Antarctic agony

Antarctic agony

By Keith Ferguson

DAILY NEWS STAFF

When Richard Laronde thought he was going to die, he asked himself, "How did I get myself to the top of a mountain in the middle of a blizzard in Antarctica?"

It was about three weeks ago that the 56-year-old Laronde, an engineer who lives on Walpole's Dover Drive with his wife, Barbara, and their son, almost lost his life on the slopes of the 16,050-foot Mt. Vinson, about 750 miles from the South Pole.

Laronde and his professional guide, Chris Simmons of San Francisco, were caught in an unexpected blizzard - surprisingly it rarely snows in Antarctica, which has an extremely dry climate - with a temperature of minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit and winds approaching 100 mph.

Mountain rangers had just told them that the blizzard, which would eventually dump three feet of snow on them, would make it impossible for them to reach the summit of Mt. Vinson and that they must get off the mountain.

The two had been without food or fuel for two days, and they could not light their stove to melt snow for water.

Laronde likened the conditions to living inside a large freezer chest, with dangerous winds and constant bright light - the sun shines 24 hours a day in December, which is summer in Antarctica - adding to the misery.

When they hiked, the two were linked by ropes for the descent so that neither would fall into one of the many ice crevasses in their way. Some of the those chasms are more than a mile deep.

The wind was so strong it knocked Laronde to the ground several times. In each instance, he feared that his spiked hiking boots would snap the bones in his legs.

At one point, Laronde called his wife on a satellite phone. "I said goodbye, just in case," he said.

Once after he fell, he felt dizzy and saw spots as he rose.

He told Simmons, "I'm going to pass out."

"You can't pass out here," Simmons responded. "You'll die if you pass out here."

"If I die here," Laronde thought, "Barbara would kill me."

Simmons radioed the rangers for help. Their response: "There's no rescue. Nobody can go up the mountain. You're on your own."

Well, just what was Richard Laronde doing on an Antartic mountaintop in the middle of a blizzard fighting to stay alive?

Four years ago, he took up cross-country skiing and mountain climbing as a way to lose weight, overcome sleep apnea, and control diabetes and high blood pressure.

Since then, he has skied across the North and South poles and become the first amatuer to climb Mt. Knutzen in Antarctica. He took a mountain-climbing course in the White Mountains of New Hampshire where he encountered ice falls similar to the glacial slopes he was negotiating at the time of his crisis on Mt. Vinson.

The 6-foot-tall and roughly 200-pound Walpole man has lost more than 100 pounds, overcome the sleep disorder and succeeded in dealing with diabetes and high blood pressure. But those successes weren't helping him at all in Antarctica.

It was five days into their climb of Mt. Vinson that Laronde and Simmons were facing their ultimate moment of truth.

Exhausted and alone, the two were losing hope that they would be able to get off the mountain.

It was then that luck arrived in the form of 10 Austrian hikers, so-called "sky runners" because they travel the world to jog up mountains to break record times for reaching summits.

"Do you need help?" one of the Austrians asked.

It was then that Laronde noted to himself, "I think I'm going to make it."

He was dehydrated. He hadn't eaten all day. The Austrians gave him apple juice.

The Austrians hiked with Laronde and Simmons for eight hours, until the two reached their initial camp. Two Austrians remained with Laronde and Simmons and huddled with them in a tent to provide warmth as the other Austrians continued on their way down the mountain.

After resting, Laronde, Simmons and the Austrians hiked to the base of the mountain and safety.

The first thing he did was to call his wife to tell her he was going to be fine.

He remembered thinking that if he and Simmons had had one more good weather day they would have reached the summit.

"Not getting the summit is disappointing, but frankly, and to keep things in perspective, I will be more disappointed if the Pats don't go 19-0," Laronde said.

He has no regrets. Laronde said what he went through surviving a blizzard on the Antartic slope was a greater adventure than reaching the summit of Mt. Vinson would have been.

Laronde said he and his guide were lucky the Austrians found them. They could just as easily have passed them by in the whiteout conditions.

He later made good on a mountain-side promise when he took the Austrians to dinner in Punta Arenas, Chile.

"I haven't been that drunk since college," Laronde said. "I think the bill was around $700, but it was well worth it. How do you say, 'Thank you' for your life?

"Austrians," Laronde also reported, "those guys can drink, let me tell you."

In the aftermath of the storm, scientists and rangers who experienced it called it the blizzard of the century for Antarctica.

When Laronde's return plane landed, other hikers who had been forced off Mt. Vinson said they would try to reach the summit right then and there, but Laronde said, "I'll go home for Christmas."

After his ordeal, though, he told himself he was done with adventures in the wilderness, but he has since reconsidered.

He has been looking at hiking to low camps on Mt. Everest or reaching the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro in Africa. He is not giving up plans to go into outer space on Richard Branson's space shuttle, the Virgin Galactic. He expects he will go into outer space in a few years.

His wife and son have supported him the whole way.

"I said the word 'Everest' to (my wife) the other day and she said, 'Yeah, go,' " Laronde said.

"I said I want to go into space and she said, 'Go. You want to be an astronaut? Wonderful.' "