Christmas on Ice, Part 4 - Scott Base

Arriving back at Scott Base after 10 days in the field was absolutely wonderful, if a little shocking. Hot showers, other people, no need to spend hours melting snow into water so you don't dehydrate the next day, flush toilets. Ahhhhhh, all we had to do before we could enjoy any of that (except of course the toilets) was clean up all our gear. . .

Clean up included washing and drying all sleeping bags, all dishes, all cook boxes, stoves and cutlery, emptying food boxes of any leftovers, airing the tents and then putting it all away. Oh yeah, and someone had to deal with all the shit.

Finally we could enjoy the pleasures of the kitchen. . .

the common room. . .

and yes, even the hallways that connect everything together.

Of course, with McMurdo Station only a 2km walk away, a trip over (or two) was essential, if only to visit the gift shop ;) Observation hill is the tall mountain-like thing on the left.

McMurdo is very different from Scott Base. Mostly it's just bigger.

And a little bit messier.

But it has a really cool collection of weird and wonderful toys to play with. We were lucky enough to catch the tail end of an art show that took place at the carpentry shop there. Chrissie and I are demonstrating the joys of a homemade seesaw.

Someone had also made one of those cool executive desk bouncing ball type thingys out of bowling balls. It was cool.

It was amazing to see and experience the differences between Scott Base and McMurdo. Where Scott Base reminded me more of a mining or exploration camp with its tight knit community and completely self-suficient lay out, McMurdo reminded more of a mining town, sprawling, mucky, and big, everything there was big. You can see Discovery Hut in the foreground here, unfortunately, due to proximity to people, this hut has been heavily looted.

The view of McMurdo from atop Observation Hill. The big white circle tanks are holding all the fuel needed for Scott Base and McMurdo to run for a year, including petrol, diesel, and jet fuel.

Scott Base on the walk home from McMurdol. So different.

Just a pretty picture of the pressure ridges around Scott Base.

Why didn't they show this to me earlier? It so would have helped me avoid all the awkward situations I had with penguins on my trip. I thought he just wanted to dance.

Sign says it all. The building in the background is the kitchen and common room.

Erebus out beyond the pressure ridges on the day we left. A lovely farewell from a cold continent.
Everyone waiting for the plane to park.

Then we were off. Back into the great, grey warehouse, into the sky and home again.

Christmas on Ice, Part 3 - Camp

With thousands of pictures to sort through I've tried hard to keep it light, but have admitted a certain defeat with this next lot. I have decided to let the images do most of the talking. So browse through them, read the captions, and if you want to know more, just ask. This is my photo essay of our time while camping in Antarctica. Enjoy.
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Putting up the polar tents. Two people slept in each tent, but the more help you got putting it up the better.

The toilet. Antarctica is a "bring it in, bring it out" kind of place, so the yellow bucket collected poo and the white box collected pee. After 10 days of living in the field a certain level of finesse was acheived for peeing into small openings.

Camp. Crystal and my tent is on the left, in the foreground is our little snow kitchen.

Flags marking the way to Scotts Hut at Cape Evans. The flags are left in place until there is nothing but bamboo left, this takes anywhere from 2-10 seasons depending on the location, whether is protected from wind and snow.

Captain Scott's hut built at Cape Evans. With strict regulations in place and extensive restoration work, this is one of the most amazing museums I have ever been to.

A chemistry set from Scott's Hut.

Lots and lots of cocoa.

Preserved for almost 100 years both the penguin and the paper show little sign of decomposition.

Inside the hut.

Driving the hagglund with Girard. Built in Sweden, these machines are also used for warfare in desert countries as they work well in sand. If you look around the machine you can see the various mountings for machine guns and other things.

Off to look for seals. The long poles are to test the sea ice as we walk along. Because seals come up and hang around holes in the sea ice, we have to be careful not to fall into any nearby cracks or breathing holes.

One of the highly photogenic seals. Proabably a pup from that year.

