Climb of their lives: Eliot pair recounts Antarctica... -
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Published on: 1/27/2005
Last Visited: 1/27/2005
Peter Goransson, left, of Eliot, Maine and Ray Greenlaw, formerly of Lee, N.H., stand at Vinson Base Camp on the Branscomb Glacier in Antarctica.
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Along with 43-year-old Greenlaw, formerly a professor at the University of New Hampshire, Peter and Paul reached Vinson's summit on Jan. 10, a feat accomplished by only about 400 people to date.
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When the idea was hatched by Greenlaw in August, the three begin to prepare for a climb up a mountain that stands 16,067 feet high, but reportedly can feel like 21,000 feet when the thin air is factored in.
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Greenlaw has now reached the summit of five of the seven continents' highest mountain peaks, including Mount Elbrus in the European region of Russia (18,841 feet), Aconcagua, Argentina (22,840) in South America, Kilimanjaro, Tanzania (19,339 feet) in Africa and Kosciusko, Australia (7,310).
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The Goranssons and Greenlaw rode on a Cold War-era Russian cargo plane and landed on a glacier in Antarctica.
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Paul suffered slight frostbite on both of his cheeks, while Greenlaw suffered frostbite on the tip of one of his hands and frostnip, an early stage of frostbite, on his cheek.
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Over the week it took to reach the summit, Greenlaw said the challenge became tougher the closer they got to the top.
"The hardest part was (climbing) the summit ridge," Greenlaw said."Our goggles were iced up.There's just a narrow summit ridge."
"That was very hairy," said Greenlaw of hiking as a group tied together by a rope that would sometimes get caught on lips of ice.
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Peter tried to get his picture taken with a Tufts flag, which quickly blew away and Greenlaw tried unsuccessfully with an American flag.
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"It was so cold that I knew we still needed to get down safely, so we didn't do any celebrating," Greenlaw said.
That's because the same bottomless crevasses, or cracks in the ice, haunted Greenlaw and the Goranssons.
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Greenlaw is the Dean of the School of Computing at Armstrong University in Savannah, Georgia.He lived in New Hampshire and worked in UNH's computer science department for 10 years before moving in 1998.
He always craves adventure, but even he admitted it was good to get home.
"When I came back, I was happy to just stand on asphalt and not be on ice," Greenlaw said.He considered this one of the riskiest things he's ever done.
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"It's almost like a lifestyle," Greenlaw said of his and Paul's mountaineering.