Antarctic Dry Valleys! First Helicopter Ride

1/25/13

Today I had a most incredible experience.  I got to visit the Dry Valleys.  The Dry Valleys sit on the actual continent of Antarctica (McMurdo Station is on Ross Island, which is on the continental shelf, but is an island).  So this was my first time setting foot on the actual Continent of Antarctica!

  Across the sound from Ross Island sits the Dry Valleys.  These valleys sit below large mountains and were carved out by glaciers.  There are still giant glaciers cascading down from the mountains, but the valleys are barren as this is one of the driest places on earth and receives barely any snow.  Sprinkled through valleys; however, are mostly frozen lakes.  These lakes are one of the few places on this continent where life flourishes.  The life is mainly algae, micro-organisms, and nematodes (worms), but life nonetheless.  This environment is also super unique because of the freshwater, the dryness, the harsh weather, the catabatic winds, the glaciers, the geology, and 24 hour intense sunlight shifting to 24 hours of cold darkness.  It is of course basically unspoiled land which has had limited human impact.  Due to all these things, this is a major destination of research for biology, microbiology, limnology, geology, and glaciology groups.  In fact, they have a huge long term project (LTER=Long Term Ecological Research) in which CU is of course involved.  There are other LTER projects around the globe, including 2 in Colorado (one on the alpine tundra at 12,000 feet on Niwot Ridge outside of Boulder)

There are tented camps all through the dry valleys, but there are 4 main camps with structures in the Taylor valley, which was carved by the Taylor glacier.  Originally the lab assistants (Abe and me) were supposed to do the lab set ups and close outs for all 4 labs.  This would mean a trip out at winfly and a trip out at the end of the year, both being overnights.  However, the lab supervisor is new this year, and she didn't know we were supposed to go out at the beginning of the season and decided to send Abe and I out separately with a supply person for the close outs.  So we would each be visiting two camps during 1 day.  As I have seniority in terms of time on ice, I got to choose which camps.  I asked around with the scientists as to their favorites and decided to choose Lake Fryxell camp and Lake Bonney camp.  Lonnie, a nice lady who lives at Glacier NP in the summer would be going with me.

In the morning Lonnie and I packed up our supplies and headed down to the helo pad.  We were all smiles as it was a gorgeous, cloudless, warm day.  We would be transporting via a Bell 212 Helicopter with 3 guys from the MEC who were old hats at it.  They let Lonnie and I have window seats, which was awesome.  So we donned our helmets and jumped in.  The flight to Fryxell Camp was amazing!  First flying past Ross Island, then over the sea ice, past small islands and then over to the continent at the foot of the Royal Society Range.  We then buzzed past several valleys before turning up the Taylor valley.  We flew over New Harbour camp (closed this season), then over F6 camp before landing near Lake Fryxell and Fryxell camp.  We had a hot landing, which means we threw everything out of the helo while it was still running.  We climbed out and layed on our gear so it wouldn't blow away as the chopper took off.

Fryxell had 4 tiny little labs: general lab, chem lab, rad lab, and electrical lab.  Lonnie and I got right to work taking inventory and cleaning the labs so that we would have some free-time.  After we finished cleaning, we had some lunch in the Jamesway tent (think heated ski yurt, but with wi-fi, which the MEC guys were using), and then I headed out to explore.

I first walked a bit along the frozen lake edge, admiring the beauty of the valley around me with mountains all around containing glaciers.  I then hiked along the lake and then up a bit to get to the foot of the giant Canada glacier.  The foot of the glacier is a wall of ice at least 50 ft tall and had a little stream running out of it.  The scenery all around was stunning.

I hustled back so as to not be late for our helo transfer to the next camp.  Lonnie and I were the only ones on this Bell 212 helo.  The flight from Fryxell to Lake Bonney was short, but absolutely breathtaking.  We flew up a fairly narrow canyon, over giant glaciers with shear peaks on either side. Several lakes rushed by below as well as Lake Hoare and its camp. Lake Bonney camp is located on the edge of Lake Bonney, which is tucked in a canyon between fairly large peaks with the Taylor glacier a bit further up the valley.

This camp had only two labs: the general lab and the rad lab.  At this camp we decided to play first.  So I hiked up the somewhat steep valley wall to a large plateau quite high above the lake.  On this plateau, large, uniquely wind-shaped rocks were strewn about.  These rocks, often with holes and arches, were carved out by the infamous dry valley catabatic winds that come rushing down from the polar plateau.