Our Christmas feast. Some of the students spent Christmas eve digging out this table for us to share our meal around. On Christmas day, Santa (and his twin and three elves) came out to deliver us a delicious and HOT dinner of turkey, ham, gravy, kumara, veggies, cookies, cake and merangues. It was amazing. Unfortunately, it was also the coldest day. No matter. Everyone enjoyed the food, the company and the stunning view from the dining table.

Most days we were out of camp, driving around in Hagglunds to carry people to various places. This is on one of the lovely crystal clear days we had after Christmas.

One of the fanciest kitchens built, but really it wasn't all that fair, they had a carpenter in their group.

One of the projects the students did was on snow compaction. This is a 6 metre long drill core they took to examine crystal deformation.

Another project was looking at the geology of Castle Rock.

Part of that project included climbing to the top of it.

The view as I emerge from my tent on a bright sunshiny day, or is it night, I can't tell.

Late on boxing day night, Crystal, Sean and I took off on the skidoos to get a better view of Erebus and just generally escape camp. It was amazingly still, quiet, and wonderful. We just sat there for almost an hour and didn't get back to camp until about 1am.

On the last day in camp we pulled up some ablation stakes a "real" scientist had set out the previous year to measure loss of snow or ice mass in the area. It was a hard four hours of trudging through thigh deep snow stopping every 100 metres to pull up a 2-6 metre tall stake. Despite the overcast sky and chill temperatures, we ended up in nothing but sweaters and gloves. Once we had pulled up all 81 stakes, we headed back to camp and packed up for our return to Scott Base the next day.

Christmas on Ice, Part 2 - Arrival

Finally, we came to a stop. We could unbuckle our seat belts, pile on our ECW gear and get off the place into the wide, white world beyond.

And man oh man was it white. Although the temperatures made all our survival gear a little overkill, the sunglasses were definitly necessary. Everyone had smiles the size of saucers and cameras were clicking everywhere.

We were guided off the runway by military personel towards our next transport, Ivan, the Terra Bus.

After a half hour of driving across ice and snow, we bumped up onto solid ground and drove into McMurdo where we switched from bus to truck and drove over to Scott Base. Driving into McMurdo reminded me so much of Inuvik. Gravel roads, dusty everything, and lots of metal, square buildings. The 2km drive from McMurdo to Scott Base goes up between two extinct volcano cones to emerge on the otherside of the Hut Point Peninsula. The kiwi base, in comparison to the American one, is tiny and green (not in reference to environmental awarness, just colour) and it reminds me more of a mining camp all self contained (hallways connect each building so there's no need to leave the comfort of the indoors). We were ushered from our vehicles, into a big green, steel building and up into a warm little room where we learned the basics of staying in Antarctica and on Scott Base.

After a delicious dinner, served in the cafeteria, we all took a walk down to the sea ice. Just a few hundred meters in front of Scott Base, where sea ice is pushed up by the tides, are a collection of pressure ridges scultped by the sea and the wind. It is a beautiful, ever changing gallery of crystalline forms and scattered in amongst the colunms are the most regular visitors, the Weddell seals.

We wandered back towards base where some of the students scrambled into costumes to join in the fun of the James Bond party being held that night at the base bar.

The next morning, before packing, we went up Crater Hill, the volcano behind Scott Base. It was pretty windy and not very sunny, but the temperatures hovered around -7 degrees centigrade and everyone enjoyed the views.

These are the first 3 wind turbines in Antarctica. They were just coming online while we were there. It is expected they will reduce the amount of desiel used by both Scott Base and McMurdo by ~11%. There are some people who question their usefulness here and don't like the aesthetic impact they have, but I wonder if we are to continue being down in Antarctica for scientific purposes because of it's "early warning" capabilities with regards to climate change shouldn't we at least be trying to reduce our footprint to be here?

One of the students enjoying the small comfort a wind block wihle at the top.

