Today we went out to Cape Evans. The preparations were intense. There were 3 Deltas (two of them towing emergency equipment, such as stoves, sleeping bags, food and so on) and a tracked vehicle called a Challenger. Its function was to tow out any of us that might get stuck or break down. Nominally, the purpose of the trip was to train some new guides for leading recreational trips to Cape Evans and the rest of us were there solely for the recreation as a "morale" trip.
We drove out around Hut Point and almost to the Ice Runway before heading north for about 2 hours along a flagged route. There are research huts at the Cape and the road must get maintenance from time to time to facilitate travel there. If you were to go another 10 miles north past Cape Evans you would reach the current limit of open water of the Southern Ocean, an ocean you probably didn't learn about in school but which is now generally recognized.
The group split in two and our group went first to the Scott Hut. Actually, it was his second hut, the one he built for his second and ultimately fatal expedition. It's been preserved by the Kiwi-based Antarctic Heritage organization. They maintain historic sites all across the continent, including--I found this out this morning--a hut in the Dry Valleys. Only 12 people are allowed in at a time and backpacks are not allowed because of the close quarters. Everyone needs to scrape their feet before entering to prevent moisture and gravel from entering and wrecking the wooden floors. We were issued flashlights to illuminate the rather dark interior. Touching anything is forbidden and it gives you the impression that they just stepped out for a moment and never returned. According to the Kiwi woman we talked to in Lyttleton, this is not actually the case. Things have been moved to more perfectly compose an image. Other things have been brought in that would have been part of their equipment but which might have been stolen over the years. The darkroom looks just like it might have back then. The living quarters feature a long crew table with several lamps. The bunk-beds still have the animal fur sleeping bags (caribou?) laying there, as well as shoes, boots. There are wooden crates and cans of various food items. The stable, which is built under the same roof, still has the sweet, acrid smell of a stables. In one part of the stables area there is a forge and smithy for making or repairing items. A pile of dead penguins is in another corner. I'm not sure if it was Scott's expedition which did this, but there was one expedition that burned penguins in their furnace when their coal or fuel oil ran out. Interestingly, one of our newest shuttles operators found that the Latin derivation of the word penguin comes from the word "fat," which would make a lot of sense.
What a magical, time-warp place! I'm feeling very fortunate to have been allowed to get to this seldom visited spot.
The other group came from the iceberg and we took some group photos of the Shuttles department draped all over a Delta.
The iceberg was our next stop. It apparently calved off last summer and didn't get too far before being frozen into this winter's sea ice. Maybe it will get much further this coming summer. It stood maybe 50 or 60 feet above the flat surrounding sea ice, meaning that probably 450 to 540 feet of ice were suspended below the ice. Wow! The stuff of which you read in school! The colors ranged from robin's egg blue to a very dark royal blue. The play of the light on it was marvelous! We walked around the circumference of it and saw a seal basking perhaps 150 yards away near its hole. It didn't move in the slightest in our presence.
All too soon it was time to go, but I was struck by the faint resemblance of the flat ice expanses surrounded by mountains with the scene on the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, only this was even more extreme and there was absolutely no vegetation here. The ice was analogous to the salt pans, now being mined since my visit in 2003 for lithium.
We got home around midnight and I had to work at 0600. Worth every bit of missed sleep. I was a wreck the next day at work.
We drove out around Hut Point and almost to the Ice Runway before heading north for about 2 hours along a flagged route. There are research huts at the Cape and the road must get maintenance from time to time to facilitate travel there. If you were to go another 10 miles north past Cape Evans you would reach the current limit of open water of the Southern Ocean, an ocean you probably didn't learn about in school but which is now generally recognized.
The group split in two and our group went first to the Scott Hut. Actually, it was his second hut, the one he built for his second and ultimately fatal expedition. It's been preserved by the Kiwi-based Antarctic Heritage organization. They maintain historic sites all across the continent, including--I found this out this morning--a hut in the Dry Valleys. Only 12 people are allowed in at a time and backpacks are not allowed because of the close quarters. Everyone needs to scrape their feet before entering to prevent moisture and gravel from entering and wrecking the wooden floors. We were issued flashlights to illuminate the rather dark interior. Touching anything is forbidden and it gives you the impression that they just stepped out for a moment and never returned. According to the Kiwi woman we talked to in Lyttleton, this is not actually the case. Things have been moved to more perfectly compose an image. Other things have been brought in that would have been part of their equipment but which might have been stolen over the years. The darkroom looks just like it might have back then. The living quarters feature a long crew table with several lamps. The bunk-beds still have the animal fur sleeping bags (caribou?) laying there, as well as shoes, boots. There are wooden crates and cans of various food items. The stable, which is built under the same roof, still has the sweet, acrid smell of a stables. In one part of the stables area there is a forge and smithy for making or repairing items. A pile of dead penguins is in another corner. I'm not sure if it was Scott's expedition which did this, but there was one expedition that burned penguins in their furnace when their coal or fuel oil ran out. Interestingly, one of our newest shuttles operators found that the Latin derivation of the word penguin comes from the word "fat," which would make a lot of sense.
What a magical, time-warp place! I'm feeling very fortunate to have been allowed to get to this seldom visited spot.
The other group came from the iceberg and we took some group photos of the Shuttles department draped all over a Delta.
The iceberg was our next stop. It apparently calved off last summer and didn't get too far before being frozen into this winter's sea ice. Maybe it will get much further this coming summer. It stood maybe 50 or 60 feet above the flat surrounding sea ice, meaning that probably 450 to 540 feet of ice were suspended below the ice. Wow! The stuff of which you read in school! The colors ranged from robin's egg blue to a very dark royal blue. The play of the light on it was marvelous! We walked around the circumference of it and saw a seal basking perhaps 150 yards away near its hole. It didn't move in the slightest in our presence.
All too soon it was time to go, but I was struck by the faint resemblance of the flat ice expanses surrounded by mountains with the scene on the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia, only this was even more extreme and there was absolutely no vegetation here. The ice was analogous to the salt pans, now being mined since my visit in 2003 for lithium.
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