Oct 31st, 2002

Brian Grigsby

Preparation for ascent

We have all been eagerly awaiting the climb on Licancabur. During our training, the science has also been going tremendously. We have made some great discoveries at the Lagunas, and surrounding area.

This morning, we began preparations for transporting gear to mid-camp.
At 11:30, Nathalie, David, Edmond, Christian, Monica (our resident cook!) and I went to the thermal pools to test underwater camera equipment. Nathalie swam around the pool using the still camera to take pictures of the algae that is able to survive in the hot water and high UV environment. I used the video camera and underwater housing to take video of these algae, and in some places they look like a kelp forest!

We headed back to the refuge at 12:30 had lunch and packed science equipment to be transported to mid-camp by the porters. Our plan is to leave at 4:30am to begin our ascent. Because Halloween is a large holiday here, we had 6 new porters to transport our equipment to mid-camp. Unfortunately, they left late in the afternoon; we learned that 2 of them were having trouble at that high altitude. It was dark, and we organized people from our team to help them off the mountain. Everything went very smoothly. We were able to get them all back to the refuge and warmed up. This means we have to postpone our ascent another day for the porters to recuperate.