...beyond

Its been over a month since leaving the ice and a lot has happened since then. I'm too tired now to say much, but here are a few photos from ski touring today in the Canadian Rockies with my friend Andrew Wexler. It was a beautiful, but blustery day in the mountains and to say the least, my trip to the Rockies has left me thirsting for more of what Canada has to offer. Up here is most likely one of the world's epicenters for ice climbing and alpine climbing.

These photos are from a day spent skiing up on the Wapta icefield, which is a famous and popular ski traverse in Canada. Andrew is training for a ski guide's exam which meant that I saw a lot of his backside as he was way out in front making me feel out of shape most of the day. The Canadian mountain guides tend to take themselves pretty seriously; luckily Andrew doesn't, so we manage to have fun no matter the situation. We almost decided to ski a run off a peak at the end of the day, then later realized had we skied off the peak we probably would have gotten buried in an avalanche. My whole body is tired and beat from a week of ice climbing and skiing here in Canada, and if anyone knows a nice Canadian woman that is interested in marrying me for citizenship will you please forward my email address? Just kidding...well, only sort of :-).

Bittersweet

Tomorrow I'm leaving for New Zealand. Bittersweet is the best way to describe the feelings I have. Bitter because I have to leave behind people I care about that I may not see again, and also leaving the land which has etched itself into me. Sweet because the road ahead contains so many experiences yet to reveal themselves. I am caught between wanting the continual surprises that time brings, and the calm that is brought by knowledge of the future. But that is how life works it seems. Surprises happen when I least expect them, and never seem to come soon enough when I am waiting for a change.

My friend told me yesterday that we can only lose what we've had. Maybe what I feel about leaving is not loss really, but an absence of knowing what tomorrow will bring. Life is full of times when I don't know what is around the corner, like now, and it makes me keep my senses about me, and my thoughts sharp. When life becomes predictable and habitual, I don't need to be as aware.

A kiwi friend of mine at the kiwi ski hill rope tow.

The bitterness of loss always gives way the sweetness of potential. But I think that the potential manifests itself through my own actions and the strings of the great puppeteer, who, or whatever that may be. Maybe time and circumstance is all that drives the outcome of our lives, or maybe there is a plan tucked neatly away in some dark cave or on some bright mountaintop.

My friends and I saying goodbye to my roommate on her way to the airfield and then New Zealand.

This place has changed me more than any place I've lived. I'm not sure though if it is Antarctica that is doing the changing, or it is us who are transforming ourselves. The social space here is one of extremes: people become close to one another quickly, and they also can choose to remain distant just the same. The energy here is confusing. At times eclectic and incredibly creative, and at times overridden by the corporate-ness of the management. I remember vividly last year feeling like a part of me was being assimilated into something larger than myself. Not greater or lesser, necessarily, but larger. And I suppose that society works by assimilation, its not a bad thing necessarily. In fact to create society, we each must (tacitly) give part of ourselves over to it.

What underpins all of us here? Is it the continent itself, or something else. I think at first we come because we want to see Antarctica. But after that first experience the reasons for returning are too numerous and complex to list or even understand. And many of the reasons have nothing to do with the land, but with the people we have the chance to live with here.

Thanks for joining me this season. I wish you all goodness in the new year still left to come!

Faith

Exactly one month ago I sat at Cape Royds under the midnight sun while penguins cried and sea ice groaned from the ocean's swells. Now that ice is gone, blown and melted back to the ocean where it was born. I observed the lifestyle of the Adelies and tried to understand them. What I concluded is that life is a gift. Who or what gave us this gift I do not know: the laws of physics, the big bang, god, allah, Mother Earth, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It is fact that in the relative scale of Earth History (roughly 4.5 billion years) we are but glints of light in the eyes of the universe as it travels through time on its great road trip we call existence. The penguins are but one of a near-infinite example that all creatures are trying in their own humble and beautiful way to survive.

And so are we, the human species. We are doing exactly what any species would do if given the capabilities we've been given. Spiderman was told "With great power comes great responsibility." This is exactly true for we humans. We have proven beyond any shadow of any doubt that we are capable of great things, but also of causing much damage. To each other, to the planet, to ourselves. My Adelie penguin friends try as hard as they can to make a good home for themselves, and to raise their offspring. This story is no different than the story of the American dream, or the dream of any species.

So here we are in 2009 and it is a fact that the earth is getting warmer and that we are a significant cause of this warming. Who really knows how much damage we have caused, or how much damage we can now reduce by changing our behavior? No one really knows. Time will tell. The answer to that question actually doesn't matter. What matters to me is that I try to be responsible to my penguin neighbors, who live twenty miles down the coast. Because our world is so irreversibly connected, you all who read this in places far from Antarctica are also, in a sense, neighbors of these Adelies. I could argue that as a member of planet earth I am, in ways small and large, neighbors of all who dwell on the blue planet.

So in the name of supporting science I have travelled thousands of miles of my home on jet powered aircraft to make my home in an entirely fossil-fuel dependent and consumptive community which exists to allow science to happen. In what ways will the lives of the penguins improve if we discover more about their diving habits, or reproductive behaviors, or anything that the people here strive to know.

In what ways does traveling across the world to do a climbing trip benefit the world, either human or non-human. I have a firm belief that I can make a difference in the lives of others, if by no other way, than by being a good person. Perhaps this belief is overly sentimental or too simplistic. If nothing else, it is a fine starting point for being a good citizen of the planet. But then how do we define "good." Maybe that is impossible, but at least I can strive to live a beautiful life and have the smallest negative impact on the lives of others. The world is so complex that I will never fully understand the consequences of my actions as the ripple out in the fabric of the planet. Countless ripples emanate from all things in a continues movement driven by time and governed only by the laws of the universe. I hope that my ripples don't make it worse for others too much. It might be more simple to answer this question if I chose to live in a treehouse somewhere or on an island.

All philosophizing aside, my bluegrass band played its final show last Tuesday at the Coffeehouse and we tried to spread the love we had through the music we make. We have a full band: fiddle, dobro, guitar, banjo, mandolin, upright bass, and vocal harmonies that have made me nearly cry more than once. I feel ultimately privileged to be playing in such fine company. We play a mix of originals and lots of traditionals.

The band on stage at the Coffeehouse

John putting some feeling into the fiddle. This man plays from his heart, and if one day I hope to put as much feeling into my playing as he does.

The Coffeehouse.

Julie and the empty house, before the show.

The season is coming to a close at warp speed and the answers keep getting lapped by the questions, and I'm totally okay with that.

Breaking out

In less than two weeks I'll be smelling living things. Its been one long day, or so it seems, in the land where the sun never sets. Last week after two weeks of being on hold for weather, the NASA team and I flew in a Basler DC-3 airplane to retrieve their CREAM payload. CREAM is an instrument payload, roughly 4,000 pounds, and was flown by a massive balloon as part of the LDB, or Long Duration Balloon project. The balloon flies at roughly 125,000 feet in the upper atmosphere for a few weeks gathering data and then NASA cuts the payload from the balloon, deploys a parachute, and the payload with parachute falls down to Antarctica. Our job was to fly out and retrieve as many of the instruments as possible. No one gave me a good answer about how much the payload and its instruments are worth. Its in the millions though. Check out the website for more detailed info: http://cosmicray.umd.edu/cream/.

Flying away from Ross Island, on which McMurdo is built. In view is Mt. Erebus (12,500ft top left), Mt. Terror (9,000 ft top center), Turks Head (the rocky outcrop on the center right of the image) which is one of the largest Weddell seal colonies in Antarctica.

I went because CREAM was dropped near the coast where crevassing can occur, in which case I'd be responsible for getting the scientists to their instrument safely. Fortunately the Canadian pilots flying us out in their Basler, ski-equipped plane landed within 50 feet of CREAM. They are some of the best mountain pilots in the world.

We flew northwest from McMurdo.

The sea ice is breaking out right now at an incredible rate (as usual for this time of year), and unlike the helicopters which aren't permitted to fly over open water, the Basler flew at 12,000 feet over the broken ice and open water for over a hundred miles. Seeing the process of sea-ice breakout is incredible and gives me a better sense of how enormous the processes going on here are.

Satellite photograph of the McMurdo area sea ice on September 18th 2008. This is when the sea ice is at its maximum thickness and extent. The scale is roughly 100 miles from right to left. Many Rhode Islands could fit into this image.