McMurdo from Crater Hill.

Walking along the edge of the crater. In the background and to the left, Mount Erebus hides behind some clouds.

Heading back to base, ready to start packing for our next big adventure. Camping on the ice shelf.

While everyone packed food and tents and cooking stuff, Crystal, Steve, Sean and I met up with Alex to get our licences for driving on the ice. We were taught how to drive Hagglunds, skidoos and trucks (Landcruisers to be precise - although the only difference I noticed was that the top speed was 20km/h). That night, our personal and group bags packed, we snuggled into bed for one last night in a warm room. The next morning we would be leaving nice and early to get out to camp and set up our tents and dig some pits. It would be a busy day.

Christmas on Ice, Part 1

It's been a little while since I last wrote. And so much has happened in between now and then. Christmas, New Years, Antarctica, visiting family, how ever does one fit it all in?! Well, I've done my best and now I'm trying to catch up. I'll start at the beginning, but it might take some time. I promise you won't miss a thing.

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We were kitted out with the gear over a period of days before departure. I went in early on the Thursday morning and tried on boots, snow pants, jackets and tuques. Eventually, after all the right sizes were there, I motored back to school to finish up my work. Then it was home to pack. We were allowed 70kg in total, 20kg of which was the clothing and gear we'd just been given. I really struggled to acheive this goal, but I think I flagged around 40kg or so. There are just so many pairs of socks and underwear one can bring.

Friday whizzed by with more packing and last minute preparation. Early Saturday morning Stephen shoved me out of bed at 5am, into the shower and then into the car. He had thoughtfully made up some cinnamon buns the night before, so we munched them in the car as we drove through the rain out to the Antarctic Centre where I would be processed, scanned, briefed and put on a big, big plane.

At 6:30am, I along with my 18 other students and tutors, as well as a lot of American military personel, were bustled through the check and weigh-in and were ushered back out until boarding time at 9am (I guess it takes a long time to do this). We all kind of mingled around the cafe at the Antarctic Centre next door until we were called in for our briefing movie on the flight. Squished into a large curtained room, we watched as images of snow and ice and big, big planes flew by. A calm voice reassured us that our flight would go well, but in the unlikely event of something untoward happening our crew were all well trained to take care of it. It then went on to tell us how lucky we were to be travelling to this amazing place and that we should follow the rules and all would be well. As the lights came on and the images faded we piled out of the room wearing our extreme cold weather (ECW) gear (this is mandatory - the voice told us so) and through the sensors and scanners that made sure none of us was going to blow up the plane or knife someone else. Everyone gathered outside in the grey, dreary parking lot out back and the feeling of excitement grew.

Two yellow school buses pulled up (the first time I've seen them here as schools use city buses, not yellow school buses - I guess they're reserved for the American military) and we piled on. We were driven round the buildings, across the road and into the runway right up to the biggest plane I've ever seen, a C-17 Globemaster. With a light spattering of rain falling on the pavement, we hurried into the belly of the plane.

It was like being in a warehouse. Pipes, wires, crates and very basic seats lining the walls and up front. I fell into a side seat and unburdened myself of bag and coat. The noise was amazing so I quickly put in my little orange ear plugs and watched as everyone settled into their seats. Eventually, the noise got louder and we lurched into movement, without windows this was really all there was to tell us that we were going. As such, I couldn't quite tell you when we left the ground which made the whole experience an interesting one. The idea of travelling to this distant continent that I'd only ever dreamed of going to didn't seem any closer, it didn't feel any more real since I wasn't even sure it was happening. In geography, there's a term for that feeling of 'in betweeness', of having left but not yet arrived - liminality. The whole flight was just like this. We had spent so much time building up to the departure that getting onto a windowless, warehouse-like space was kind of confusing. You expected something more spectacular, more different. After an undefined and unknowable amount of time spent writing, dozing, reading and knitting our movement changed. We dipped forward and turned. We were finally arriving.