14 November--Like A New Beginning

The second day of Happy Camper school I pulled my back out and spent the next few days going to physical therapy, laying flat on my back in bed, and generally feeling miserable and hunched over.  In addition to certain stretches, the doctor and physical therapist both recommended walking as a good activity.  The next few days I went to work but was relegated to working Dispatch for 3 hour spells.  It was still too uncomfortable to sit down for more than a few minutes, so I generally worked standing up and occasionally knelt at the desk when I had to write something down.  It has been getting better and better day by day and the walks have gotten longer and more comfortable.  And I'm back to being vertical!  Like a new beginning!

So it was with great pleasure today to have the first of two days off.  I just got back from a walk.  Two actually.  Earlier I went down to the Scott Hut again.  Wanted to look around, since it looked so warm outside.  It has been up to 34 or so for 3 days or so.  Went out in my fleece pants and jacket, Peruvian hat and gloves. Wrong!  The wind was up and it was slicing.  Got to the hut OK but it was naturally closed again.

But I saw a dive hut out on the ice and nearby what I thought must be the Ob Tube.  There were some Air National Guard folks down there with the key and they had the hatch open.  By then it was getting pretty cold.  I waited my turn and went down this very claustrophobic, narrow tube.  There were pieces of bent rebar as ladder rugs going down.  Very nicely done.  But the tube was a pretty narrow diameter for people with long legs, so it was a bit tough navigating my way down.  Had to remove Big Red, too.  About 15 feet deep.

At the bottom there is a seat and a 360 degree view.  Look horizontally and there was water and an occasional fish.  Look down and I think you could see things like crabs and other kinds of shellfish.  Look up and you could see the bottom of the ice.  Wonderful shades of blue of the sun trying to penetrate the ice. Feathery ice crystals growing like small curtains down from the bottom of the ice.  There was a greenish cast to some of it that I think was a kind of algae that will melt out of the ice and fall like snow, making a fantastic feast for the krill that will gorge themselves by the billions on it.  Wonderful!  Got back out and hurriedly back "home" to warm up.  Fingers refusing to cooperate to unzip my jacket.

There, one of my roommates said that the hut was going to be open from 1200 to 1500, staffed by volunteers.  I hurried into my Carhartts, Big Red, 2 neck gaiters, hat, gloves, boots with my fingers only barely obeying my orders.  I went down and talked to the volunteers and found out the missing step I hadn't taken to become a full-fledged guide down there. 

The hut was nothing compared to Cape Evans, but there were still some neat things to see.  The ceiling was all covered with black soot from them burning seal blubber for heat and light.   There was even a seal butchered near the door, oozing fat.  (There's another one just outside the door, too.)  Lots of boxes of stuff, mostly cocoa and biscuits for dogs and people.  I had experimented with my camera back at the dorm and discovered some things about it that helped a lot back in the Hut.  Like a way to make the flash less harsh in the twilight lighting.

This was Scott's first hut and dates from the 1904-5 expedition.  It's often called the Discovery Hut, after his ship of that name that was crushed by the winter ice here.  It was made of Australian jarrah wood and the design--leave it to Scott--was designed to minimize sun warming the building.  Great in the Outback, horrible on the Ice.  It's known to stay cold even in the "warmest" days that occur here.  When he came back for his fatal expedition in 1910-11 he had a much better design that could be kept much warmer.  He situated it at Cape Evans, far enough north in the Ross Sea that it was much safer mooring for his ship, the "Terra Nova."

Just for the heck of it I went back to the Ob Tube and got a second chance down inside.  But I still couldn't get the camera to take most pictures with just existing light and to focus on the ice crystals further away on the bottom of the ice.  I could take them growing on the window when set on close up, but not further.  It wanted to think I was too close for that.  I think it was focusing on the plexiglass itself.  Bummer.

Getting out I walked around the sea edge and got a few good pictures of the pressure ridges there.  Not nearly as dramatic as the ones over by Scott Base, but OK.  Also, the snow on top of the sea ice is melting a lot, leaving the surface very blue and beautiful.  Also saw 3 seals hauled out on the ice of the ice pier bay.

