The preper­a­tion of our exped­i­tion is run­ning at full speed. Beside the organ­isa­tion and logist­ics the phys­ical and psy­cho­lo­gical train­ing has cur­rently our main focus. “Krau­thacken” (or “Drytool­ing”) at a loc­ale quarry gives con­fid­ence using the tools and cram­pons, while enhan­cing coordin­a­tion. Since non of us knows what is wait­ing for us in Tierra del Fuego we want to be pre­pared as good as possible.

Accord­ing to the inform­a­tion we got from the Italian team, climb­ing Monte Buck­land for the first time (1966) they had to face rock climb­ing up to level 5 (UIAA) and at that time equip­ment much less developed than what we have on hand. There are high-​tech climb­ing shoes in all kind of col­ours avail­able, but they will not change the weather situ­ation. Because the weather hasn’t changed much in the past 46 years. Extreme low tem­per­at­ure and snowstorms are still on the agenda. Reason enough to pro­ceed with drytool­ing to get in shape…