Sports Editor

Paul Goransson, left, and Raymond Greenlaw, formerly of Lee, summitted Mount Vinson Massif in Antarctica on Monday night with Goransson’s son, Peter. (Courtesy photo)

DOVER — Classmates since elementary school, Paul and Helen Goransson have seldom been apart. So their separation from each other on their 30th wedding anniversary was extraordinary.

Paul, and his son, Peter, successfully climbed Mount Vinson Massif in Antarctica during the late hours U.S. Eastern time Monday night as Helen followed their progress on the Internet.

Now, the father-son pair from Eliot, Maine, is headed back to South America, after joining a select group of about 400 people in the world who have climbed Antarctica’s tallest peak.

Mount Vinson is 16,067 feet high, although the weather conditions and thin air can make it seem like 21,000 feet. By comparison, Mount Everest is more than 29,035 feet and New Hampshire’s Mount Washington is 6,288 feet.

It’s a journey that started last June when Raymond Greenlaw, a former Lee native, encouraged Paul to climb his fifth mountain on as many continents. Through training that included grueling triathlons and sleeping in altitude tents, the local pair set out to conquer the elements.

Helen, who remained in Eliot after she decided against joining the expedition, said on Tuesday that she spoke with her husband via satellite phone on Jan. 4, their anniversary, and has charted their progress since then via www.exploreyourplanet.com.

"He did call me on our anniversary and sent me an e-mail," Helen said.

Equipped with only a solar-powered satellite phone for emergency use the expedition, which includes five other climbers, toughed the winds and ice of the forgotten continent, keeping a journal the whole way via the phone hook-up.

Paul, left and Peter Goransson of Eliot, Maine successfully climbed to the summit of Mount Vinson Massif in Antarctica earlier this week. (Courtesy photo)

"Yahoo, we did it! All of the Adventures International Team summited Mt. Vinson today," Scott Woolums, one of the climbers, wrote in their online journal on Jan. 11. "Not the perfect day, high winds and very cold, but just enough of a window to make it. The weather has really changed now, very high winds and a whiteout here in High Camp."

The group reported 10 degree temperatures and 20-30 knot winds when they reached the top. The temperature in Antarctica once dropped 65 degrees in 12 hours. In fact, in a call with family on Wednesday, the group reported wind chills that made it seem like minus-85 degrees.

"Very quick stay before heading down," Woolums wrote. "So Scott, Neal, Kevin and Cliff summited around 5 p.m., followed by John, Ray, Peter (Goransson) and Paul (Goransson). I beleve (sic) these (sic) we’re the first summits of 2005!"

According to Helen Goransson, the group is indeed the first to climb Vinson this calendar year. In addition, Peter Goransson, 19, and a student at Tufts University, became the second youngest ever to climb the summit.

Peter and Paul, 50, set out from the United States on New Year’s Eve, heading to Chile before taking a cargo plane to Antarctica. They will climb down the mountain, according to Helen, over the next few days before awaiting a cargo plane that will take them back to Chile.

Paul has climbed the tallest mountain peaks in Europe, Australia, Africa, South America and, now, Antarctica. He has only Mount McKinley in the U.S. and Mount Everest in Asia, to go before reaching the tallest peaks on each of the seven continents.

"This one I worried about the most," Helen said on Tuesday. "And it turned out to be a little more stressful for Paul because his son was coming along and now he had to worry about someone else."

"I told him, ‘I want my son to come home with a nose,’" said Helen, wary of the cold winds that can cause frostbite on contact. Climbing in Antarctica, there’s also a danger of falling into cracking crevasses of ice.

The temperature was cold, but not insurmountable.

"Another very nice morning today. We slept in till the afternoon. The insides of the tents get super warm from the sun, even though the air temp is only 7 degrees," the Jan. 5 journal report said.

"We again just finished dinner and it’s 1.40 am," the group reported. "And the sun is still out. Some very long days here, especially as we are still close to the winter equinox."

The climb’s inception came when Greenlaw, a former computer science professor at the University of New Hampshire before becoming dean of computer technology at a college in Georgia, sought to climb Everest.

When Greenlaw’s request to join an Everest expedition was turned down, he asked Paul to climb Mount Vinson.

In turn, Paul asked Helen, who agreed to go if she could wait at a tent camp as the group ascended and descended.

"Then I looked into it and saw it’d be pure misery," Helen said jokingly.

Paul then asked his son to come along and the two competed in the Timberman Triathlon in Gilford during a summer of intense training for the climb.

"They did a lot of hard training," Helen said. "Especially Paul. He always sets some really hard goals."

Together, Paul and Helen slept in a tent in their bedroom designed to simulate high-altitude, thin-air conditions. Then Peter, who is a track athlete at Tufts, came home from college in late December and the two left on the trip.

"So beautiful here, being able to look out over the horizon at a virtually endless expanse," the group reported on Jan. 7. "A very special place, the interior of Antarctica. We are actually several hundred miles south of the huge Ronnie Ice Shelf and the Bellinghaus Sea. It’s about 600 miles to the south pole from here."

The Goranssons have lived in Eliot for 18 years. Paul and Helen grew up and went to school together in Canton, Mass., got married in 1975 and have lived in various places across the globe before moving to the Seacoast.