25 October--The OTHER Scott Hut

This was a day for a hike that got a bit longer than intended.  The original and first Scott Hut is only a half mile or so away from the station.  The first time I visited it, it was so extremely cold and windy that I was in some danger of frostbite or worse, so this was a perfect day for a quick visit.  Much warmer and no wind.  There wasn't much more to see but it was much more enjoyable.  There is a cross nearby for a person who fell through the ice and drowned.

It was such a beautiful day that I decided to follow the Hut Point Ridge Trail, though I wished I had had a map and a partner to hike with.  Accordingly, I kept my bearings fixed on where McMurdo Station was at every step.  As I ascended the ridge, the wind, no longer blocked as down at the Hut, was blowing hard, but not dangerously so.  It was a wonderful hike with great views all around.

If Cousin Andy is reading this blog, this is for you.  They have full staffs for both Winter and Summer and man both the active air strips and the town.

Interesting tidbit: things are so acronym laden here that one letter of one acronym is actually an acronym in its own right.  The "S" in SOPP is an acronym for a humungously long office in the Navy.

Correction: I earlier wrote that McMurdo Station is the second most remote US Post Office, behind the South Pole.  I learned that the South Pole is not an official US Post Office and is manned entirely by volunteers, making McMurdo the most remote post office.

Finally, we've been told how it important it will become to beat icicles off our vehicles before we go onto the Ice because the dark, cindery ones will melt deep potholes in the ice road.  Hard to believe, given the extreme cold.  Yesterday I actually found some in one of our parking areas.  They are about 3 or 4 inches deep and an inch across.  Photo follows.

17 October--And Speaking of Ozone

Here is a generic image of the Antarctic Ozone Hole.  It expands and retracts with the seasons each year.  .  At times it has expanded as far north as southern Australia.  But human populations this far south in the Southern Hemisphere are pretty low, so that the public health implications are not as great as it might otherwise be.

If you want to see day by day what the Antarctic Ozone Hole is doing, visit this NASA site:
http://ozonewatch.gsfc.nasa.gov/
You cn also see historical images of what it has been.

A scientist from the British Antarctic Survey is predicting that within 20 years the same thing will be occurring over the Arctic.  Visit the following site to see several chilling (tee-hee) maps of the future Arctic Ozone Hole with maps of populations.  Most of Europe, Canada, and Russia would be affected, with potentially 700 million people.
http://www.theozonehole.com/arcticozone.htm

A day of rest and I made the serious mistake of going on a hike to nearby Hut Point without wearing my Carhartt insulated bibs and fleece bottoms.  Levi's only does NOT cut it.  The wind was up again and it cut through the cotton in a matter of  few minutes.  It could have been  a very serious situation if it weren't such a short distance, maybe one miles round trip.  It must be taken seriously.

The hut was built by  Robert Falcon Scott's expedition.  It's been preserved as an historic site.  Word of mouth here has it that it is preserved exactly as they left it.  Nonsense!  Everything there has been rearranged over the years.  Some of the various cans have been brought in at later dates to match what the expedition was carrying or might have been carrying.  The mummified seal carcass on the outside was laid there at a later date by someone who thought it looked authentic.  At one point, it was found entirely filled--every nook and cranny--right up to the ceiling with blown snow that was very laboriously shoveled out.  [Note: even the tiniest crack left in a window of a vehicle will lead to snow finding its way in.  Some of the Deltas can sometimes be found in the morning with several inches of infiltrated snow.  Not a great way to start the day!]

So, no, the hut isn't authentic, bu it is definitely cool.  While in Lyttleton New Zealand, we fortuitously were standing in line outside the fish and chips shop when we met a Kiwi woman who works with the Antarctic Trust.  Their mission is to preserve these historic buildings.  She'll be down to the Ice later in the season.

 

Today it was all locked up, but tours are given on a regular basis.  I'll post photos of the inside at some other time.  My fingers were so cold, even in my gloves, that photography was not really in the cards.