Anna'z Travels: Antarctica. Season 5.

My 5th season working in Antarctica rocked. I had a new job, great co-workers and flew around to some amazing new places.

(This is me standing on a twin otter aircraft in the middle of nowhere Antarctica. yay! )

The good times at McMurdo continued to roll, but a big change for me this season was working in the BFC (Berg Field Center) affectionately known as the Building Full of Chicks or Building Full of Coffee or Building Full of Cougars :)

Regardless of title, this is seriously my favorite building on the ice. It is two stories high with high ceilings and full of cool stuff like Scott tents, endurance tents, tents and more tents, scientific instruments, industrial sewing machines, tools, camping gear, cooking gear, and stoves and games and a sweet library and oh yeah, prayer flags and a million photographs of people throughout the years all around Antarctica and wood floors and maps and... well, its just really cool. Did I mention the gigantic antarctic scrabble game that is painted on the kitchen floor!

So my job was being part of a team that was responsible for outfitting all the smaller scale science projects with the gear and supplies they needed to survive in remote field camps in Antarctica. We would also go out to some of those camps to set up and take down all the tents, the kitchen, the toilet tent (if they had one) and would sometimes be in charge of all of the logistics of the camp management. It is a really fun job. And I worked with really fun people. Field work is intense, challenging and hard work, but the experience is one of a kind. I went to camps I had never before visited for work including Taylor Glacier, Blood Falls, Ridge A, South Pole and Cape Crozier. Below are some photos of these field camp experiences.

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.

Hiking down the Taylor Glacier.

Having morning coffee by Lake Bonney.

The camp, cached and ready for scientists to return in November 2014!

A glacier pouring down above the Blood Falls camp.

The skeleton of a seal that went too far up the valley, a very long time ago.

Belly hooking a helicopter sling load is a exhilarating feeling,

especially while being sandblasted because you are wearing short shorts :)

The requisite BFC photo-shoot:)

Sitting on top of Taylor Glacier.

SOUTH POLE STATION (stepping stone to Ridge A)

The day after Christmas I flew to the South Pole station, a 3 hour, 800 mile plane ride tom McMurdo Station. There I spent three weeks, staging gear for Ridge A, the field site that I was going to be the guide for. Of course when I left McMurdo I thought I would spend about 3-4 days at Pole, but there were a number of logistical and weather delays, which meant I had to hurry up and wait at the south pole...for three weeks! I ended up finding ways to make myself useful and I enjoyed my time there getting to know some great people who keep their distance from McMurdo :) and Yes it is cold at the South Pole. It is very cold.

The Pole!

The geographic South Pole marker installed January 1, 2014.

South Pole Telescope!

Walking underneath the station in the tunnels. It is really freaking cold down there!

The cargo for Ridge A being forked to the flight line.

The South Pole Station

RIDGE A (the coldest place on earth. for real)

My only solo field guide gig this season was to go out with an astronomy group to a site called Ridge A, which is located 13,400 feet on highest, driest and calmest place on the antarctic plateau. Ridge A is 600 miles grid east of the south pole station, a 5-6 hour plane ride in a twin otter. It was around -37 degrees Celsius on average and our only group shelter was an Arctic Oven tent to cook in as well as our own personal mountain tents for sleeping in. It was a harsh place to get work done. It was a harsh place to get coleman white gas stoves to work to melt water and cook bacon! We were there for 5 days and thankfully had good weather on day 5 to get us the hell out of there!

CAPE CROZIER

My final field assignment this year was to close the camp at Cape Crozier. Cape Crozier is the most easterly point of Ross Island, a 35 minute helicopter ride around the island from McMurdo Station. It was discovered in 1841 during James Clark Ross's expedition. The edge of the Ross Ice Shelf stretches away to the east. Cape Crozier is home to one of the largest Adelie penguin colonies in the world. There are about around 500,000 penguins there. There is also a Emperor colony and one of the largest Skua colonies there as well. Cape Crozier is one of Antarctica's Specially Protected Areas.

The Work Part... Closing the hut at Cape Crozier.

Our job here was to clean, inventory and make the Crozier hut ready for next season. We threw away old food, cleaned up any trash, scrubbed and swept, put Scott tents inside and made that hut look GOOD! (Out of respect for those who occupied the hut I will refrain from showing before pictures!)

My Co-worker hard at work!

Sometimes the job feels like glorified house keeping. Glorified in the sense that we are cleaning a hut on an island, by a penguin colony, in Antarctica!

The hut all tidied up.

The hut from the out side You can see the solar outhouse in front.

Packed and ready to go.

The BFC manages all the survival caches so one component of our job is to check them after each season to inventory and make sure everything is there and in order. Inside are tents, sleeping bags, stoves fuel food and various survival gear. A Skua perches on top of the cache.

The helicopter landing at the pad in front of the hut. You can see the open water in the background. The Ross Sea!

The after work part... Hiking to the penguin colony.

All we could see was penguins. As far as the eye could see. The sound of them was overpowering. The smell of penguin poop was also overwhelming. It stank! They were running around all over, chasing their mothers for food. Scooting down to the water and fighting the waves to get into the ocean. Shooting up and out of the water like darts in the ocean and waddling out of the water full of fish.