Anna'z Travels: Taylor Glacier and Blood Falls

TAYLOR GLACIER CAMP

I was in the field for 9 long days at this beautiful spot located on Taylor Glacier in Taylor Valley, 70 miles from McMurdo station. Scientists were drilling for ice core samples in the blue ice. Ice core samples were melted down, releasing trapped air from over 50 thousand years ago revealing ancient climates and clues to future climates. I went there with Brooks and we set up camp and then I stayed and helped the lovely miss Chandra (aka most badass lady on the continent!) get things going as she had two science groups to manage on her own!

Brooks @ Taylor Glacier Camp. He is standing in front of an Endurance tent that we set up and which serves as the kitchen tent for the 10 scientists for 2 months! We use propane two burner coleman stoves for cooking and melting glacier ice for water. The barrel to the right is where the urine and grey water is poured and taken out by helicopter.

Drilling V loops into the blue ice to anchor down tents.

The Ice Core Drill

A 25,000 year old ice core sample!

Me and Chan Chan

Tent City on a blue ice glacier...

Flying out to Taylor Glacier through the dry valleys is one of the coolest things ever especially when your pilot is Ryan :)

Doug and I out for a midnight walk on the glacier.

Doug was part of the carpenter crew that came out

to set up the Science Rac tent.

Woman with a drill.

Saying goodbye to Chandra (Taylor Glaciers amazing camp manger) and heading back to mac town. When I got back I had sea legs or more appropriate, blue ice legs and wobbled around on the solid ground after over a week of walking on the bumpy blue ice in the winds!

BLOOD FALLS

Blood Falls is an outflow of an iron oxide-tainted plume of saltwater, flowing from the tongue of the Taylor Glacier onto the ice-covered surface of West Lake Bonney in the Taylor Valley. This site is about 8 miles down glacier from Taylor Glacier camp. Our job here was to take down the existing camp and inventory and cache it properly for next season. This included a lot of cleaning up. We flew by helicopter to the camp on friday and got picked up and taken back to McMurdo on Monday. It was a LONG weekend! but we did get the fortunate opportunity to go out for a hike around the area. It is very quiet in this environment and you are surrounded by giant glaciers, mountains, and frozen lakes in a place where very few people have ever walked before. It feels like another planet. It's pretty special.

Here you can see the camp on the edge of the lake in front of the Glacier.

Not a bad spot for a field camp! We arrived, cleaned up the camp, took down the camp, inventoried every last spoon and candy bar, packed up the camp and secured everything to withstand a Antarctic winter and staged all the retro-waste/equipment that was to return with us to Mcmurdo.