Enter the dream land of CTAM; Antarctica's one year Central Trans Antarctic Mountians field camp

Doug and I on my first night at CTAM, at the top of the rec trail, a 6 mile or so snowmobile ride up into the mountains and then a hike up a steep hillside covered in fossils and amazing rocks.







It's not everyday that you can hang out on the side of a mountain surrounded by giant peaks, glaciers and fossils of leaves on every rock you pick up from millions of years ago!

The Ice- Round 4 2012-13

Another season on the ice. This would make 4. These photos are mostly from my time putting in two deep field camps, WAIS and PIG. (Western Antarctic Ice Shelf and Pine Island Glacier) I spent a month in the field this time, flying to Western Antarctica on a C130 hercules and then almost to the west coast of Antarctica to PIG in a tiny twin otter plane. Pretty cool experience. Lots of shoveling snow and ice, lots of building tent structures, lots of good people to share it all with.

 

 

 

Colorado Summer 2012

The summer of 2012 I packed up my truck and drove to Durango where I took a job as Wilderness Ranger for the summer in the San Juan Mountains. I went into the backcountry for 10 days at a time with one other ranger camping, cooking, doing trail maintenance, talking to hikers, cleaning camps and hiking hiking hiking! It was pretty cool. I loved spending so much time in the mountains and hiking over high mountain passes, camping out all summer! On my weekends I got to go on mountain climbing adventures with Tom and rock climbing adventures with friends to Utah... Indian Creek! I feel in love with crack climbing. AT eh end of summer i packed up the truck again and drove up to Oregon for my friend Kristins wedding and then back to Wisconsin before heading back down for my 4th season in Antarctica.

Our faithful Llamas Climbing Super Crack at Indian Creek!!

New Zealand Feb-March 2012

New Zealand... This season I spent two months traveling around the South Island of New Zealand. This time I had "Fanny the Vanny" on my side which was super fun to live out of and cruise around in. Doug and I spent the first month touring the Catlins, the west coast and Golden Bay, returning to Christchurch via Kaikoura to pick up my Dad! Doug left, Tom stayed on for another month of touring Mt.Cook National Park, a 5 day hike on the Rees-Dart tramp, and a small jaunt up the west coast visiting the Welcome Flats hot springs and then over Arthur's Pass to Akaroa. It was fun to show my Dad New Zealand and get some good tramping in. Love this country!