Antarctica continues to both challenge and inspire me in work and spirit. Here are a few of the places I traveled this season.
November 2015, Mission: Allen Hills
The Allen Hills are an area of Antarctica nearly 200 miles north of McMurdo Station at the northernmost part of the Dry Valleys. Notoriously windy, this area consists of ridges and valleys of volcanic dirt and sandstone, rock patches and icy bays. To reach the site that the scientific team desired we had to stage all of our camp cargo on the Odell Glacier, flown in by Twin Otter aircraft from McMurdo Station.
My co-worker, Mari and I were sent in with over 4,000 lbs of camp cargo including tents, stoves, food, sleds, propane, and other essential survival gear for making camp in Antarctica. The flight took us over the frozen Ross Sea with gigantic icebergs rising out of the ice hundreds of feet. We passed over the Dry Valleys, one of the worlds most extreme desert environments. We flew past 6,000 ft peaks sweeping down into sandy ice free valleys with narrow rivers running through them... Stunning scenery.
Our veteran Ken Borek Air pilot, Henry Perk, dropped us in the middle of the Odell Glacier with the second flight of gear piled up in a heap and before leaving beckoned us over to him. Henry has flown in Antarctic for 32 years and to say the least has some experience with Antarctic weather patterns. "Are you coming back to McMurdo or not?" Henry asks us in his Swiss accent. Going back to Mcmurdo was not the plan and had not even crossed my mind. "Weather is coming, five days without planes," was all he said holding up his hand with 5 fingers outstretched. Mari and I exchanged looks. It was our job to stay out on the glacier and sort the cargo and build sling loads to be slung by helicopter out to the Allen Hills, scheduled to fly the next day. Antarctic weather is notoriously unpredictable and constantly changing. "No, we'll stay here Henry, thank you!" was my reply. In my head of course I was thinking, our boss would want us to stay out here to secure the precious field gear, storm or no storm! We watched Henry taxi in a circle and take off, leaving us alone on the Odell Glacier, for 5 days!
The storm hit McMurdo and we got some of it too. Mari and I organized our gear, placing it in cargo nets in a specific manner based on weight and shape. Once our loads were built we hunkered down and waited out the storm. I had pre-cooked a turkey at McMurdo to serve the science group for Thanksgiving as we were scheduled to already be out in the Allen Hills by Thursday. Mari and I thawed the Turkey and cooked up some instant potatoes with gravy and green beans and had an Odell Thanksgiving :) We somehow managed to survive with 3 weeks of propane, food and coffee outside our Scott tent; along with 2 Barbara Kingsolver novels, Cribbage and endless games Scrabble...
Odell Thanksgiving!
I had to dig around to find the turkey
Building Sling Loads
Scrabble to survive
Once the weather cleared a plane arrived and took us back to McMurdo for the Holiday weekend. We felt rescued and taken care of beyond belief! The following monday I flew back out to the Odell glacier, this time with the scientist and managed the sling loads as they were taken west into the Allen Hills.
Our Camp nestled into a valley in the Allen Hills
Finally, we were all at the site and went to setting up the Endurance cook tent, the outhouse Scott tent and mountain tents for sleeping in. My role was to manage the camp, conduct communications with aviation operations, cook for the group, and maintain the safety of the scientist. There were 8 paleobotanists in the group from various universities and countries. They were here to collect plant fossils from the Allen Hills and the Carapace nunatak, located 30 miles west. The group located an incredible site within a 45 minute hike from camp where they extracted thousands of pounds of Triassic plant fossils. They were also able to collect large amounts of chert from the Carapace Nunatak with the help of a helicopter :)
It was a successful and fun two weeks supporting the team. I was able to hike to the site with them and help chip away with the rock hammer exposing fossils and be part of the excitement that ran through the team as new plant species were discovered that have been here, encased in mud for over 200 million years.
As I sat there, looking at the fossilized fern in my hands, then looking around at the vast icy white landscape, it was hard not to feel the affects of 34 million years climate change. To picture the exact place where I stood, a jungle with 100 foot tall fern trees and dinosaurs wandering about, and now, only glaciers and snow made me feel so small and insignificant. A blip in time. It also made me wonder how fast we are careening towards the next ice age.
Forever a slave to science ;)
The team will take the fossils back to the University of Kansas to reconstruct what the forest in Antarctica looked like and how it operated with full light and full dark conditions, as our climate changes now this sciences is relevant to how our current forests develop and migrate with the changing climate.
After the 3 weeks in the field at the Allen Hills I returned to McMurdo for the remainder of the summer season. During that time I trained with the Search and Rescue team simulating crevasse and slope rescues.
In January I was sent out to Cape Royds to assist penguin researcher Jean Pennycook for 3 days.Cape Royds is on the west side of Ross Island and home to the southernly most adelie penguin colony. We weighted and measured baby penguins for their ongoing 20 + years of field research. Royds is also home to Shakelton's Nimrod Hut built by his crew in 1908. You can still see many things left behind by the early Antarctic explorers in and outside of the hut.
Shakeltons Hut
Out on the Ross Sea Ice I was able to witness many beautiful classic Antarctic scenes of icebergs, ice caves and wildlife.