Satellite photograph from January 23rd. The sea ice is nearing its minimum extent. Look closely and you'll see hugs slabs of sea ice that are now disconnected from each other and floating. This ice is very soft and thin, but over the winter, whatever hasn't already melted, will get locked in again to next years sea ice.

Sea ice north of McMurdo breaking out. Some of those chunks could fit are a mile long and half a mile wide.

Looking north at the broken sea ice and Ross Sea from 12,000 feet elevation in the Basler. In the foreground is a massive channel, or lead, in the sea ice which might be a mile wide. In the distance the ice breaks up even further and the open ocean is visible to the north.

The Drygalski Ice tongue. This is an amazing feature; essentially a valley glacier which has floated onto the ocean and maintained its form. The Drygalski is 40 miles long and an average of 12 miles wide. At 200 knots (over two hundred miles and hour), it took a few minutes to fly over. Most of the Tetons would fit inside.

The Transantarctic mountains surrounding Terra Nova bay. Somewhere around here is an Italian station, Mario Zucchelli station, which isn't in operation this year.

The Transantarctic Mountains as we fly inland toward the CREAM drop site.

Eventually we land on the snow in the flattest whitest place there is.

The Basler at the landing site, 500 miles from McMurdo in east Antarctica.

The scientists retrieving essential pieces and parts off the payload, including trip computers, GPS antennaes, harddrives, and who knows what else.

The payload with the Basler in the background.

I spent much of my time digging, but I also devised a haul system to pull CREAM onto its side, which enabled us to retrieve the most critical piece, which is housed underneath.

Loading up after a successful trip

The flight home was just as breathtaking. Unfortunately my camera battery was dead. The whole season seems to be crashing to an abrupt end all around me. Just like the sea ice, floating away and hopefully warming up soon. Standing in a place where no one has before is an honor, and also reminds me that we humans don't belong out here. Through science and art and exploration we put our tentacles into as much as we can, but the complexity of the earth, and the complexity of our lives, just like the East Antarctic Ice sheet, dwarfs my attempts to truly behold its essence. I was lucky to have brushed the surface and breathed the air. And yet, it is the same air I might breathe months or years from now in wildly separate parts of earth. The ice contained in East Antarctica might, thousands of years from now, hydrate some other creature in some far off land.

Time again

Its a new year and its catching me off guard, again and again. Whats the point of expecting the expected when I know that things will change? Isn't the saying: "change is the only constant."

In nature this is true and for me it is true also. Every moment that passes a part of us dies and is reborn at a cellular level. Our DNA roughly governs the process, but only inasmuch as blueprints might guide a builder. Another law of physics is that matter cannot be created or destroyed, from which must assume that all the matter in the universe is finite and keeps recycling itself in different forms.

My body is composed of the same matter that was present at the big bang, a "theory" that the physicists I met at the South Pole claim is more proven than the "theory" of evolution. It follows that my body, being constantly rebuilt by the original matter of the universe, is also being rebuilt by matter that has been shed by other life forms, potentially you who read this right now. It wouldn't surprise me if you and I have breathed many of the same molecules of air. Maybe last year I breathed in some oxygen, exhaled carbon dioxide, it travelled back to the pine tree in your yard, and got stripped of its carbon, turned back in oxygen, then you breathed it.

We're all connected in this way, and in infinite, immeasurable ways. Our lives are absolutely bound to one another. In a strict sense, my life does not exist without the life of the penguins or whales here. I would not exist without the wind and the snow, the darkness and the light. Everything that exists here on earth, and everything else which makes up the universe, mostly unknown to us earthlings, makes possible our existences at this very moment in time. I am bound to each one of you and you are bound to me.

Understanding this life of ours might be impossible, but living it well isn't. All I need to do that is to be good to myself and others, and to appreciate every moment. Its challenging for me to feel connected to the rest of the world from here. I walked into the dining hall this morning where Barack Obama's innauguration address was showing. I paused for a moment and listeded to his words. They seemed similarly political in the way that all who have come before him might utter. I walked quickly to where the oatmeal was and got a bowl, and left for work.

Maybe this disconnect I'm feeling will lessen. All I can think about now are the bigger questions looming in my mind and in the environment directly present. Hopefully the questions won't loom too long and I can replace them with fresher ones. Hopefully soon the answers come too.

A little moment in time

Gillian Welch sings, "Its a wonder that I'm in this world at all." Right now I couldn't agree with her more. I've spent so much thought on the idea that we humans, we creations of the universe, mountains, rivers, ice, molecules, penguins, cars, science, families, music, love, happiness, sadness (the goes on forever...), are but momentary and mere sparks off a metaphorical fire bigger and hotter than our brains have the capacity to imagine. But who am I to presume the capacity of the human brain?

Its just that life is filled with uncrossable gaps of reasoning. For instance, it is within the best interest of each individual on earth be they a human, a nematode, or an algae, to act first and foremost in his/her/its own best interest. In many cases we species of planet earth have evolved, if you will, with community- or family-minded behaviors that benefit the greater good of our species, and in some cases of other species. So at once we are inextricably bound to do what is best for our selves, and yet each of our selves are irreversibly bound to each other, to other species, and to every rock, particle, tree, and human on earth. The problem, most notably, in the modern world of humans, is that we are unable to see, or have become disconnected with the binding tenets of ecology which presuppose that we do in fact live in a web of life. We are members of this web, and our actions directly affect all other members. In most cases our effects on our brothers and sisters in the great web of life are inperceivable to our distracted modern eye. Technology has and will continue to exacerbate the issues facing humanity. Every piece of technology that has ever been invented by humans since our beginnings have distanced more and more from the laws of nature which most other species live by. By this I mean that humans are able, whether fairly or not, to acquire more resources, to create more resources through the application of technology, than we actually need. Simply observing nature I notice that virtually all resources available are utilized. This is why as the human ability to create resources with technology has increased over time, population has increased to use up those extra resources.

An elegantly stripped penguin skeleton.

All this is to say that we do not use all our resources, and we certainly don't use our resources with mother earth's health in mind. I have no idea what the solution is, I'm not even sure if personal awareness and responsible action will reduce our impact much if at all. As with any venture in life, if we do the best we can, then we've done the best we could.

Last week I was out at Cape Royds with photographer John Weller who is here gathering images above and below water for his project to protect the Ross Sea, potentially the last intact and pristine marine ecosystem. He is about to launch a site complete with his photographs detailing the mission he is on. We were intending to head two miles out from the penguin colony of roughly 10,000 penguins, out on the sea ice, to a 15 foot crack where the Adelies have been feeding on krill for the past week. Unfortunately the ice had thinned too much since John had first been there and we couldn't make it to the crack.

Part of the colony at Cape Royds

This did allow us to hang out with the penguins in the colony all day and all night. Antarctica is a stark place. The small amount of visible life that exists on the surface consists of seals, penguins, and a few birds. There are microorganisms such as nematodes that survive all over the coastal areas though. Yes penguins are remarkably adorable, but the more I hung out with them the more clearly I saw the brutal existence they face on a daily basis. The colony was strewn with half-rotted penguin carcasses, failed eggs, and predatory Skua birds waiting for the precise moment to attack the Adelie's chicks and drag them out of the colony for a kill.

The yearly life cycle of the Adelies begins in the late spring (February) when their chicks have all taken to the water and all the birds move out to the edge of the pack ice where food and light is more plentiful. Then in the late winter, around September, they return to the same colony, with the same mate, to the same nest of rocks, year after year, ad nauseum. Each year they successfully mate, they potentially have two eggs, and if they're lucky, two chicks. If they are really lucky and they've chosen a good spot in the colony, deep inside a group of penguins, then they are less likely to lose a chick to the skuas. Although penguins are very non-territorial when outside the colony, once on their nest they will not move for any reason except to switch places on the eggs or chicks with their mate. All summer long this rotation happens; either male or female will be out on the sea ice headed for the nearest open water feeding grounds. The length of each rotation depends on the proximity of the feeding grounds. Right now a workable open water crack with a nutrient stream is within two miles of the colony, so the Adelies can switch almost daily. The chicks look fat and unwieldy underneath the parents.

Dead seal on the black sand beach at Cape Royds

Skua parents guarding their freshly hatched chick.

