Traversing a glacier is no small feat. Our team pushes themselves to accomplish the mission even though the river might be higher than expected, or the pain gets pretty bad. They all pushed through and made a difference for themselves and others.
The weather is pretty nice here in Florida. (Sorry to all the CWVC fans outside of the Sunshine State!) With that in mind, our thoughts turn to the next Combat Wounded Veteran Challenge.
In partnership with US Sailing and the USMMA Sailing Foundation, CWVC is proud to announce new Adaptive Sailing Novice Camps for our wounded and injured veterans! If you want to get your competitive juices flowing, this might be just the opportunity you’ve been searching for.
This unique program has been running for a while and our nonprofit was fortunate enough to work with Jen French, Ralf Steitz and other key members of the program to offer it as one of our Challenges. The goal is to introduce to injured and wounded military veterans the sport of sailing and give them a chance to learn basic sailboat racing.
The camps are 3-day intensive courses focused on skill development to manage a boat on the water as well as societal skills, which may translate to personal and job skill development. Participants will be given resources to continue with the sport if they so choose.
There are 3 camps.
The first one is already closed – March 30-April 2 right in our very own backyard -St. Petersburg, Florida. The second camp is May 4-6 in San Diego and the last one is in Galveston, Texas September 8-10.
Who can participate?
If you desire to get involved in this new adaptive competitive sailing program for newbies, Click here to go to the CWVC website page and begin the online application.
Good luck and we’ll see you out on the water soon!
Here’s the link to the video for Lloyd Sowers piece about our warriors as they were heading out for Aconcagua.
Follow up will take place when the guys return from Argentina at the beginning of March! I’ll updated with a link to that here when it is available.
The shadow cast over the Andes Range by Aconcagua’s summit from the rising sun. This is a treat they had today.
Congratulations to the Combat Wounded Veteran Challenge Team!!! The summit was reached by some of the team yesterday!!!
We heard from our Alaska Mountaineering School liaison, Caitlin, last night. She reports that after a successful climb, the team was back at camp and had climbed into their sleeping bags after eating. We are sure they had a good nights sleep after the huge efforts everyone made today.
The summit day traverse trail is covered in snow, canaletta begins just out of sight of the trail near the triangular rock face.
Caitlin says the weather was clear and cold when they started their climb in the still very dark early morning hours. Part of the team went across a very long traverse, where the conditions consisted of a challenging mix of rocks, hard-packed snow and ice. Navigating some of that in the dark had to be incredibly difficult!!
Looking back at the traverse and the Andes. This location is almost at the base of the canaletta, a steep section which requires great effort.
We’ll keep you posted on the progress of the team as they return to base camp.
This climber sums it up! With view from the top of South America and the Western Hemisphere.
Climbers above the canaletta, on the summit ridge, which take so , so, so very long, everyone at this point is moving very slowly, 3-4 breaths for each step.
White Rocks campsite, 19,400′ note: this photo shows snow, our team does not have any.
We have a report in from our base camp liaison, Caitlin Palmer with the Alaska Mountaineering School!! She spoke to Colby Coombs around 20:00 Argentina time and got information on the guy’s locations, and updates on how everyone is doing and what they are planning on attempting in the next couple of days.
After a relatively short trip today of 3 hours and 45 minutes, the Aconcagua team arrived at White Rocks (19,400 feet) at 13:15 today. Everyone reports in as doing well and were enjoying resting this afternoon.
The team members aiming for the summit could be arriving there as soon as tomorrow if the weather remains good and everyone feels good. If they decide to make the summit attempt, it will be a slow and steady trip, as is normal at these high altitudes.
As we are getting reports in, the guys are sleeping so they are ready to hit the trail early in the morning. We are sure they are excited, but the temperatures are very cold and they will have to be wearing nearly all of their clothes as well as their big down-filled parkas for most of tomorrow.
View of White Rocks camp and the view of the andes beyond = AWESOME.
Caitlin says that Aconcagua is famous for it’s very viento blanco (white winds) and that the winds get very strong on the mountain, which could cause teams to wait for days and days for a summit attempt. Crossing fingers and hoping they have good luck when they get started on the trail to the top.
Everyone is in good spirits and we hope they are able to maintain their enthusiasm and health as they make an attempt to reach the top of Aconcagua in the next few days.
We are sooo excited to get to be a part of this, and we are grateful to Caitlin for keeping us informed as reports come in to her.
Go Combat Wounded Veteran Challenge Team!!!
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