UKC

Last week and this, photographer Dave Smith has scooped the coveted 'Photo of the Week' slot on UKClimbing with his stunning images of a recent trip to Antarctica.

Here at UKC we dropped him a line to find out more about his expedition, and also to look at more of his stunning photography.

In this article Dave gives us a run down of the expedition, and showcases some of his beautiful shots.

Read more at http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=5081

In reply to UKC Articles:

Fantastic photos!

In reply to Tom Briggs:

Amazing

In reply to UKC Articles: Fantastic stuff. Really amazing. I wonder how much it cost to do it..?

In reply to JH74:

Yeah I wondered the same.

Dave, how much did the charter run to and how much per person to get out to Tierra Del Fuego, if you don't mind me asking?

In reply to UKC Articles: That shot of climbing Mt Agamemnon at sunset is really incredible

In reply to UKC Articles:

It would be great if someone could run a 'how to' article on trips to somewhere like this so others could get a rough idea of costings etc.

I'd also love to see one for Alaska. Mr Griffith, Im looking at you here!

In reply to hexcentric: He's done one!

http://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/page.php?id=4016

It says West Buttress, but has some good general info in there too.

Cheers,

Jack

In reply to hexcentric:


My impression from talking with Dave on the run up to this is that because there was a trip organiser, whilst not a 'package holiday' there wasn't huge amounts of logistic organisation needed before arriving in Chile and buying food. I believe that many Eagle Ski Club trips work along those lines.

In reply to UKC Articles: Awesome pics

In reply to UKC Articles:

This really is the MUTTS-NUTS !

I reckon for a 'trip of a lifetime' something like this is FAR better than just climbing something 'banale' for the height : Kili / Aconcagua / Mera or even Everest.

A fantastic combination !

Dave : if you take a look. Did anyone do any fishing on the trip ? Fresh fish would probably be very welcome and I'm sure the waters around the Peninsula are rich in fish.

In reply to Southern Man:
I'm going on a commercial trip to the peninsula next month, and the flights to Ushuaia are about £1300 each from Heathrow. The trips themselves in the order of £4-6000 (http://worldexpeditions.co.uk/index.php?section=trips&id=378), although I imagine many on here will want something a little more adventurous.

Totally epic! Great shots, thanks.

In reply to lennym:

The trips down onto the Peninsula on the bigger cruise ships are pretty different to this.

There are commercial trips on smaller yachts (we've got a team heading down next month in a 9-berth yacht), but they're much more expensive - ours is £12K from Ushuaia.

In reply to Tom Briggs:

Thanks Tom and Lennym.

Lifetime trip for most who get to do it then.

In reply to UKC Articles:

Thanks all for the nice comments about the photo's. I'm no photographer, just a climber and skier who takes pictures in the sort of stunning places that climbers and ski mountaineers get to.

As Toby said, the trip was organised through the Eagle Ski Club, for those who don't know it this is a very active, long established, ski touring and ski mountaineering club that organises a yearly expedition as well as many other trips. www.eagleskiclub.org.uk

Unless you have your own boat the only way to get to Antarctica to ski or climb is to charter a yacht from one of a small number of outfits operating out of Ushuaia. They will do a lot of the work arranging the required permits to visit Antarctica and provide the support for the trip. You need to organise hill food and stove gas/fuel and gear and get to Ushuaia and that's about it. You also need to work out where to go and what you want to do, which will be limited by the constraints of where the yacht can safely take you down there, all that is not trivial. In our case we were very fortunate to have Phil (Wickens) who has worked down there with BAS and been on several climbing trips there and had done the research. You can get some ideas about how it works from the yacht we were on www.spiritofsydney.net I think Cath and Darrel are currently supporting an expedition in South Georgia, which is starting to give me ideas....

There are a couple of guides from the UK and France mainly, I think, who run trips down there, as well as companies like Jagged Globe and others.

The cost for the six week trip was about 8-9000 all in I think, I never actually added the costs up and don't care as it was worth every penny! Perhaps it was a once in a lifetime trip, but I hope not.

Fishing. There are fish apparently, Black Cod was mentioned, I was keen to have a go but never really had enough spare time on the boat to get round to it, or was just too knackered after our excursions. The waters around there are fished commercially for Patagonian Toothfish which I think they call Chilean sea bass in restaurants in the US. We had a close call with a trawler one dark and stormy night on the way over which was probably fishing for it.

cheers
Dave

In reply to Dave:

Spirit of Sydney has done some great trips. It pays to go with an experienced crew and yacht. No place to come unstuck. See also:

http://www.pelagic.co.uk/over_overview.asp
http://www.ocean-expeditions.com/about/antarctica/
http://www.voile-australe.com/en/croisieres.php

In reply to Dave:


Thanks for that ! Got me day-dreaming about Antarctic fish and chips !

Nice one Dave! If anyone has any questions about organising this sort of trip and the costs involved then feel free to contact me - mail(at)philwickens.co.uk, plus there's some stuff on my website at www.philwickens.co.uk. I'm sailing back to Antarctica tonight as I work on an expedition ship, and I'm back on Spirit of Sydney for a climbing trip in January.
Phil