In the colony nothing is wasted, any edible biomass is consumed by one organism or another. Penguins will occasionally eat each other or kill each others chicks. The Adelies have a remarkable range of postures they adopt for various purposes: to indicate aggressiveness, fear, relaxation, and even a self-defensive posture they use while sprinting through the colony as other birds peck at them.

John and I, with the help of the scientists who spend the entire season working at Cape Royds, carried hundreds of pounds of gear over the rough volcanic terrain a moderate way to a black sand beach where they'd been able to access the sea ice the week before, it was quite melted out by this point unfortunately.

Barne Glacier in early morning light

John in front of volcanic rocks

Air penguin

Adelie penguin airing out over a sea ice crack

"The Penthouse" at Cape Royds

Mom (or Dad) and chicks

Penguin on a mission

Adelies, chicks, Cape Royds

Adelies heading in from feeding in the ocean

Penguin sex

Parent and chicks

Adelies at a sea ice crack

Adelies return from a feed

Swimming

An Adelie taking air over an open water crack

Granite glacial erratic in the midst of Cape Royds volcanic rocks

My day observing penguins at Royds made me feel even luckier to be alive. The penguins spend nearly every moment during the early life of their chicks doing things to ensure the survival of their offspring. One unlucky moment and a Skua bird will swoop in and drag a chick away where it will be torn apart and eaten. The world of nature is brutal, and the distance we humans are separated from the direct and brutal economy of nature contributes to our misuse of the earth and maltreatment of our plant and animal neighbors. No one is exempt from the distancing effect humanity has played on us. It is up to us though to act with the consciousness of how our actions affect the creatures that share the world with us.

Parent and chicks

John's project is called, "The Last Ocean." There is a movement growing among many of the Antarctica scientists, based on the notion that the Ross Sea is the last pristine marine ecosystem, to keep it pristine. Right now the Ross sea's main threats are New Zealand fishermen and there is action being taken to reduce or remove fishing from this ecosystem. There are few, if any, ecosystems on Earth which have not felt a measurable impact of humans. This movement is perhaps one of the most important environmental movements happening on Earth today.

There is, and will always, be a battle between those who want to extract use from environments, and those who want them to be left alone. There are no clear answers or justifications that make either side unambiguously correct or incorrect. Any battle to preserve an environmental resource is a battle that must be fought forever. The moment a mine is built, a ski area is developed, a species is driven to extinction, an oil pipeline is installed in a pristine land, or an ecosystem begins to show signs of human presence; once any of these battles are lost, they are lost forever. We cannot recreate pristine.

Adelie and Erebus

Being in the colony reminded me that each one of us is connected to every other living and non living thing on earth, in the universe. We are made of the same atoms, and when we die the material that we are made from will go back naturally to be a part of other organisms in the future.

As I write this the air I'm breathing is air that most of you have breathed, or will soon. Gillian was right, it is a wonder that we're in this world at all. Thank you for being on this journey with me.

Finding the middle ground

Its Sunday and quiet in McMurdo. The roads, normally dusty from constant truck and Cat traffic, are still and clear. The sun is overhead, as usual. Up in the "ballpark", where the cranes and broken heavy equipment lives, a softball tournament is underway. Sunday here is for brunch, when the Galley lays out its proudest supply of "freshies," our term for fresh produce, and the community is eerily quiet.



Cloud formations from 20,000 feet over the polar plateau from a Hercules c-130 aircraft.





Normally the sounds of flying helicopters, the beep of reversing trucks, the crunch of moving gravel, and the deep grunt of diesel engines create a chaos of noise that becomes normal after a while. Today is the Summer Solstice and the sun will make another high swoop of sky as it slowly creeps towards the horizon over the next two months. At McMurdo, 77 degrees south, the sun won't set until February 22nd.



Its been nearly three weeks since I've written and so much has happened around here. On October 23rd a train of nine farm tractors and industrial vehicles set off from McMurdo for the South Pole, an overland journey of 1032 miles. The point of the trip was to deliver fuel and goods to Amundson-Scott South Pole station in a more efficient and cost-effective way than the usual method of air delivery by LC-130 Hercules ski-equipped aircraft. For four years now, the United States Antarctic Program has funded "proof-of-concept" South Pole Traverse trips that were charged with establishing a road, of sorts, to the South Pole, and simultaneously adapting techniques and practices for dealing with the hazards of driving heavy machinery over the worlds largest ice shelf, the Ross Ice Shelf.



Me in front of a D8 bulldozer at the South Pole





Also this year a multinational collaboration was happening high on the Polar Plateau to establish a science camp from which small aircraft mounted with ground penetrating radar could fly transects across an area of the ice sheet which they believe is covering the largest buried mountain range on the continent, the Gambertsev range. The project is called AGAP, but we've been referring to it as "Ass-gap," because its been such a pain in the ass. The South Pole traverse this year was finally charged with going fully operational and was carrying full loads of fuel and supplies, many of which were bound overland to AGAP. After the Traverse was to reach South Pole station, I was to join up and drive 400 miles deeper into the continent to deliver fuel and supplies to AGAP. Unfortunately the South Pole traverse took 52 days, instead of the estimated 23, to reach South Pole, and they cancelled the leg to AGAP.



Tracks left by the South Pole traverse, just south of McMurdo 25 miles in October





On the seventh of Demeber I flew to the South Pole station to lead a recreational camping trip for the "polies," as we affectionately call people who live there. South Pole station is in the flattest, driest, most barren environment on earth, and the only recreation that happens there is a little bit of cross country skiing and anything they can devise to do indoors. For this reason my department, the Field Safety Training Program, sends instructors of three consecutive weekends to take people camping a few miles out from the South Pole station. It so happened that the South Pole traverse was estimating their arrival at the South Pole to coincide nicely with the first camping trip, so I got sent out.



Preparing drinks on the South Pole camping trip.





The flight to South Pole from McMurdo is absolutely phenomenal. I flew in an LC-130 Hercules aircraft piloted and crewed by the New York state Air National Guard, who for years have been contracted to run air operations down here. From McMurdo we flew over the transantarctic mountains and then were over the plateau. The transantarctics are like the Rocky Mountains or North America; a general name for many many subranges of mountains. Glaciers are like rivers, they are accumulations of snow, in Antarctica thousands of feet thick, and they flow downhill. The Antarctic Plateau, divided in the East and West Antarctic ice sheets (this is a hydrological divide, like the continental divide in the US) look flat as a pancake until, on their gentle downhill journey, they encounter the Transantarctics, much like a river encounters boulders and forms rapids, the ice sheets form incredibly violent rapids of ice that tear through the mountains at a glacial pace, on their way to the ocean. Eventually, hundreds and thousands of years from now, all of the ice on the continent will make its way downhill to the ocean and break off, floating over the ocean as an iceberg, north and north until they eventually melt. This is the cycle. As long as the amount of ice that breaks off on the edges of Antarctica is equal the the amount of snow that falls on the interior than the continent is in balance. In times of largescale climate change, such as now, it is possible that this balance is off. More ice may be in the process of being lost than is forming, then we get thinning glaciers and higher ocean levels. Only time will tell, and more time than we have left in our lifetimes.



The Transantarctics.





The Transantarctics





The Transantarctics





I arrived at South Pole and was greeted by the familiar faces I'd met last year, and by many others whom I didn't know. Three Fridays ago I met with the twelve "polies" who had signed up for the trip I was leading. Except for one person, it was the first year in Antarctica for all of them. We spent a few hours talking about hypothermia and frostbite and how to avoid them, and then broke for the night. They next day, Saturday, we set off in Pisten Bully vehicles to our campsite, where we stayed up till 4 am setting up tents, digging snow shelters, and making dinner, in the -25 ambient and -45 windchills. It was about 55 degrees colder at the Pole than at McMurdo. Needless to say it takes a lot of work to stay warm in temps like that. You need to make yourself eat and drink a lot, and stay active. It helps to have lots of insulation, but even with all the insulation in the world, a person still needs to move around to generate heat.



Prepping the gear for the camping trip with Sarah from Alaska. "Spoolhenge" is in the background. Most of the cable from those spools is thousands of feet down under the ice as part of the "Ice Cube" neutrino project.





An obligatory shot from the ceremonial south pole marker.





