Both have tried to ski Francais before (as have a number of skiers from other countries). They tried together in 2000 but didn't have a long enough window to wait for optimal weather, and Stoup and Andrew McLean met a similar fate in 2003, skiing 17 peaks of 4,000 feet or less instead of the one monster they wanted, Stoup said.

Stoup and Erickson -- who have a combined 25 Antarctic trips between them, including 20 for Stoup -- are planning to attempt what is known as the Bull Ridge, a heavily glaciated, steep-but-manageable spine on the mountain's south-southwest aspect.

The crevasse danger can be extreme both during the approach as well as during the climb and descent, Erickson said, and the peak holds serious avalanche threat due to the vast disparity in snow conditions on a 9,000-foot ridge.

"You might see it raining at the boat, to snowing 200 feet up from there, to a whiteout 500 feet above that and then you're in thigh-deep powder," Erickson said.

After sailing from Ushuaia in Tierra Del Fuego, Argentina, aboard a boat with guided skiers, Stoup and Erickson plan to use a Zodiac to approach Anvers Island and then climb a serac to get onto the glacial bench. They'll traverse to Bull Ridge from there and set a camp to lighten their load.

"We plan on trying to get the ascent and descent done in a 24- to 30-hour window," Stoup said, a plan made easier by the 18 to 19 hours of daily light in Antarctica that time of year.

Despite the hassle of getting there, Francais is actually one of the most accessible big mountains on the Antarctic Peninsula, where simply reaching a peak can take up to a week on skis. Unlike Alaska or other remote destinations, planes and fuel caching are not options around Francais.

"It's not like the Grand Teton where everyone knows about it and there are multiple ski lines," Erickson said. "This is a wild, uncharted area of the globe which very few people know about or have seen."

But, he added, "I guarantee any skier who's been down there and gone through the Neumayer Channel has looked at this line and said, 'I want to ski that.'"