Frosty Feet (guest blog by Ross)

Hi Everyone,

Annika has persuaded me to take over her blog for this week. She has gently nudged me into writing a post on Antarctica as she thought that people might be interested in hearing about what I was up to and life in the frozen south.

Red Castle Ridge camp after snow

As many of you know, I spent two months of 2016 in Antarctica (January and November). For those of you who don’t know me well or that this is a thing, 1) yes, it is possible to make it to Antarctica, 2) yes, it can be cold but it’s not as bad as you might think, 3) yes, you do poop in a 5-gallon bucket and haul it out of the field when you are finished with your fieldwork, and 4) yes, we did see penguins and you will too. For me though the most important thing was how these two experiences have transformed my view of human impact on our planet. I have been fortunate enough to be able to conduct this kind of fieldwork.

Something I need to emphasize before I get too far into the post is that work in Antarctica is extremely team oriented and group focused. Many of the logistical staff who are sent to Antarctica never get to go to the really remote and beautiful places. Most are stuck at a base, like McMurdo Station (one of the US bases) or Scott Base (NZ base). So, it is with the deepest sense of gratitude that I need to thank all of the logistical staff for what they do, and how hard they work. They are what make this type of work happen and often do it without so much as a “thank you”. If this finds its way to anyone who has ever been staff at a major Antarctic station, THANK YOU!

I realized after I tried writing this post once that I can say way more than I realized or thought I could. But in the interest of time and in the spirit of Annika’s Blog I will keep it short and sweet. I flew to Antarctica on a C-17 with one of the Helicopters (IBR) we were going to be using for this seasons field work. It was kind of the like flying in a Tur-duck-en (a turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken) only a C-17 stuffed with a helicopter stuffed with gear.

We stayed at Scott Base while we did our Antarctic Field Training (AFT) and got our field gear together. For our AFT we did crevasse rescue, some rope work, as well as setting up our tents, and sleeping away from Scott Base for a night.

Scott Base from a Twin Otter

Learning how to prusik out of a crevasse with Cliff and Kevin

I was in the first group of people to go up to Red Castle Ridge this season. We needed to take the small plane up first to establish a “runway”. The Twin Otter pilots needed to find a spot for a larger plane to land. I was loaded into a Twin Otter with two other people and some gear and before I knew it we were going north.

Mount Erebus from a Twin Otter

D'Urville Wall and Cape Phillipi

Low-level clouds and sea ice next to David Glacier

Ice cliff, I don't know how tall this is but if I had to guess I would say about 200 m tall

Drygalski Ice Tongue surrounded by open water and sea ice

Looking up Aviator Glacier

The Mountaineers Range (close-up)

The Mountaineers Range

We were based out of Red Castle Ridge for the duration of the fieldwork and supported by helicopters the whole time. The helo pilots are some of the best on the planet and fantastic people! Thanks to the skill of the pilots (Heff and Mark) and our mountaineer (James) we were able to access some amazing areas. The peaks around where we were staying are all very large. The tallest is Mount Minto (13,665 ft/4,165 m), then Mount Herschel (10,942 ft/3,335 m), and Mount Humphrey Lloyd (9,760 ft/2,975 m). The amazing thing about all of the peaks is that they go from sea level to that elevation in a really short distance. They are also some of the most intimidating mountains I have ever seen, but simply majestic and awe-inspiring.

Quiet snowfall at Red Castle Ridge

Heff (helo pilot extraordinaire) and IDE (the helo)

James making a weather call to Red Castle Ridge (he's the tiny dot on the hill in the near ground). 

Mount Humphrey Lloyd

Mount Herschel

We were at Tucker Glacier collecting rock samples for me to process at Victoria University. I am trying to reconstruct the ice surface lowering of Tucker Glacier over the last few thousand years. We do this by measuring the amount of a specific cosmogenic nuclide (Beryllium 10). This nuclide can only start accumulating in rocks when they are exposed to open sky at the surface of the planet. As a glacier retreats it will deposit boulders and cobbles on valley walls next to the glacier. When that happens, the boulder starts accumulating cosmogenic nuclides.  If you collect samples from a high elevation down through lower elevations, you should be able to determine the ice surface lowering chronology.  Basically, this is a really cool tool to track the retreat history of a glacier.

Tucker Glacier from the C-17 on the flight down to Scott Base.

Football Saddle

Cliff face at Point 237. 

Our mountaineer, James, and I descended this cliff face fruitlessly in the name of science.

We flew out and back to Scott Base on a Basler (DC-3) that was totally full of gear. The small science team I was with was one of four based out of Red Castle Ridge over the same timeframe. We made it back to Scott Base by way of Mario Zucchelli Station, the Italian station located at Terra Nova Bay. Eventually we made it back to Scott Base and ultimately had a few delays in getting back to New Zealand.  

Basler full of gear and stinky people.

I've been to the hardest part of Italy to get to - MZS Station.

As I said, I tried to keep this short. If you would like more information let me know. If there is enough interest I might start my own blog on Antarctica and some of the things I am doing. Please let me know what you think by leaving comments here; Annika will make sure that I get them. 

And now, the reason that you've patiently read this whole blog...penguins! Please don't ever ask me for another penguin.

Penguin rookery - they are actually really loud and stinky.