They were by far the best group I've had all year. It is a recreational trip for them so there is no impetus to perform and no pressure. It was just pure fun. I slept in a snow shelter called a quinzee, and it was my first night sleeping out this season. We slept until 9 am then went back for the amazing South Pole brunch.







A snow trench survival shelter





Some of my campers and me.





C-17 doing a fly-by after it air-dropped supplies to South Pole





My "quinzee-mate" crawling in for the night.





The next week was spent awaiting the arrival of the South Pole traverse. Day after day they were creeping along plagues by equipment failures and rough snow conditions. They decided not to go to AGAP and I was sent home. A month's long trip to AGAP and back, a first traverse, got pulled out from under us. The real losers of the situation are the science teams at the field site, who need the gear and fuel from the traverse.



Hercules LC-130 ski-equipped aircraft taxiing at South Pole runway





Heading in to the fuel arches at South Pole.





The new South Pole station from afar. It is built on stilts and is designed to be raised when necessary to accommodate the accumulation of snow underneath. The station has a lifespan of 40 years; simply because it will be buried in that amount of time.





At the end of the snow tunnels underneath South Pole, where old winterovers left a large fish in homage of something, I've forgotten the story already. I think the fish used to belong to some Russians though. It is -60 F year round in here.





The flight back to McMurdo gave clear views of the transantarctics and they shone white with pieces of rock sticking through in places. One mountain in particular showed clear layering, which means that it was formed in the ocean and then was uplifted to its current place. The layers could have been deposition of river plains that were carrying grains of disentegrating mountains out towards an old ocean, then lost speed and were deposited. Over time the deposition collected deep enough that the sheer weight of the sediment on itself caused it to solidify.



Transantarctics





The next morning I flew in a helicopter to the Taylor Valley to guide a photographer around the glacier. We spent all day exploring the ablation (melting) zone weaving in and out of semi-frozen melt pools, flow channels, and finally, rapelling off the side wall about sixty feet to the rocky ground below. Then we walked as fast as we could to the helicopter pickup we were late for.



The lower Taylor Glacier. We worked and photoraphed the lower left hand portion.





Taylor Valley is like no place on earth. Glaciers hang like goblins off the valley walls, bedrock a mix of granite, volcanic, and sedimentary rocks. We descended a portion of the glacier that is more surreal than a Salvadori Dali. Ice frozen in grotesque forms as it slowly melts into nothing towards the terminus, or end, of the glacier. The ice is turquoise in places and water currently runs down it in streams.



Taylor Valley





Friis Hills





Lisa is a photographer who has received an Artists and Writers grant from the NSF to make art down here. Her website is, www.lisakblatt.com.



The Matterhorn





Lisa on the lower Taylor Glacier





Lisa and meltpool on the Lower Canada Glacier





Lisa and her 4x5 view camera looking up the Taylor Valley towards the Friis Hills, a.k.a., the Oreo Mountains.





Lisa after rappelling off the Taylor Glacier. To the right side of the frame is a flowing stream.





After we were stuffed into a full helicopter and bound on the hour long flight back to McMurdo, the landscaped zoomed by; glacier after glacier seen through the scratched plastic windows of the helo. This place is under my skin and it's obvious why so many people invent asinine science projects with the sole aim of studying here. They could invent worthy studies that could take place anywhere else in the world, but they choose to come here, to the Dry Valleys where geologic time seems at once frozen in place, and also naked to the astute observer. The processes of mountain building, the plow of the glaciers into the Earth, and the continual scouring of wind are all responsible for the jagged peaks, lobed glaciers, and ventifacted rocks.



Upon return to McMurdo I phoned my colleague and leader of the SAR team to ask if there was a skidoo available for me on the annual Mt. Erebus ascent that was taking place the next day. I'd missed the trip the year before because it was my first year and I'd been ask to stay in town and be a part of a response team, if any other search and rescue events happened. This year I was luckier, and at seven that night he said, yes, there was a skidoo for me and that we were leaving at 7:30 am.



The next morning ten of us set out on skidoos, hauling sleds with survival gear, fuel, bridging timbers for open water crossings, and technical gear to ascend 12,000 foot Mt. Erebus, the volcano upon whose flanks McMurdo is built. We (the Joint Antarctic Search and Rescue Team) ascend it on skidoos each year to train ourselves on the route in the case that an accident happened on the mountain and helicopters were unable to fly up for a rescue. Often days, if not weeks, can go by in which helicopters are unable to access the upper hut from which many scientists conduct studies in volcanism. Mt. Erebus is unique among the worlds active volcanoes because it contains an active magma lake in its crater.



Mt. Erebus. Our route goes around the left hand side of the mountain, then up the north, and out of view of this image.





Ascending Fang Gully





The residents of Fang Camp saying hi and watching our progress.





Joe describing the next section.





The last folks approaching Fang at 10,000 feet. The sea ice and Erebus Bay in the background.







We drove 25 miles out to Cape Royds on the sea ice, bridging an open water crack, then dropped gear and refueled at "Backdoor Bay." From here we began a gradual ascent around the flanks of the mountain, past Fang Camp, used for acclimitization, then up to the Lower Erebus Hut, at around 12,000 feet. We rolled one skidoo, and the mechanics on our team were able to keep all the machines running despite multiple hangups. Once at LEH, we met Tim Burton, the field mountaineer for the science group working up there. His work this season includes installing 70 seismic stations all over the mountain's flanks, and then installing and detonating explosive blasts. The information gathered is helping his scientists build a picture of the volcano's structure.



Brian climbing a steep bit.





Riders ascending a sidehill with the Fang Ridgeline in the background.





Dylan.





Paul hauling a full sled.





He took us up further on skidoos to the crater rim, from which we could look down into the magma lake, hot and red, like a zit of the earth. We spent an hour oogling and shooting photos and watching steam rise out of the mountain. Then we descended, were treated to a beautiful dinner by Tim and his crew at LEH, then took an hour to check out the fumaroles. Fumaroles are ice caves that form when the hot sulfur gas that erodes cavities in the snowpack on the surface as it exits the mountain. The inside of the caves show all hues of blue and green as the ice absorbs the other colors of visible light out of the spectrum on its way through the ice.



Fang Camp and riders approaching





Downed helicopter from the '70s. No humans were on board.





Fumaroles





Fumaroles





Fumaroles





The crater of Mt. Erebus, inside of which is an active lava lake.





Field Mountaineer and Brit, Tim, leading us up to the crater rim.





Ascending to the crater rim.







The trip down was fast. We stopped little and weather had moved in. One section of the route involved driving through a cloud layer that made navigations more challenging. Eventually though we emerged from underneath the clouds at around 6,000 feet and the expanse of Erebus Bay, miles and miles of sea ice, icebergs, mountains in all directions, all orange in the early morning light. I felt so alive and surging with energy as we made our way steadily towards the sea ice at Cape Royds, where we parked our fuel stash earlier in the day. I was in the back of the skidoo train, I paused to watch the others as the drove off the mountain onto the slick sea ice below. Like children in a playground they simultaneously began spinning and sliding in circles on their skidoos. From above it seemed fitting to end as we began, with a sense of wonder and childishness. It is this very sense of wonder that drives us to come down here in the first place. Everyone chooses to be here, for one reason or another.



The moment, like all, was fleeting, and before too long we had the sleds packed up and we sped back at fifty miles per hour. In the air were tiny particles of ice that glittered in the sunlight as we sped around the Dellbridge Islands into and through clouds and fog. Maybe it was the exhaustion at two am, or it was the magic of the moment, but I felt in my place on planet earth, though I can't express why in words. The bank of clouds of the Hut Point Penninsula describes more eloquently in image than I ever could in words. The land was covered by marshmallows of sky and in places the land was poking through a veneer of fog. All the while speeding headwise into the wind, my sled bouncing violently on the bumps of the sea ice, the whine of the engine gave my thoughts no time to coalesce into something poetic, only the feeling of being a small part of something much greater than myself. I don't believe that God is the name for it, but what else, I don't know. The sea and stars know what I'm grasping to describe, if only I could speak their language.

So long now that time has been passing. Since May 22, 1983 to be exact. Memories are like an infinite roll of plastic wrap layering over my eyes and body. It was four years ago that the night wind stirred birch leaves around my porch on Messalonskee Lake. I lay at night then pulling the covers close until the eastern sun rose onto my face at dawn. The lake was still as glass. Cold air scraped my lungs. I was listening to Thoreau and trying to witness the infinite dawns that a life of living presently could have. I would breathe in and out and feel the air and listen to its sound through leaves and skimming the lake.

