बगुला भगत
The spellbinding southernmost continent—with six months of daylight and cold, dark nights—made an appearance in Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s story, which is about sacrifice. Since then, Captain Malik, a former fighter pilot and an advanced mountaineer, harboured the desire to witness this pristine region frozen in time. His dream materialised in 2017 as he celebrated Christmas in Antarctica with an expedition to Mt Vinson.
With an elevation of over 16,000 ft., Mt Vinson, a.k.a. Vinson Massif, is the highest mountain in Antarctica. It lies within the Sentinel Range of the Ellsworth Mountains, overlooking the Ronne Ice Shelf near the base of the Antarctic Peninsula. About 1,200 km from the South Pole, it’s the remotest of the Seven Summits.
Captain Malik’s expedition was led by the seasoned mountaineer Group Captain Capt RC Tripathi. The prep included winter acclimatisation in the Siachen Glacier. The team made its way to Antarctica via Chile’s capital, Santiago, and its southernmost airport, Punta Arenas, a windswept city where they had to wait for two days due to bad weather at their destination. Once they landed on the natural snow runway in Union Glacier, the team boarded another aircraft, equipped with skis, and proceeded to the Base Camp. They slept in tents, secured themselves with ropes and marched ahead, lugging their backpacks on sledges. The team reached Camp I (a temporary location — in the valley of the Ellsworth Mountain Range — used as a staging base by mountaineers) after toiling for seven hours. The next morning, with news of bad weather likely at Camp II, they built snow walls to protect their campsite. “I felt like I was living my childhood dream as I worked with ice – cutting the slabs, making the snow wall and an igloo!” he exclaims.
Whether it was a relentless 18-hour storm that gnawed at their tents or a steep and strenuous climb, the team braved it all and reached the summit successfully. Christmas arrived by the time Malik returned to Union Glacier. He brought in the New Year in Punta Arenas, during the peak of the polar summer. “At midnight, as the sun was just setting in and the moon shone in the sky, it looked as if we were on a completely different planet with celestial views,” he concludes.