From the plateau there were great views of several large glaciers (including the giant Taylor Glacier), lake Bonney, and all the mountains around.  The mountains in the distance near the Taylor glacier had cool layered color patterns.  It was a view from the Antarctica of my dreams.

On the way back I stopped at the foot of a glacier to taste some ancient ice before descending back down to the lake to complete the lab closeout.

When we got finished with the lab closeout, we hung out in the Jamesway with the 4 carpenters staying there.  They were enjoying (and sharing) their wine.  They also shared some of their tasty pasta and stories

We were on the nightline flight to come back, so we got picked up at 8pm.  This time we got picked up by the smaller A-Star helicopter, which meant I got to sit in the front!!  We had another thrilling and scenic ride down the valley towards the sea ice.  When we got there the pilot decided to give us a scenic detour and took us along the sea ice edge.  On the way we passed over a huge colony of Emperor penguins.  But the best part was that as we flew along the ice edge, we saw 7 Killer Whales!!  It was really cool to see them from above.  They are so beautiful.

We continued to fly back towards McMurdo, passed giant icebergs and towards towering Mt. Erebus.  The final treat was getting a bird's eye view of McMurdo Station and Hut Point Penninsula before landing.

Lake Bonney Camp

Lake Bonney

Taylor Glacier

Taylor Glacier and Lake Bonney

Ventrifacts above Lake Bonney

Taylor Glacier

Lake Bonnie

The carps cooking and having wine in the Lake Bonney Jamesway

Lake Bonney and a mountain they call the Matterhorn

Lake Hoare I believe

Canada Glacier

Canada Glacier

Lake Fryxell

Icebergs on the open water

An Iceberg frozen in the sea ice

Reflections of Mt Erebus

Sea ice edge

Ross Island, Mt. Erebus, and McMurdo base

My first helicopter ride!

Lake Fryxell

The Labs of Fryxell Camp

Lake Fryxell

Canada Glacier

Canada Glacier

Fryxell Camp

Fryxell Camp

A killer whale

Killer whale

Definitely one of my best days ever on ice!!!

Royalty Visits Crary Lab and Huge Snowstorm

1/20

Yesterday the prime minister of New Zealand John Key, was on base.  He came and toured the Crary Lab, so I got to meet him.  I had worked really hard to make the aquarium look really nice, and apparently he liked it.  While he toured the lab, he and his wife and security guys kept their jackets in Abe and my office, so apparently they trusted us.

He ate in the galley with everyone as well.  When I got there he was enjoying frosty boy, but I had to applaud the galley for serving tot-cho bar (tater tots with nacho toppings) on the day the prime minister came through, considering all the amazing lunches we had had in a row.

My way high up boss Esther Hill was also visiting, and she brought us blueberries, apricots, and bing cherries!  We haven't had fresh fruit in so long due to the C-17 not flying the months of December and January

It dumped and dumped snow all day yesterday.  It was gorgeous and like a Colorado snowstorm.  It snowed at least a foot, but hard to tell with the drifting snow caused by the wind.  There were some giant drifts.  But the snow was definitely unusual for this dry place and I've never seen it snow here even close to that much.  Elisha and I went out for a run in the beautiful snow storm last night.  Today was supposed to be the Marathon, but unfortunately it was cancelled bc of the storm (hopefully it will be rescheduled bc I was very excited to do it this year!), so instead Elisha and I did a bit of a hike and then played around in the deep snow around base and jumped off things into the deep and soft snow drifts

1/24

Skied out to LDB and back and then joined Mitch, Zach and company for some beers and fun at Scott Base

Swimming Penguins and Snowmobile trip towards Mt. Erebus

1/10

My roomie Shuttle Jerod was one of the performers in the acoustic night at the coffee house, so we went and listened to the acoustic night there before heading out for a ski to LDB and back.

1-11

Today I led a snowmobile night tour out to Room with a View (see attached map)  Unlike my training ride out here, it was a gorgeous night!!  Room with the view sits at 1400ft on Mt. Erebus and is at the point where Hut Peninsula joins the main body of Ross Island.  It had sweet up close views of Erebus, the Erebus glacier tongue, as well as the Delbridge Islands, and back towards Castle Rock.  Definitely a beautiful night to get out of town into the icy expanse and have some sweet views while cruising around on a snowmobile.