Me jumping away from chunks of snow my Happy Campers are throwing. Photo courtesy of Neil Lucas

Now I wake in a dark dormitory on a cold spit of volcanic rock protruding into a grotesquely frozen ocean. Each morning I trod through the galley and pick up a few muffins and some oatmeal, then off to the morning meeting. Outside the classroom in which my colleagues and I meet are thirteen thousand foot mountains, colossal glaciers, an occasional skua bird, and constant wind.

Getting ready for helicopter step out training in October, brrrr!

More wind blows on this continent than any other. It is higher and drier and deader than any other. And yet, buried under thousands of feet of ice are numerous mountain ranges, each with their own tale of glorious lives that once existed. Stories yet to be told. The thrust of this entire Antarctic project, the United States Antarctic Program, is our desire to know these stories, to make sense of the lives that have lived here before us. The characters are glaciers, volcanoes, microbes, plants, minerals, plate tectonics, Earth history, climate, Adelie penguins and invertebrates of all types.

This land has more stories to tell us than we have time or ability to discover. Often, the story of Antarctica is anthropomorphized and we hear about the heroics of the explorers, past and present; the difficulties they faced, the challenges of living here and working in such a cold place. But to term this continent inhospitable is to personify that which cannot be personified. We humans have the tendency to characterize our worlds in human terms.

Yes Antarctica is a challenging place to maintain human life. Humans are not equipped naturally to exist here, and the intervention and clever use of technology that we enjoy our comfortable existence on the ice. Our relative level of comfort is just that: relative. As I write this my roommate is cramped into a life support vehicle bound for Amundson-Scott South Pole Station with 180,000 gallons of fuel in tow. She sleeps in bunks, more like compartments in the sleeping quarters that her group of ten people, men and women, are towing with glorified farm tractors across the Ross Ice shelf, the biggest single ice shelf on our planet.

Comparatively, I am sitting in a dorm room in McMurdo typing on a computer in my own dorm room, listening to music on my ipod, contemplating tomorrow’s breakfast choices, eggs or oatmeal? Perhaps I’ll wake up early and get a workout at the weight gym, or have some coffee at the coffee house.

Outside my drape-covered window is the constant sun that shines above the horizon from October 20th to February 20th each year, the wind is still blowing the same that is has since the prehistoric Antarctic era. Our (read: human) history, only began a century ago. The wind has been blowing here since before humans invented the concept of time. The rocks of the Dry Valleys are evidence of this. In the Dry Valleys are ventifacted, or wind-carved boulders that have stood in their sentinel positions for who knows how longs, much longer than McMurdo Station anyways.

I am fascinated to know what lies beneath the ice. I marvel at the way Adelie penguins seem like children; playful even in the face of the brutal conditions of life here in the Antarctic. Despite that the land here is devoid of visible plant life (and even visisble is a relative term, ask a microbiologist and they’d say that there IS life here in the ice!) the story of Antarctica is a strange and interesting one indeed. To unfairly personify this continent I would describe the shaping events of its history as violent and slow. Imagine a whole continent buried alive my snow over years and years. Every year gravity pulls the thousands of feet of ice towards the ocean, the ice claws its way to water where it will eventually melt. Underneath, though buried, life still might exist.

Vostok Lake, under the Russian Vostok station (where the coldest recorded temperature on earth was recorded -128 F), is 500 meters deep, and is buried by two miles of ice. Scientists and governments are arguing about whether or not to drill into the lake to search for life. What if contaminate Vostok Lake and ruin all possible evidence? Vostok is not alone. And incredibly complex and barely understood network of hydrologic flow exists under the masses of glaciers all over this continent.

From Antarctica’s perspective, life has been a long and varied endeavor. If memory to me is like plastic wrap surrounding my mind’s eye in layer upon complex layer, then Antarctica is surrounded by miles of these plastic memories, each layer of plastic might represent a thousand years of existence. The humans studying this continent are trying to piece together enough to have a glimpse into its past. Perhaps this will give us a better notion of our own future.

Antarctica lays like I did, awaking each morning and simply reacting to the world around it. Snow falls, wind blows, glaciers scour, sea-ice forms, animals live and die. IF there was ever a more beautiful story, I’ve not heard it. And yet, we each have our story, if only we could understand what the meaning is?

Underwater ferraris

Last week I went out to investigate the transitional crack between multi-year and first-year sea ice on the road to the penguin ranch. The penguin ranch is a study site on the sea ice, far away from other sea ice cracks. Scientists essentially kidnap emperor penguins by helicopter and brin the penguins to the site to live inside a pen. The penguins are provided with two dive holes from which to enter and exit the ocean, which the use for fishing. While I was out the the penguin prison, oops, I mean penguin ranch, the head scientist invited me to take a peek down the observation tube. The Ob tube is a twenty foot deep steel cylinder dropped into the sea ice surface that allows humans to get underwater and look from the penguins' perspective. This was my first chance at seeing the Antarctic ocean from the underside, and especially to see the sea ice from the underside.

Emperor Penguin swimming in the Erebus Bay under the sea ice.

Becky drilling sea ice. Underneath our feet emperors, seals, and other types of life are currently swimming.

Emperor

Emperor

Emperor

Emperor

Emperor

Emperor

I was lucky because the emperors happened to be diving when I was there, and seeing this was one of the coolest events I've witnessed in nature. Compared with the 800 pound Weddell seals, the emperors, around 60 pounds, are much more manueverable, like little darts in the water. Its like comparing a Chevy Suburban to a Ferrari.

Becky, who came out with me, also thought it was quite amazing to see them swimming.

No time like the present

Its been a while since checking in and so much has happened! The weather has turned warmer and we've had countless days of limitless sunshine with no clouds. I've tagged Weddell seals, watched penguins swim, visited Adelie Colonies, and toured the inside of Ernest Shakelton's hut at Cape Royds. Helicopters, snowmachines, bluegrass practices, tons of survival and glacier travel courses. Life moves faster than my memory can keep up.

Penguin on the sea ice.

Cape Royds Adelie Penguin colony and thousands of penguins!

Shakletons Bed.

Cape Royds, sea ice, and friends.

New age explorers in Shakleton's hut on Cape Royds.

North Basin.

Rope travel through ice formations.

Self portrait

Glenn Stouffer posing in an ice frame.

B009 in the North Basin.

Tagging a Weddell Seal.

North Basin with Jay for scale.

Jay Rotella approaching a seal.

B009 Weddell Seal team in the ice formations of the North Basin.

Roping up for glacier travel into the North Basin of the Erebus Glacier tongue on a sunny day.

Glenn Stouffer near the skidoos.

Sea Ice hole and seal urine.

Weddell pup and mother.

Ice canyon in South Basin.

Sea ice, glacier, and sky in the South Basin of the Erebus Glacier Tongue.

Me in the South Basin searching for seals.

Dr. Jay Rotella, Weddell Seal scientist, in his study area, Erebus Bay, Antarctica.

Sea ice formations, Weddell seal pup and mother, South Basin

Weddell Seal pup and mother

Weddell seal mother at her pupping grounds in South Basin

Sea Ice landscape that Salvadori Dali would have loved, or maybe Picasso

Jen Mannas looking through a hole in the sea ice in the South Basin of the Erebus Glacier tongue

Sunshine all day long

Adelie penguin surprise-attacked my sea ice course.

XC skiing Sunday on the Cape Armitage loop

Ceiling of the ice cave. The bright spot is a crevasse! This is why we rope together when traveling on glaciers.

Sea ice students next to iceberg in Erebus Bay. This iceberg grounded here sometime in the Austral Fall.

Huge facets from inside the ice cave. These are caused from the continuously cold and still conditions inside.

Mt. Erebus with the glacier tongue in the foreground

Danny exiting the Ice cave

Exiting an ice cave on the tip of the Erebus Glacier Tongue

Drilling sea ice, approximately 1.7 meters deep

My sea ice students near Inaccessible island

Adelie penguins on a mission in the Dellbridge Islands

The past is the present

A century ago Shakleton and his men disembarked from their Ship "Endurance" while the pack ice devoured like a spider flushed down a toilet. They faced an unknown and harsh continent, and they did so with none of the modern technology that we use today to make our existences here.

