To Antarctica by Rowboat

Ned Gillette '67 is up to his old tricks again.

Actually, this one is a new trick and if he's successful, it may be his last.

For the past 15 years Gillette has been engaged in something he calls ski adventures a combinatiion of skiing and mountaineering. During that time he has skied on six continents, including a circumnavigation of Mount Everest on skis and the first winter climb in the Himalayas, the first Nordic-telemark ski descent of Aconcagua, and the only oneday ascent of Mount McKinley.

While his latest adventure will have him skiing on his seventh continent Antarctica it's the getting there that presents the challenge.

Gillette and three crew members will attempt to row a specially constructed, 28-foot boat, dubbed the Sea Tomato, for 800 miles across Drake Passage from Cape Horn to the South Shetland Islands, just off the Antarctic coast. Their predicted time of departure is sometime in December, depending on the weather.

"This is the grand finale," says Gillette. "For this one I've put together everything I've learned over the years. Everything has been focused on this now for three years, since we first thought of doing it. There's been a lot of work and a lot of testing, and it's all been worth it.

"How often do you get a chance to do something that no- one else has ever done, a chance to really leave your signature on something? It's exciting and it's scary. Once we leave, there's no turning back because of the currents."

Gillette has retained the spirit of pioneer explorers but none of the greed. To finance his adventures he has lined up corporate sponsors and gotten assignments from various magazines.

"I do all these expeditions," said Gillette, "but I had to have a business sense to put the deals together plus the ability to write and take pictures. For this latest thing I'm doing a documentary for television and writing something for National Geographic if we're successful. It's un-American to be unsuccessful and there won't be much interest in this if we wash up on some shore where we aren't supposed to be."

Failure isn't something Gillette is familiar with, at least not since he dropped out of an MBA program at the University of Colorado after the first day. He majored in economics at Dartmouth "Hey, you've still got to make a living" and after graduation skied in the 1968 Winter Olympics at Grenoble, France. He then helped develop Copper Mountain in Colorado before his short fling at joining the establishment in the MBA program. The next day he fled to Yosemite in California where he began his ski-mountaineering.

"I met people living a lifestyle that was a big contrast to the Ivy League," said Gillette. "Out there I applied my skiing ability to mountaineering_adventure skiing and I soon learned that if you have an expertise, no matter how outlandish, it opens up doors." The doors it opened up for Gillette were those at places like National Geographic,Sports Illustrated, Good Morning America, and the Today show. "Expeditions are selfish unless you bring something back," said Gillette, "photographs, writing, film-footage."

His, expertise also opened doors that had been shut for nearly 50 years. In 1980, Gillette became the first American allowed to climb in China since 1932. He had been in Manchuria in 1979, teaching cross-country ski-racing. On the way back through Peking, he was aware that China was in the process of opening up climbing rights on its mountains. He stopped at the Chinese Mountain Association and asked. Shortly thereafter, he was climbing 24,757-foot Muztagata on China's far western border. At that time, Gillette's conquest of the mountain \was the highest ascent and descent made on skis, which he wrote about in National Geographic.

About the same time he also changed his base of operations from Yosemite to Stowe, Vt., after Johannes von Trapp contacted him about running the ski school at the Trapp Family Lodge. "I'd been living out of VW buses and cardboard boxes for a long time," said Gillette. "So I built a house up here. It's a good place to live and travel out of. Besides, I had finished all I wanted to do in Yosemite." .

But the mountain adventures weren't finished. In 1981-82, Gillette skied around Everest, the total trip taking place between 17,000 and 27,000 feet, partly in Nepal and partly in Tibet.

For his trip to Antarctica, Gillette has raised about $lOO,OOO from sponsors such as North Face, Burlington Industries, and 3M. Eastern Airlines is providing transportation to Chile for the boat and the crew. But perhaps the biggest boon has been the financial and logistical help of Charles Ackerman, of Atlanta. "That's the old-fashioned way to do it," said Gillette. "Have a patron for financial support and then name a mountain after him."

Drake Passage has some of the roughest water in the world and Gillette expects to meet 40- and 50-foot waves. The rowers will have to wait at Cape Horn for the right weather conditions the prevailing winds are westerly and would blow them into the South Atlantic. "In a slow-moving boat, it's essential to leave precisely under the right weather conditions," said Gillette. The trip could take anywhere from 10 to 30 days. After landing in the South Shetlands, Gillette will take a few turns skiing on Anarctica, return to the islands and be flown back to Chile. The boat will remain on the islands for future expeditions, climbing and skiing.

The boat is made of aluminum, with nine watertight compartments and is self-righting. It has a small cabin midships and rowing cockpits fore and aft with gliding seats. "There's no blueprint for an ocean-rowing boat," said Gillette, "especially one to Antarctica. It has to be strong and we'll have gear and supplies for 30 days." While the boat will be propelled by primitive means, the Sea Tomato will have sophisticated navigating gear, a satellite tracking system, automatic self-steering, and an emergency sailing mast.

"Everyone thinks that expeditions are derring-do," said Gillette, "but you try to minimize the risk. You get conservative in something like this."

Gillette and his crew will be in South America and Antarctica from the middle of November until the middle of February. If successful, he plans to turn more to photo-journalism as a career. His next undertaking is as yet unplanned.

"Undertaking? I don't like to use that term in this business," said Gillette. "This really is pretty bonkers, isn't it?"

Ned Gillette '67 in the Sea Tomato, the28-footer in which he and three crewmembers plan to row across the DrakePassage.