Vinson Ski and Snowboard Expedition Team (Photo: Wade McKoy)

I like to work late. While in Antarctica after climbing and snowboarding the Vinson Massif in 1999, I had the opportunity to let my internal clock adopt its own schedule. I gradually, over the course of a week, went from going to sleep at 10 p.m. to going to sleep at 6 or 7 a.m. I believe this change occurred because of the constant light and lack of schedule as we waited for the Hercules C130 transport plane to land on the ice and take us back.

I saw Emily Coombs recently working out at Mountain Athlete with her ski gear. Emily was smiling and I thought of Doug, who was on this expedition to Vinson, along with Mark Newcomb, Dirk Collins, Wade McKoy and Doug Stoup. Five out of the six of us were from Jackson, so we not so cleverly named ourselves the Jackson Five.  Doug had masses of energy and built a pull-up bar by stacking solid Antarctica style snow blocks with his skis across the top. When the sun was out we would get to work on that thing by doing pyramids of pull-ups. The way a pyramid works is all in the group do one pull-up, one after the other and repeat until you reach your max, say 10, then do 10 again and work your way down to one. So a pyramid to 10 is 110 pull-ups. I do pull-ups “strict” now, which means without the help of my lower body. When I was doing pyramids to 20 I was definitely using my legs and “kipping.” The first time I did a pyramid to 20 was with Alex Lowe in Mendoza, Argentina. For the week after I had to get out of bed and off the ground from my stomach so I could use my arms and legs. This was due to the soreness from all the muscle tearing that occurred in my stomach.

I find it odd that my first blog post has me writing about two friends who died in the mountains. Might have something to do with it being 3:11 in the morning.

I am not in Antarctica now and my young son will be up in 4 hours calling for his nuk (milk).

Sleepy sleep…