Antarctica as early explorers portrayed it. Southern Flank of Erebus as seen from helicopter above McMurdo Ice Shelf.

I teach Happy Camper courses that are supposed to impart survival skills to new Antarcticians freshly arrived from the north. It must be shocking to go from Thai restaurants in downtown Christchurch, New Zealand, to rehydrated meals and survival rations cooked over a camp stove while a -30 windchill whips over the snowwall you just constructed. I sometimes lose perspective about the fact that many of my Happy Campers have never slept on snow before.

The new ones want to believe that technology is the answer. But ask Shakleton about chemicals handwarmers, if you could, and he'd look at you puzzled. Its not what gear you have, its how you use it. Of course some amount of clothing and technology is helpful in Antarctica, but without tactics for keeping warm, such as maintaining good hydration and nutrition, those 1000 dollar Everest boots won't keep a person warm. Either way its not easy staying warm and I credit all those who try hard at it.

When I looked into the hole they'd blasted for the scuba diving at Little Razorback Island last Sunday, I could clearly see white starfish at the bottom of the ocean, some forty feet below. The water here in the clearest on Earth, with visibility up to 600 feet. Ask any diver you know what the best visibility they've had is; it won't compare. During the Austral winter, when sea ice covers most of the area, the algae dies entirely and all that remains is a relatively sterile body of cold water (28 degrees Farenheit). Some of the water flows all winter underneath the multi-hundred mile wide Ross Ice Shelf. The biggest ice shelf on Earth. An ice shelf is the part of a glacier that has flowed off of the continent and now float over the ocean. Underneath hundreds of feet of ice is the coldest, darkest water on earth, and the imput of this water into our ocean system gives us the most remarkable visibility anywhere.

Doug Allen, the wry Scottsman, resurfaces after a 45 minute dive collecting HD video of Weddell Seals underwater for the Planet Earth series, "Life."

After Dylan and I spent some time hanging out with Doug and his crew, we scouted the Turks Head seal colony and route. This route leaves Little Razorback Island and travels over sea ice to the edge of Mt. Erebus, the 12,000 volcano that shed its massive glaciers into the Ross and McMurdo seas. We found high winds and stark landscapes framed by ice and blue sky.

Dylan getting gear from his pack on the Turks Head route, Barne Glacier in the background.

The sea ice is over ten feet thick here. Wind and ice are do most of the erosional work in Antarctica.

Flag on sea ice in wind.

Sea ice and wind.

We rode our Tundra skidoos fifteen miles home in a gushing wind. By the time we returned it was time for dinner and a little relaxation before bed. The sea ice is in its final stages of growth. This continent is 1.5 times the size of the US, and the sea ice which surrounds Antarctica forms and melts each year. The amount of growth and melt each year is roughly the size of the US. Imaging being able to drive from Portland, Maine to Los Angeles on ice that is roughly three to six feet thick, then having that route melt out. Each year this happens. This is potentially the most dynamic landscape on Earth.

My bosses boss Brian, and I, rode in a helicopter last Friday to scan a 10x10 mile box called the "White Out Zone," an emergency landing strip, for crevasses. We saw none. The landing strip is near the terminus of the McMurdo Ice Shelf, within ten miles from town.

McMurdo Ice Shelf

As we speak, and while I made the flight last week, the South Pole Traverse, a vehicle-powered trip destined from McMurdo to South pole some thousand miles overland, was cruising through the "shear zone" of the ice shelf. The shear zone is an area where opposing pressures inside of the ice shelf cause massive crevasses to form. In order for the ten-vehicle train, which is carrying huge arrays of sleds upon which rest 180,000 thousand gallons of fuel, to pass safely, the massive crevasses must be mapped by Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), then drilled with a hot water drill to determine depth, then blasted with heavy explosives to fill in what is deemed unsafe to cross. This might sound complicated and involved, and it is. In fact the SPT (South Pole Traverse) has only made twenty miles in 9 days. Once they pass through the shear zone all the blasting work should be done and the remaining road to pole should prove smoother. Once the train of vehicles reaches South Pole Station, my roommate Karen (www.karenhilton.com, an amazing photographer) who is working as the field mountaineer on the trip, will leave the trip. I will then fly out to South Pole Station and take over as field mountaineer and will be in charge of negotiating crevasse related hazards on our way to AGAP. AGAP is a brand-new, multinational project (sometimes referred to as ASSGAP in town here :-)), that seeks to uncover information about Antarctica's largest buried mountain range, which sits under three kilometers of ice at 11,000 feet on the East Antarctic ice sheet. We are creating a road that has never been driven before. Although the satellite images make the road look flat, Paul Thur, the project boss, says my section will be "white knuckle driving." We'll be driving ten hours a day, so thats a lot of white knuckle!

Tracks left by the vehicle train of the South Pole Traverse

On Monday I taught a snowcraft II course, which focuses on techniques for glacier travel. I designed Monday's course specifically for B009, a science group that travels all over the sea ice gathering data about the Weddell seal population. The Weddell's end up in an area around the Erebus Glacier Tongue that contains such a mess of jumbled sea ice, glacier, and crevasses that they roping together is necessary.

Megan from B009 in a whiteout at the Silver City Icefall.

Galen Dossin in the area B009 and I will be traveling next week to find seals. (Photo from January 2008)

A new president was elected today back in the States. Its a great day for the world, and even here, people are excited. It feels a little unreal being so far from the parts of the world that are affected by things such as presidents and politics. Even here we feel the world's effect on itself. Climate change is the hot topic back home and yet we don't hear about it much down here. Perhaps Antarctica is such a large Earth system that is has yet to respond to the Earth's warming climate in any noticeable way. Though last year the Wilkins Ice shelf near the Antarctic Peninsula (South of South America) accelerated its flow into the ocean at a record pace. There are changes happening here too.

This year feels different in other ways too. Budget cuts have reduced the Antarctic Program across the board. I feel strongly that in the face of a changing and increasingly demanding world, Antarctica is the last frontier, the only bastion free from the influences of economy that have ruined or impacted of similarly fabulous environments across the Earth. Issues such as drilling in ANWAR make more sense down here. Alaska is the United State's Antarctica, our last frontier. As David Brower put it once, and I'm paraphrasing here, we only get one shot to preserve the natural state of a place, once we've used it, it is forever changed. We need to preserve all we can as we only have one shot.

Little Adelie penguins are currently nesting at Cape Royds, twenty five miles from here. It seems that the creatures of the Earth, the rocks, the oceans, the sky, the trees, have the wisdom we seek. If one studies the history of life of Earth a clear pattern develops. The more a creature climbs up the food chain and evolutionary ladder, the shorter its lifespan on Earth. So who has it better, us or them?

When my colleague Kevin teaches Happy Camper he tells the students that there is something better than sitting all night with frostbite, being unable or unwilling to ask for help from neighbors or tentmates. He says, "be the buddha, end the suffering!"

We are suffering as humans, we are fighting the Earth in a way that will ultimately benefit no one. Even the Antarctica Program is fighting, using too much to do too little. But we do it because we believe in ourselves and our purpose as humans, whatever that purpose may be. I hope for the sake of the penguins, the seals, and the whales of Antarctica, among all the life forms, that our purpose is a just one.

Picking away the time

The sun made its final dip under the horizon ten days ago. Life continues on here for us as usual. Aside from doses of NPR we get piped in on our station radios I feel distanced from the normal world. Its late on Saturday and I'll write more tomorrow. For the time being enjoy the photos and be good out there!

Final sunset as seen from my Happy Camper

Martha waiting for the SAR team to find her.

The backside of Ob Hill where I hid Martha. We were a 5 minute walk from town.

One of my many Happy Camper crews through a fisheye lens taken after a day's worth of digging!

The Hagglund with the JASART looking for Martha. Pretty difficult in this light.

Mmmmmmm...I wonder whats for dinner in the galley tonight?

My FSTP crew (Field Safety Training Program). On the bottom from left to right, Brian, myself, Dylan, Pam, Jen, Kevin, on the top, Nick and Karen.

Fire trucks and van in McMurdo.

Scott Tent class and setup

Scott Tent and Happy Campers

Mt. Discovery after the final sunset

Counting the days

Tonight the sunset was at 11:58 and it will rise at 3:52. In two days the sun will set for the last time until February 22nd. There is something quite surreal about constant daylight. At this point many of the hours are twilight, but soon, the light will be harsh and bright all 24 hours. Life moves fast, even when I'm paying attention.

