Name = Laura Kosbar

Email = kosbar@gmail.com

File attached = P1110532.JPG

Message =
This samstone was left on the peak of Mt. Demaria on the western side
of the Antarctic peninsula. In the picture, the first person has just
summitted, and that is near where Sam’s stone is. There is a
beautiful 360 degree view of mountains, icebergs, and glaciers…

Mt. Demaria is the only climb we ended up being able to do on Antarctica, due to the weather. But, it turned out to be a very memorable climb…. It is about 635 M tall, and is at 65 degrees, 17′ south and about 62 degrees 32′ west (this one is an estimate, as it was for a harbor we stayed in that night – the southern latitude is correct, however). It was the most southerly point of our trip. Going up was a snow slog (they had a lot of late spring snow down there this year), but with beautiful views all the way. Some of the people who did not climb got pictures of us as we neared the summit (I sent one of these to the website). I left the samstone right on the summit, but did not get a picture of it, as I didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that I was leaving something there (which is technically against the rules) and it is hard to hide things when you are with 14 other people in a confined area (it was a pretty small summit area). The descent is part of what made the climb even more memorable for me, though. We had three ropes with five people on each rope. I was actually “leading” the middle rope (which meant I was at the back of it on the way down). The deep, loose, granular snow made the descent difficult, as you sunk way in and it would break free pretty easily. The first rope line had just reached the point where we were all going to unrope and “bum slide” down the rest of the way one at a time when one of the people on the highest rope fell and started dragging the rest of the people with him. They caught our rope just behind the second person from the bottom and dragged us down, too. I am not sure who caught the lowest rope line, but all 15 people, 3 ropes, ~10 ice axes (lots of the beginners lost theirs early on), and 30 crampons went careening about 600 ft down the mountain to come to a stop about 100 ft from the edge of the water (read that short cliff into freezing water with rocks…). Amazingly no one was hurt worse than a slightly sprained ankle and some cuts and bruises. Even the person who ended up with one fo the ropes wrapped around his neck was OK! I have included one picture of the descent – see if you can pick out all 15 people (I call this my “Where’s Waldo goes alpine…).

I hope you enjoy the pics, and now you can add a little red flag on the Antarctic continent…
Take care,