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Savannah Cummins
Anna Pfaff, Savannah Cummins, Alex Honnold, and Cedar Wright take a summit selfie atop the Penguin, a formation they climbed as a group 'rest day' activity. The eclectic team comes from all backgrounds and experience levels, but each share a love of adventure and pushing themselves in extreme places.
Cedar Wright took the “sharp end of the rope,” as climbers say, and led his teammates Alex Honnold, Anna Pfaff, and Savannah Cummins to the top of a 100-metre (300-foot) formation they are calling the Penguin. Wright is renowned in the climbing world for his ability to navigate 'choss', which is jargon for rock that resembles a Jenga tower, with loose, crumbling blocks. Wright’s deft ability to safely navigate this dangerous geological medium has affectionately earned him the nickname “Choss Boss.” “You can climb here in the sun with bare hands, but in a matter of minutes it can go from climbable to you have to put on your gloves or you’re going to get frostbite,” says Wright. “Even if a small wind picks up, the windchill factor is insane.”
Anna Pfaff, 36, is one of the most experienced expedition climbers of her generation. An emergency room nurse who now lives in Oakland, California, she’s self-funded a decade of adventure by working long nursing shifts during the off-seasons. Here she crampons her way up Philiptanna’s rocky, snowy ridge.
Cedar Wright has held a long-simmering dream of climbing in Queen Maud Land for two decades, ever since he first saw the February 1998 issue of National Geographic magazine featuring Conrad Anker during the first American climbing expedition to this otherworldly Antarctic mountain range. So far, the experience is living up to his expectations. “It’s such an extreme and outrageous environment,” says Wright, 42, in a December 9 dispatch. “It’s truly one of the most beautiful places in the world. You feel so out here. We’re the only humans out here in this truly inhospitable environment. It just makes you feel small. I continue to be inspired and amazed by this place every day. The potential for adventure, pushing yourself, is really limitless. I’ve really fallen in love with these mountains.”
Anna Pfaff climbs the southeast ridge of Fenris (2,480 metres; 8,136 feet) with the main peaks of the Wolf’s Jaw in the distance—from left to right: Stetind (2,558 metres; 8,392 feet), Kinntanna (2,724 metres; 8,937 feet), and the dual winged peaks of Holstinnd (2,577 metres; 8,455 feet) and Holtanna (2,650 metres; 8,694 feet). Antarctica is the coldest, windiest, and driest place on Earth. Ironically, despite the fact that Antarctica is a high-altitude desert, an estimated 70 percent of all Earth’s fresh water is locked up in the carapace of ice situated atop the continent.
Conrad Anker boots up at base camp on the 'tongue' of Wolf’s Jaw for another day of pushing a new route on Ulvetanna (2,931 metres, 9,616 feet), the formation directly behind him in this picture. Anker and Jimmy Chin hope to climb the impressive north face of Ulvetanna, one of the biggest walls in the Fenriskjeften mountain range, in order to join the northwest buttress, previously climbed in 2008 by a German-Swiss team.
Anna Pfaff gathers her gear in preparation for a freezing Antarctic climb.
Conrad Anker climbs up a new route—one he eyed within minutes of landing in the mountain range—on the western face of Antarctica's Ulvetanna in an attempt to reach the summit.
Anna Pfaff leads the way up an unnamed peak in the Wolf's Jaw massif.
Jimmy Chin moves up a new route on the face of Ulventanna.