Sunset over Blue Glacier

Tonight the producers and directors of the BBC's "Planet Earth" series presented a lecture about the work they are doing at McMurdo this season for their series called "Life." I had them as students on my Happy Camper course last Tuesday and Wednesday, and in retrospect I should have been more coercive about passing them for the course in exchange for a job on their film crew. Lesson learned.

Their presentation was fantastic and included some recent footage of a snow leopard on the Pakistan/Afganistan border. After 11 weeks of camping out, their cameraperson captured a snow leopard hunting down an animal; the first footage of its kind ever recorded. The galley was packed with McMurdoites and we were all drooling.

Specifically they are filming Weddell seals, which have a known population of roughly 1,400 individuals in our McMurdo sound, and also to capture underwater time lapse imagery of the unique sea life that inhabits the under-ice waters here.

Sunset over town

Today at dinner I sat with a new friend of mine who was a student on my Happy Camper last week. Marco is an electrical engineer who designs navigational systems for submersible robots. He is the driver and navigator for an underwater ROV called "Skinny" that is only 6 inches wide and 4 feet long, and will allow researchers to deploy this new, thinner robot to more locations more easily.

Marco, an experienced diver in his own right, just today had his first under the sea ice. The excitement on his face lit the table as he described the blue glow of light through the ceiling of ice.

Castle Rock from Ob Hill

I am filling the days with band practice for two different bluegrass bands, "Phatter Ass Bluegrass," and "Derelict Junction," and getting ready for our first shows on Saturday night at Gallaghers.

Mt Discovery

A lot of the people buzz with the excitement that working in such a wild place brings. The day to day work though is quite industrial and mechanical. Most people do lots of manual labor and I personally have experienced a fair bit of injury from overuse here. Something about the cold makes us more susceptible to hurting ourselves. Just the other day a fireman ran over another fireman with a snowcat and broke the other person's leg. Mostly though, I feel safer here that crossing Main Street in the average American town.

Mactown

My friend Philip is a dining attendant (a.k.a. dishslave) and has come here from Colorado to see the white continent. He dragged me out to Ob Hill for a hike tonight to see the sunset. Ob Hill is the 750 foot hill that rises directly from town.

Philip

Last night, Saturday, some friends had a party at which we made sushi, pad thai, and homemade pizza. Even at the bottom of the world people create beautiful little spaces for themselves. What strange creatures we are.

A lot of people seem to think that Antarctica disproportionately male. Though the ratio is off, roughly 35:65, it doesn't seem that bad. The culture here puts a lot of emphasis on dating. The hall I live on is filled with couples; some married, some not. Many people who meet down here end up married. Some people have "icewives" or "icehusbands." These partners are generally exclusive to Antarctica and one's time here and some people are rumored to have both icewives and real wives back someplace called home. Again, what strange creatures we are. I've noticed that there seem to be a disproportionate number of people here who are not married; part-time workers and full time travellers. There are also a fair number of people who work full time for Raytheon, the contractor that runs McMurdo.

In my last entry I discussed the possibility that people age more quickly here. I'm not sure if this is true. Its more that we live in a time vacuum where our biological clocks are wacked out. There are fewer biorhythmic markers to tell us that time is passing. I know it is Sunday when pineapple and cantelope appear in the galley and people suddenly stop working. Weeks pass between calls "home" to the outside world and it only feels like days.

Time is relevant only because we have a limited amount of it. Antarctica measures time by the slow creep of glacier, the gape of crevasses, the groan of birthing seals, the saltation of snow over the ice cap, and the ceaseless tilt and spin of the earth. Endless days and endless nights give one pause for thought that maybe life here makes sense as much as anywhere. Its what I have for now and I'll take it.

Living high

"Living high, high on life,
just 'bout as high as those northern lights.
We're livin' fast man,
We're dying young.
If we're gonna get through this world,
We gotta have a little fun."

Chris Starz 1983-2006

Words from a friend, now deceased from a car wreck on an I-80 one winter day two years ago, blast from my speakers as I sit down to summarize the last week of life in Antarctica for this blog. Outside the wind is ripping through McMurdo at a windchill of -30. Much colder than its been recently. Tonight's sunset, one of 5 sunsets left this summer, was orange fire extinguished by a cold glacier on the horizon of the Royal Society range. Particles of snow are blowing across the sea ice and punishing any objects they encounter. It is certainly frostbite weather out there. The glacier in the sunset photo is enormous, it flows slow like a snake of ice eating its way through the coast mountains, eventually pouring icily into the sub-zero waters of the McMurdo sound.

The sun setting over the Royal Society range as seen from town. 10/15. Only 5 more sunsets!

If recounting the events of the life Antarctic were the main aim of these photographs and writing, I may as well quit. Rather, I want to learn something from my time here and share whatever those learnings may be. I want people to get a sense of what life is like here. In the last week I've spent time walking around icebergs, teaching virgin Antarcticians how to sleep in a tent, and practiced bluegrass with some friends. Tomorrow I'm learning how to step out of a helicopter while its running. Yesterday my SAR team got called in to prepare for what was presumed to be a helicopter crash, but it turned out to be a miscommunication and everyone was perfectly safe. Most days are routine becaues I am used to life here now. It doesn't surprise me when I don't see fresh food for days at a time, or helicopters warm up outside of dorm rooms.

McMurdo scene

History surrounds McMurdo. We have two huts withing our vicinity that were build by Scott or Shackleton back when Antarctica was a blank spot on the map.

Scott's Hut, from the early 1900s, before electricity came to Antarctica.

My friend and coworker Dylan and I went skiing last Sunday on Castle Rock loop.

Dylan on the downhill of Castle Rock loop

Flag on a route. There are thousands of these around our area that mark routes in every direction. The road to S. Pole, all 1,000 miles of it, is marked with flags like these. Antarctic highway 101

Dylan is the warming hut on the Castle Rock loop.

Dylan powering skate skis up the ice hill.

Town is comprised of dozens and dozens of structures of various sizes, mostly steel-sided unassuming buildings with tubes and wires streaming out of them in all directions. The people around town look similarly utilitarian. This look may be a result of the clothing they issue everyone to wear for the season.

Town scene

Yesterday and Today Dylan, Jen, and I taught a Happy Camper course, which is the essential course that all field-bound scientists and workers are required to take. It is essentially Antarctic winter camping and the them is "weight is great." In other words, when camping in Antarctica, take as much as you want, because a helicopter or airplane is carrying it for you generally.

In the distance yesterday was Fata Morgana which is very similar to a mirage in the desert and is caused by low lever temperature inversions.

Fata Morgana: like a mirage. It makes images on the horizon appear much taller and distorted.

Juxtapositions of massive machines against even more massive landscapes gives scale to the scene.

Heavy machinery on the sea ice.

My fellow field instructor Jen, at Happy Camper, taking notes on Dylan's stove class.

This is what a typical dorm looks like from the outside.

My dorm. I was trying to capture its essence.

Derelict Junction. Perhaps a metaphor for McMurdo itself?

We all come down here to "have a little fun..." I think the difference between adult and child life is that in adult life we seek to live in as childlike a way as we can get away with. They say youth is wasted on the young. I'm trying to take that to heart. And at the same time, I know that age is relative. More years don't equal more answers, just more questions.

The second go-round

Its been relatively warm and beautful in McMurdo compared to the same time last season. Work has filled last week with constant organizing and catching up and simply getting into the flow of a new environment.

Disembarking the C-17

I got off the aircraft and was greeted by my friend Nichole who came running. She works in the "real world" as an ER nurse but down here as a carpenter helper, which means that she flies all over the continent in helicopters and airplanes to install field camps.

We arrived to a station full of folks who've been living here in relatively small numbers all winter, and it seemed like our fresh tans may have scared them a little.

But back to work nonetheless. I'd mentioned earlier that the sea ice this year is in a different place than it was last year at the same time. My friend from Boise, Jill Reardon, was wondering about this, so here are some images to help explain.

September 18, 2008

September 22, 2007

Both images are enhanced satellite photos, and you'll notice varying amounts of cloud cover in each one. Ross Island is the 3-pointed island set off from the mainland, and in the image from 2007, there is a thin peninsula visible which extends down, or south, from the island. This is the Hut Point Peninsula, so named because Captain Scott built a hut and lived here during his adventures in the early 20th century. More importantly, McMurdo is on the southern tip of that peninsula.

