from Sanae, skis that were clearly not equipped for withstanding long distances. On this subject, Hubert observed: "It's odd all the same," he told us yesterday, "the people here have no knowledge of the terrain that lies between them and the Neumayer station! So we set off into the unknown, but despite the skis that fell apart fairly soon, which meant that we had to go on on foot, the journey was all right…" Furthermore, Alain's sledge was very heavy…
Once at Neumayer, the duo will board the Polarstern, which, because some scientists still have some research work to do in the Weddell Sea, should take nearly a fortnight to get to Punta.

As for the rest of the team (Kathelijne, André Georges, Alain Bidart, Fabrizio and Ronald), they are waiting from the arrival of the Illyushin 76. Some bad news reached us a few days ago: the South African satellite, Sunsat, which, until now, has been acting as a relay for the retransmission of the information contained in the software programmes of the weather stations installed by Ronald Ross, has broken down and, from the last we heard, is definitively out of service. We do not yet know whether this incident is jeopardising all the work that the American has accomplished.

Saturday 3 February : André Georges tells about one of his ascents. Impressive...

"The tabernacle of Ulvetanna is a single block of exceptional rock crowned with a white hat. A most aesthetic dièdre, the route. All climbers that pass by the foot of it want to go there. I'm going solo to bring my Antarctic tour to an end. From below, it looks easier than it really is. A 500-metre high inverted rock face, it will take me five days to get to the end, with some very difficult moments. The left part of the dièdre is inverted, and at each rappel you have to hang to find the next relay. Solo, one has to make some good moves with the ropes to avoid being left suspended like a sack. Not a single metre of easy climbing, each centimetre is won by force in cracks that are often wide. A set of large "friends" and "big brothers" are a great help. Two days of snow that doesn't settle, it's too steep, and moments of cold to improve the menu..."

"Suddenly I'm flying, one of the "friends" has given way, the piton beneath it as well, and I find myself hanging ten meters further down ..."

"It's very hard but mule-head sticks at it. Standing on a stirrup on a small "friend" for a few moments, looking at what's ahead. Suddenly, I'm flying, one of the "friends" has given way, the piton beneath it as well, and I find myself hanging ten meters further down. A small 5-mm cord is my belay, tied in a prusik knot to the main rope that yields as I go along. The impact made 20 metres of the rope hot and the two nylons welded themselves together!! A few aches and pains, nothing to worry about, I go up again, put back the same piton, put the same friend very precisely back where it had been and go ahead with the passage."

"After more than a month and a half of climbing, and now familiar with this rock, I'm in good shape. Exiting chimneys, with athletic jamming as dessert. A breather on an ice screw in the gully of the exit in fantastic surroundings. I'm pleased to have been able to take this course which is exceptional both in terms of beauty and difficulty, where the solitary ant was nibbling away with massive concentration for five whole days. Birds defy gravity. The spider in its web is not worried about the thin air all around it. But what on earth is man doing there? "
André Georges