New Kind of Peak Performance

Doug Stoup and Andrew McLean returned home this week from a skiing trip during which they took only one run down a mountain that rises a mere 3,465 feet.

It was a modest peak but one fraught with crevasses linked by paper-thin bridges of hardened snow, which offered, at best, a precarious route to the bottom.

The trip cost tens of thousands of dollars, required months of planning and involved several days of trudging through a cold and blustery environment most people would consider downright torturous.

The run was not what you’d call fluid, requiring lots of stops and maneuvering to the proper position above skiable routes, and it was not on the best kind of snow.

But considering that this trip was to one of the most remote places in the world, Antarctica, and that the run was down a mountain nobody else had ever ridden, it was worth every penny, every ounce of suffering.

“It was amazing,” exclaimed Stoup, 39, who grew up in the Marina del Rey area but recently moved to Boca Raton, Fla. “It’s not all about getting to summits. It’s more about having a good time in beautiful places and making sure you just enjoy yourselves.”

What it’s about, he added, is the adventure always associated with a place so extreme.

And more and more, lately, it’s about first descents.

Climbing mountains no longer seems enough for a small but growing number of mountaineering adventurers. Bringing skis or snowboards along has become part of the game. Using them after a successful summit has become the reward.

Some of the biggest peaks in the world, including parts of Everest, have been conquered in this manner. Some of the smallest peaks, including a beautiful spire called Minaret on Anvers Island of the Antarctic Peninsula, have too.

Minaret is the one Stoup and McLean recently added to their lists.

McLean, 42, of Park City, Utah, has been passionately practicing ski-mountaineering for 20 years and has traveled extensively to satisfy that passion. In 1995, he and Mark Holbrook became the first Americans to ski the 5,200-foot, 50-degree chute called Messner Couloir, beginning atop the 20,032-foot summit of Alaska’s Mt. McKinley.

Stoup, whose resume includes all sorts of grueling cold-weather endeavors, also has made history this way.

Two years ago, he and Stephen Koch completed the first snowboard descent of the 16,067-foot Vinson Massif, Antarctica’s highest peak.

His latest accomplishment, while it may rank low in terms of summit height, ranks high simply because it was something nobody else had done and it was done in one of the most starkly beautiful, yet wildly unpredictable, places on earth.

“I fell in love with Antarctica the first time I went there,” said Stoup, who has been so many times that his friends call him the Iceman. “It inspires and intrigues and even though I’ve just been, I’ve always got the inkling to go back.”

He and McLean had hoped to make the first ski and snowboard descents of 9,268-foot Mt. Francais, also on Anvers Island. But the forces of nature -- in charge in Antarctica like nowhere else -- dictated otherwise.

They braved enormous, shifting swells and gale-force winds on the 48-foot sailing vessel Pelagic, which they chartered and met after flying from Punta Arenas, Chile, to King George Island, which is also part of the peninsula.

After sailing 300 miles to the south, their plan was to go ashore at Anvers Island as close as possible to a ridge-route leading to the summit of Mt. Francais. What they found was a forbidding shoreline of rock and falling ice, a raging wind atop a tossing sea.

“When we got there, at about 2 a.m., the wind was blowing 50 knots and it was hard to find a suitable landing,” Stoup said. “It was all glaciers in front of us. You’re in this little Zodiak trying to find access and the glacier is calving [dropping ice] right in front of you.”

They eventually found a safe landing area 25 miles away and were dropped off with their supplies -- after having arranged for a rendezvous 10 days later with Capt. Skip Novak. In whiteout conditions and over heavily crevassed terrain, they painstakingly made their way toward Mt. Francais.

“We were roped together crossing thin snow bridges that would descend endlessly into an abyss, over 150 feet,” Stoup said. “The visibility was minimal so several times the route would lead to a dead end and we would have to retrace our steps several miles and attempt a different route.... We were alone so we needed to be very careful that neither of us would be injured.”

Eventually, they abandoned their summit attempt on Mt. Francais and settled instead on nearby Minaret. The 2 1/2-hour ascent was accomplished by both skinning (climbing while wearing skis fitted with skins on the bottom for one-way traction) and climbing while linked with ropes.

“At the summit the sun came out and we had a really great ski down about a 55-degree slope,” Stoup said. “The top was good, with about 18 inches of soft powder, but then we started skiing through the crevassed areas and over the snow bridges and it was like Russian Roulette.”

A few of the bridges collapsed at the backs of their skis, but they made it safely past that section and ultimately all the way back to their drop-off point. By then the clouds had lifted, revealing penguins and seals frolicking in and out of the water, and humpback whales breaching in the harbor.

“I looked up at Mt. Francais, which was finally in view after a week of being hidden, and realized that Andrew and I were at the ridge that we needed to ascend Mt. Francais,” Stoup said. “We kicked ourselves. “

This was the calm before the storm.

The winds grew so violent that there would be no flights to or from King George Island. Stoup and McLean were forced to sail with Novak 600 miles across Drake Passage -- in 50- to 60-knot winds and 30-foot seas -- to the tip of South America.

“It took 4 1/2 days and I was green-bird sick the whole time,” Stoup said. “But here I am already trying to figure a way to get back.”

News and Notes

* Bass fishing: Citgo Bassmasters Tour veteran Carl Maxfield died last week of an apparent heart attack at his Summerville, S.C., home. He was 50 and is survived by his wife, Toni, sons Michael and Adam Grayson, and daughter Amanda.

Several pros have dedicated this week’s competition at Toledo Bend Reservoir in Many, La., in his honor.

* Sport fishing: The American Sportfishing Assn. published findings of a new study that hails the sport as a vital contributor to the nation’s economic well-being. America’s 44 million anglers spend nearly $42 billion annually on things such as equipment, transportation and lodging, the study says. These expenditures represent a 33% increase over the last 10 years.

The study, conducted every five years by the Census Bureau and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, also finds that fishing has an annual economic impact of $116 billion on the economy, supports 1.1 million jobs and generates $30 billion in wages and $7.3 billion in tax revenue each year.

* Surfing: The Assn. of Surfing Professionals’ world tour is about to start up again, with the Quiksilver Pro and women’s Roxy Pro taking center stage March 4-16 on Australia’s Gold Coast. But Andy Irons of Princeville, Kauai, is still riding high on last year.

The 2002 world champion and the obvious favorite to repeat was honored last week by Kauai County Mayor Bryan J. Baptiste, who issued a proclamation that concluded, “I would like to congratulate you, not only for your achievement, but also for recognition brought to our island paradise.”

Winding Up

Several innovative new lures are on the market, but you might want to save your old ones. Case in point: An item on EBay billed as an old wooden bronze-and-orange fishing lure netted $31,857.50 during a 10-day auction that ended Sunday. Opening price was $6.