Mount Finland

Planecrash, first ascents and frozen beer on Antarctica

When we were getting closer to the peaks, the pilots asked if I could come up front to show them where we wanted to land. Full service ! I was amazed by the mountains and after a couple of turns we were ready to land. I strapped myself down in between the pilots. The view was absolutely stunning ! But after a few seconds I forgot everything about stunningness. We hit the snow a bit harder than we had planned, and the snow wasn´t that soft up in the mountains at 2400m . The plane was squeeking and banging and  I thought that this is how it should be. But when I started hearing the pilot swearing, I understood things was getting out of hand. Seconds after that the right landing gear broke, the propeller hit the snow and when the wing hit the snow, we made a nice U- turn to the right. Everything just stopped in a few seconds. The pilot screamed FU….. as loud as he could. At that point I didn´t even know what had happened, but after looking out the window I understood the problem. The pilot gathered us together and told us we have a BIG PROBLEM. The problem was that the other plane that should have been operating in the area, was damaged on the ground during a storm an standing on its head. So at the moment we were defenately on our own.

After a day and a half, a Twin Otter came over, 2400km from Patriot Hills, to pick up the rest of the group, and flew them back to Novo. The positive thing for us two Finns in all this misery, was that the Basler (modified DC-3) was going to transport fresh food to the German scientists at Neumayer station, and they could not fit it into the Twin Otter. So there we sat in camp with a broken airplane and piles of oranges, bananas, lettuce, kiwis, sour crème, milk etc. The scientists had been waiting for fresh food in months, and unfortenately we had to eat it before it froze. Next time I come to Antarctica I woun´t bring any food, because last time on Antarctica (1997-98) when we were climbing in Ellsworth mountains we found American Antarctic Mountaineering Expeditions food from 1966 under the snow close to Mount Gardner. We ate for two days, and the food would have lasted at least for half a year. And now again we sat there with piles of food ! We thought of sending the scientist at Neumayer our really tasty fruitcoctail recepies, but didn´t want to disturb their working morale. Thank you Neumayer !

After riding out some bad weather for a week we were ready to hit the mountains. In front of us laid 10 – 12 unclimbed  peaks just waiting for adventure. We cheered when we heard there will be good weather for the next three days and started to prepare the first ascent. The mountain laid approx. 15 km from our camp, so in the morning we strapped on our skies and started to negotiate our way through the glaciers closer to the mountain. At that point we did not know if it would be possible for us to climb the mountain. From the airplane we had seen a straight rockface, but counted on there will be a ridge on the other side. We counted right. After a few hours of skiing we could see a nice ridge leading all the way to the top. After a bit of abseiling and climbing we were standing on the ridge. Quite early we left our skies and walked up to the summit pyramide. The sun was shining and the views were so amazing that our 55min climbing 5 min rest, almost turned over to 55 min rest and 5 min climbing. After 5 pitches the top was just a few meters away. Hand in hand we walked the last few steps to the top. This moment we had been thinking of every day in two years. We also felt very small looking around at one of the fierceist places on earth. Now it had shown us its best, and we were very grateful for that. When we reached the top of that mountain it didn´t have a name. Now it has one : Mount Finland!

During a period of two weeks we climbed four peaks in various weather conditions. They weren´t technically that demanding, but still strenuous because of the windy conditions. During that period we almost daily had to dig out our tent. Antarctica should be the driest contingent on earth. Has something changed ? Because of the small problems with the airplanes we did not know exactly how we will be transported back to Novo. One option was to ski back to the camp a few hundered km. We thought it would be a good idea as we then maybe could climb something on the way and also get a better look at Rakekniven that Conrad and Alex climbed back in´97, and maybe visit the Norweigians who were climbing the east face of Ulvetanna. We left all the fruitcoctails behind and started pulling our sledges towards Rakekniven. Our route was going over a ridge where we had to gain about 500m of height with 100kg in each sledge. In our opinion it was a good plan, but pretty soon we found out it was not that easy. The first day we got 3km ! We stumbled into our tent and just laughed at our miserable effort. Well, if we can´t drag one sledge each up the hill, maybe we can drag one sledge at a time. Off we went like jojos back and forth. It paid off, and on the third day after leaving camp we were on the other sid of the ridge and spotted a good looking mountain ahead. Well, we thought we could take a day off to climb it, and that we did.

After skiing a week or so, Pekka started dreaming about drinking beer. I heard about beer in all different sizes and taste. I have to admit even I got a bit thirsty at some point. Pekkas dream came true when we reached Ivar, Trond, Robert and SteinIvar at the foot of Ulvetanna. They had transported a whole barrell full of beercans to their camp. Pekkas eyes were big as plates when he was offered to have one. He opened it in a second, and found out it had frozen ! Hehheh. It was a sight seeing a thirsty Finn melting up a beercan in his underwear : )

In the end everything went according to the plan. Another Basler was flown from Canada down to Antarctica to pick us up from Ulvetanna BC. Later on we heard they had put on a new wing and a new landing gear on the wrecked airplane in our camp, and flew it back to Novo. Amazing work by ALCI. Now at the moment we are sitting back in Finland planning our next trip and enjoying the easy life with food in the fridge and cold beer….. not frozen.

Best regards,

Patrick Degerman