1-13

Yesterday was my day off, and I had a pretty sweet day.  I rode out to the airfield with Shuttle Bob to check out Pegasus.  The road has been in bad shape bc of the high temperatures, so the last 3 miles you have to take a piston bully (a snowcat type of thing).  On the way out, we saw an Emperor penguin molting.  I had lunch out at the airfield and then road back with Shuttle Shafer and Shuttle Jerod towards LDB where I skied out to LDB and back to Scott Base.  It was super windy so when going with the wind, I was really flying.  Doing 4 minute miles!

I made it back in time to go to Insanity.  Our last one!  This completed 4 months of Insanity for me, 3 for Elisha, and 2 for Monica, Zach, and Mitch.  We celebrated by going out to Gallaghers to listen to some good live music, then Elisha and I made banana smoothies, banana rum smoothies, blueberr/raspberry smoothies and hit the sauna before watching a movie.

Today the broncos are having a big playoff game.  It's cold in Colorado.  Below Zero in EP and below zero with windchill at the broncos game.  I wish I could be watching!  But I am stuck working.  I had to give a Crary Lab tour to some Kiwi DV's (Distinguished Visitor).  These were big-time DV's and their was a journalist there with them.

Sir Peter Gluckman, the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister (the equivalent to our president) of New Zealand.  He is a fellow of the Royal Society of London.

Sir Paul Nurse (British): CEO of the British Imperisal Cancer Research Fund, President of Rockefeller University, New York, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology of Medicine in 2001. One of the heads of the British Royal Society

Sir David Skegg: President of the Royal Society of of New Zealand, founding board member of the New Zealand Antarctic Research Center

Dr. Prue Williams: Head of the New Zealand equivalent of the NSF


The Sunday night science lecture was presented by Dr. Diane McKnight, which is interesting bc she works as part of the INSTAAR at CU-Boulder that Mark Williams, whose wife works with my dad and who I discussed about potential grad school opportunities, works for.

Her lecture was on the dry valleys and she was also discussing how her team had found that in the dry valleys, the temperatures had be exhibiting a cooling affect, which is against the normal global warming climate change models.  Of course the naysayers of global warming heavily used this info to say global warming was a hoax.  But as she said, she didn't get the chance to properly explain the results before they used this as evidence against global warming.  The reason for this cooling in the dry valleys is because here the ozone layer is basically gone (the infamous Antarctic ozone hole).  Ozone (O3) is also a greenhouse gas (Like CO2), so bc of the ozone hole it actually lets heat escape; thus, the reason for the slight cooling.  The good news is scientists expect the ozone hole to slowly heal itself bc we have reduced our CFC emissions.  With this, however, the normal temperature increased associated climate change will begin to occur.  So if anything, this lowering of temp due to removal of greenhouse gas actually provides evidence to global warming.

Diana Wall, an ecologist from CSU, recently arrived down here.  If you've spent any time in DIA, you've probably seen her photo.  She is featured all over the airport in a huge lit up photo standing next to a glacier as an advertisement for CSU.  It's kind of interesting because I had always seen that huge advertisement and dreamed of going to Antarctica, and now I'm actually working here and helping her with lab things.

Room with a view snowmobile route map

1/20

 This past week has been extremely busy.  I had some of the bigger science groups checking out, we had several power outages, the aquarium pump go down, and a couple of big DV groups come in.  One group had the head of the Office of Polar Programs as well as some bigwig NSF people and the other group had the New Zealand Prime Minister.  So this meant that we were busy cleaning the lab.  The Aquarium is under my watch, so I was working particularly hard to keep it clean and nice, which is difficult with all the people going in and out through it.  The aquarium is also a highlight of the tours, so it's important to keep it looking nice.

The Prime Minister's security entourage came through Crary Lab a couple of days before his visit to check if out and make sure it's safe.  When they were finished checking out the aquarium, I asked them how they knew for sure that none of the animals in the touch tank weren't poisonous.  They said they hadn't even thought about that.  Though of course security for the PM of New Zealand is not quite the same as it is for the President of the US.

At some point this week, Elisha and I biked out to hut point to check out some penguins.  From the Crary Library during the Wednesday science lecture I had seen 2 groups of penguins on the sea ice.  They were big groups of 20 and 30.  One was heading to the little bit of open water out by hut point, so I called up Elisha and we headed out to watch them.  When we got there, a few of the penguins were on land and having trouble figuring out how to cross over the ice walls to get to the open water to join their friends.  They were fun to watch as they ran around back and forth looking confused.  A few times they even came within a few feet of us.  The best though was watching the big group of penguins swimming from a viewpoint on the cliffs of hut point.  The group was roughly 30 in size, and it was fun watching them swim back and forth, jumping out of the water like dolphins.  When they swam right below us, we could see them swimming gracefully under the water.  This was purely amazing.