The point of the two images is to compare the amount off sea ice between 2008 and 2007. In the upper, or more recent image, the sea ice extends much farther north of our island. Much of that ice is quite thin and in todays modis image (available here http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/subsets/index.php?subset=RossSea.2008285.terra.500m), I can already see the sea ice edge being blown out to sea by winds, swells, and ocean currents.

Today I taught a sea ice course, the point of which is to show people how to navigate sea ice safely. The second point of the course is to go out onto the ice and have an amazing time seeing amazing things. Our course was no exception. It was my first time on the ice since February and everything is different. There are numerous, massive icebergs parked in our McMurdo sound, all of which will be staying with us for the season. The icebergs got here last fall (read: Antarctic fall, which is late Feb to early May) when the sea ice was at its minimum and allowed many of the glaciers off of Mt. Erebus (the 13,000 ft volcano that is the dominant feature of our island and which is covered by massive glaciers radiating down from all sides) to calve off and release huge chunks of ice. Unfortunately for my dear readers, my camera was not functioning today, and hopefully tomorrow I'll go back and get photos of the iceberg I walked next to with my students today.

We also saw Weddell seals, which number roughly 1,400 in our region. They are the southernmost mammal and weigh roughly 1,000 pounds before the females give birth, at which point they lose up to 60 percent of their body weight.

The landscape here, now familiar to me, seems foreshortened. It takes a conscious effort to realize that it is the most expansize landscape I've yet witnessed on Earth. Below is an image taken from the C-17 on the way into McMurdo on Monday. One year ago, when I first looked out and saw Antarctica with my own eyes, this is what greeted me: the Admirality Mountains.

Each of those peaks is buried by thick sheets of glacier (I'm not sure how thick they are here), and there is not a single visible living thing in the image. There are, on the other hand, living things visible to microscopes in much of the more coastal regions of the continent.

When I first saw this image with my eyes, I was totally blown away. It was exactly what I came down for. And here I am again. Feeling small in a big place. Feeling like the worlds we create around us, our own lives, are specks of dust on huge painting. But this feeling of smallness does not account for the beauty that exists in what makes up our selves and our lives, and does not account for the fact that beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. Antarctica, though radical, is a speck of dust in the infinite beauty that makes up the entire universe. So its all relative, I'm scaling my perception however I need to in a particular moment. I hope you all are doing well out there on planet Earth.

Sunset over the Royal Society range with frozen McMurdo Sound in the foreground.

Landed...finally!

Its been eight days of attempting and finally the first flight of the season landed yesterday with me on it. The weather was beautiful, almost warm enough for running (about 0 Farenheit). But today its cold and windy. The flight that was meant to land here today from Christchurch flew 5 hours, circled McMurdo, which was covered in a blanket of clouds, and flew right back to Christchurch. We call it a "boomerang" flight and its not the most fun thing to do. The station is quiet now, only about 300 people are here so far, but this number will increase shortly.

The place is the same as I remember it, only more familiar. I have lots of expectations for the season which is now upon us, I'm sure it will be a beautiful year.

The sea ice is much farther out than usual and already I am beginning to see ways this might affect things for the local sea creatures such as adelie penguins and weddell seals, though no one knows yet.

The last free continent

Welcome back dear readers to another season of "Antarctica and Beyond." This year is shaping up with new stories to tell and adventures yet to come. I want to thank all of you for tuning in.

Currently, I am still in Christchurch. Myself and 107 other people were scheduled to fly onto the ice on Tuesday, but weater conditions haven't been favorable and our flights have been cancelled each day. Many other people have arrived for subsequent flights to the ice and they are even more backlogged. On Wednesday we geared up, flew out 3 hours over the South Pacific (more than halfway to McMurdo) and then turned around. Potentially tonight they are trying to squeeze in our flight before another storm arrives.

Christchurch, New Zealand has been amazing and my friends and I have been using our new free time to go mt biking in the Port Hills, fly kites, eat like royalty, enjoy hot springs, surf, and stock up on supplies for our summer on the ice.

We fly down on an Air Force C17. We all sit on cargo-net seating with the gobs of cargo that also accompanies the flight. It is actually much more comfortable than a commercial airliner.

This year with so many important things happening in our world, such as elections, economy crises, and continued global warming, I am reinvisioning why supporting science in Antarctica is still important to do and write.

Antartica, unlike any other continent, is not owned by any nation (though some have territorial claims there), and in accordance with the Antarctic treaty, nothing can be taken from the continent for economic gain. No mining, no drilling; just science and exploration. It is the home of dreams, the frontier. It is the most barren, lifeless, coldest, highest, and driest continent on Earth.

And yet, life in McMurdo itself is quite civilized. We have bars, gyms, saunas, a greenhouse, and a bowling alley, to name a few things. We live in a climate-controlled environment and I rarely feel that my job there is hazardous, especially when compared with my work as a mountain guide and climber in other parts of the world. I strive to remain connected with the reasons that we crave places like Antarctica. The dream continues...join me.

So thats it then?

In an hour I'm headed out to the runway to hop a plane back to New Zealand. My flight got bumped forward from Wednesday to today. Lots of emotions. So much learned and experienced in the past five months. Impossible to summarize. Why try. I feel a whole new energy and exitment for the future, and for today. In a few short hours I will be in a place where sunsets happen, stars are visible, and things grow.

I can't help but miss this place already and especially the people that make it amazing. Everyone asks each other, "will you be back next year?" Even though no one really knows. This place draws you and repels you at once; cold, desolate, a scale beyond comparison, unsustainable. But we seek places that expose new surfaces within us, places that are new and challenging. Perhaps next year, perhaps never, the future is infinitely uncertain by definition.

Jocelyn, one of the many amazing people here.

Karen, another one of my muses; long lost sister.

Well see what happens!

The day is bright and clear, and I'm leaving with a feeling of anticipation and curiosity to see whats around the next corner. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, Danny.

Do you realize?

Today Susan and I taught ten folks from the New Zealand army a snowcraft II course. This involves learning how to travel on a glacier and how to ice climb. The NZ army has lent McMurdo some of its people as a work donation, because the Kiwis rely on the U.S. to fly its Antarcticians down here on our airplanes.

The weather didn't look to promising last night. This is where ice cores are stored for transport back to the National Ice Core Laboratory in Denver.

These guys were awesome. None of them had done much climbing before, and the spot we took them to was overhanging. Quite challenging for a beginner. These snowcraft II courses are the closest thing to regular guiding and climbing that my fellow mountaineers and field instructors get to do around here, so it was a blast.

Susan in the Hagglund, she's an amazing mountain guide who works for Exum when she's not babysitting scientists in Antarctica. Asked about the value of a house she told me, "like a weight around your ankles." The things you own, own you equally.

The day was a bit cold, fall is on its way. I have exactly one week left. Town is amok with activity and departures. The energy feels focused not here but on elsewhere; plans for travel, beaches climbing areas, foreign countries. People are antsy. I can understand though. I haven't seen the leaf of a tree since October second. The closest thing to living I've smelled is seal poop. One day I found a live lady bug in the lettuce that had been shipped in from Christchurch. It was amazing to see living things. Now and again I'll see a shadow cross the floor that looks like a spider or a mouse. I then remind myself that those things do not exist here.

Climbing with Susan was great because she has incredible energy, despite having spent five seasons here. I look forward to seeing her in the future.

One of my students climbing up the ice, looking very red.

Two others racing each up overhanging routes. Learning ice climbing is a little like learning Chinese; everything seems totally foreign and unnatural at first. On the other hand, I've never learned Chinese, so maybe ice climbing isn't like it at all.

Topping out and feeling excited about it. Don't fall off! This was a nice end to the day.

Finding reasons to focus on here is becoming more difficult when seeing next week approach so quickly. The whales are still in the water sloshing around. The seals haven't gone anywhere either. Life will continue here as normal with or without any of us. Being here has become so normal feeling that joining the regular world is going to be interesting and telling. The bustle of a city, paying for gas, children, dogs, living things. All of these do not exist here. What does exist here is a land higher, colder, darker, more foresaken, more beautiful than any I've seen. More inhuman as well. Until later....