On Thursday night, Elisha and I volunteered in the galley washing dishes.  The galley, like many departments are very short staffed, so they take volunteers to help out.  It was actually kind of fun bc as you wash dishes you get to see everyone in the base go by as they drop off their dishes.  Also we blasted music and sang to it while we worked hard.  And it felt rewarding after spending so much time at a computer desk that day to work hard and even sweat a little as we had to move quickly.   That evening, an astronaut who is visiting gave a talk.  He has been to space about 5 times and walked in space at least 7 times.  He also has successfully summited Mount Everest, so his talk was interesting

On Friday, it was Mindy's birthday, so she had reserved hut 10. Her husband Reinhart is from Austria, so they made some very tasty cheese fondue with wine and cheese he had brought.  He also grilled up burgers and filet mignon.  Very tasty!

Last night was mustache roulette.  I didn't participate this year bc my beard was just so embarrassing last year since I can't really grow one.  Also I didn't know how much Elisha would like it.  But they raised 1200 bucks for prostate cancer research and two of my gal friends, Charlotte and Jen, even shaved their heads for it.  Mitch got a hilarious neck beard.  One of my favorite was Matt Nolte got 10% shaved into his beard making fun of the part of the war on fun where the station manager accused 10% of us getting so drunk everynight that we puke.  That would be 90 people puking per party night!

Ringing in the New Year at the bottom of the world: still no polar bears...

1-2-13.

We of course rung in 2013 with style down here in Antarctica.  The main activity New Year's Eve was Icestock.  McMurdo's version of Woodstock.  Icestock first starts out fairly tame with a chili cook-off at 4pm and some mellower music.  All the chili's were amazing with my favorite being the Kiwi's who had a sweet tasting chili.  Shortly thereafter, the alcohol comes out and the music ramps up and all the dancing begins. This year even featured a flash mob.  Also around 8pm (but it feels like it's much later) the roasted whole pigs come out as well as the bratwursts.  It's a bit of a break from the dancing and then it jumps right back into it and goes until 1am.  Of course most people are costumed out.  It was colder than last year, but that didn't really stop people from getting dressed up.  I loved Mitch's outfit the most I think.  I also loved Aunt Karen's icicle outfit.  Elisha went as a woodstockafarian and I had my sweet pink dancing pants and silk shirt (somehow managed to put long johns under both and squeeze into those women's size 10 dance pants)  

The next day was gorgeous and super warm so Elisha and I went for a bike ride.  We biked out to hut point to look for penguins and then we mountain biked the 2 bikeable single tracks on the station.  First we biked the ob hill loop and then we biked the new Hillary trail down to scott base.

As I have mentioned in previous blogs, we haven't had a C-17 cargo plane arrive since November.  On top of that, the few, much smaller, LC-130's that are supposed to come in have not been able to land very often.  The weather here has been super warm, warmer than normal, mixed with a dust storm that hit the snow which also helps to warm it up.  Because of this the snow runway is trashed.  It's slushy.  Thus, the planes, even on skis, can't get enough speed to take off without burning too much fuel to make it to New Zealand (or the South Pole or other field stations for that matter).  The road out there is also pretty nasty, so it's been rather taxing on a super reduced shuttles group.  Anyways, because of the utter lack of planes, cargo in Christ Church is super backed-up.  What this means is that only the most important things are making it down: Science Cargo and people.  But even some of our grantee scientists were bumped and sat in Christchurch for weeks.  So of course the less important things: mail and freshies (fruits and vegetables) are definitely not coming.  Luckily, I had prepared for this.  I grabbed lots of bananas while we have them and Elisha and I froze them.  We haven't seen fresh fruit or vegetables in ages, but our banana smoothies sure have been tasty!

1/7/13

This past weekend I organized what I called the "All Trails" hike.  I had been wanting to do all of the recreation trails in the McMurdo area in one fell swoop.  Elisha was on board with the idea, but turned out my whole insanity group (Monica Magari, Zach Andrews from Supply, and Mitch) wanted to do it.  Last Sunday was gorgeous, so it turned out perfect.  After a tasty brunch, we headed first out to Hut Point where we watched a couple adelie penguins jumping in and out of the water in a crack on the sea ice.  From there we hiked the Hut Point Ridge Trail for nice views along the coast before connecting to the trailhead for castle rock trail.  From there we hiked up to castle rock and climbed up to the rock where we enjoyed trail mix and cheese that we had brought as well as what we call our recovery drink: coors light.  From there we hiked down to the base of the kiwi ski hill (which I call the ski-wi resort).  From there we walked out to Pegasus/LDB road and onto Scott Base.  From Scott Base we headed up the steep new trail, the hillary trail, to the top of the pass and then connected on to the ob hill loop.  The ob hill loop is perhaps my favorite and goes around ob hill with some cool view of the gorgeous blue melt pools on the sea ice.  You can also watch the seals sitting around out there.  From ob hill loop, we connected to the ob hill trail for our last push to the top.  Once at the top we celebrated with another beer and then headed down to feast on frosty boy ice cream back at base as we had missed dinner.  The whole hike is somewhere between 16 and 19 miles.  We left about noon and returned back to base at 7:30.

1/9/13

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to get trained for the room with a view morale trip.  Being part of science support, we are trained with snowmachines, so we get asked to be trip leaders for this morale trip called room with a view.  It is a 10 mile out 10 mile back snowmobile trip to this area that has great views of the delbridge islands as well at Mt Erebus.  Unfortunately it was snowing and foggy, so we didn't get the views of Erebus, but riding out on a snowmobile is always fun.  And the best part was that Shuttle Spring (Now F-STOP Spring) was our trainer, so that was extra special for me as I love her and miss hanging out with her.  The other lab assistant Abe and the Research Associate Liz were the other 2 people on the training.  This coming friday I will be leading a night tour out there for some people on nightshift who will be getting a morale trip.  I'm hoping for better weather this time!

Some pics are included below from the events described above as well as from things discussed in the last blog: gingerbread making, Christmas Dinner, Scott Base Skirt Party, Ob hill uphill run. MAAG, and Crary Staff photos

the last bit of castle rock.  The top 3 pictures are the insanity group at the first cross at hut point starting out big trail hike.  And one doing Diamond Jumps one of the insanity exercises

Zach and his celebratory drink

mitch with his recovery formula

doing moves from our Insanity workouts

ski-wi: the kiwi ski hill

monica, mitch, Elisha, and me onthe way down

beautiful meltwater pools on the ob hill loop

the group (+monica magari) from our camper trip in NZ: Aunt Karen, Monica, Elisha, Jerod, Me

They had tasty pig roasts at ice stock!

Elisha hitting the singletrack of McMurdo

the hippy preparing drinks for the music fest

What we get to look at during mass at the chapel of the snows.  It's hard to see but gorgeous Mt. Discovery and the Royal Society range are visible beyond the window

The new zealand camper crowd at ice stock.  Shafer dressed as an icicle

coffee made my carpenters

We saved bananas for the long no freshies bc no flights period and froze them.  Now we are enjoying post ski and bike banana smoothies

on top of castle rock

The insanity crew on top of Ob hill

Cross to Cross. From the discovery hut Cross to the Ob Hill Cross

love the color of that water

for a place so obsessed with safety, they have an interesting lack of helmets on the base

Elisha and I as shot by some scientists

Mitch and the Research Associate Liz

Mitch had my favorite get-up for Icestock

apparently Elisha thought so too

A flash mob broke out at Ice STock

And of course Jerod knows how to enchant a lady by his dancing

my Suite-mate Kevin welcoming the closing act as they road up in the terra bus

Stef, Elisha, Me, Bev, and Abe

Matt and I took pig ribs to go

Apparently the "amazon women" (6ft plus) were still too short to see the stage

hiking to castle rock

the chili cook-off

The ladies LOVE mitch: Mindy, Mitch, Bamma, Sue, Trisha, and Kris

Crary Staff photo

Crary Staff Christmas photo.  We had a white Christmas

Our Gingerbread waste bin construction crew

Our "nice" gingerbread waste bins

our "naughty" gingerbread waste bins

Elisha and I at Christmas Dinner

Christmas Dinner: Lobster, Steak Wellington, Prim rib, Duck, and plenty of desserts

One of the MAAG games

McMurdo themed gingerbread house

Travina and Elijah at the scott base skirt party

My suite-mate Kevin won Miss Ross Island 2012

walking the runway

skirt party at scott base

obhill run.  I'm in the blue top to the left of the guy in yellow in this photo

approaching the top of obhill

Ice Stock 2013

Elisha and I welcoming in the new year



all the finishers on top of ob hill