Trav's Travels: Mount Erebus

1/2/19

I’ve been trying to get up to Erebus for some time now. For my environmental work I needed to go up to test the water at Lower Erebus Hut (LEH) to make sure the filter up there is working since the snow up there is high in lead, fluoride, and various acids due to the proximity of the camp to the active volcano. For SAR we were planning to go up to Erebus to practice high altitude rescue on a steep slope. For those who don’t know, Mount Erebus is the giant smoking volcano that shares Ross Island with us. It’s about 12,400 feet, rising straight from the ocean, and has one of the only permanent lava lakes in the world. Permanent lava lakes are becoming fewer these day as Erta Ale’s (Ethiopia) lava lake disappeared a year and a half ago and both Benbow and Ambrym (Vanuatu) lava lakes disappeared last December. Currently the only long-lasting permanent lava lake remaining, other than Erebus, is in the Congo. However, Masaya in Nicaragua has had a lava lake in its crater for the last 5 or so year.

The previous week we had geared up all our SAR gear 3 times to heat up to Erebus, but it had cancelled every time due to weather. For collecting water samples, we actually tried one day (12/30) and made it in the helicopter all the way up to LEH, but were unable to land. The weather wasn’t the best, but the main issue was that there was no wind and it was cold. In conditions like this, the helicopter creates contrails (ice crystals) that don’t blow away with no wind, then the rotors cause the newly formed fog to engulf the helicopter so that the pilot can’t see to land. So we basically had a free scenic flight up there. Our pilot took us up over the crater, which was pretty cool, though it was really hard to see much b/c Erebus was really puffing.

Well, today was the big day! SAR would be trying for the last time, and I was able to work out a schedule with helo ops to leave me up on Erebus after SAR to do the water sampling. Bright and early in the morning, the weather was beautiful, so the SAR team headed up. We landed at ConeZ, which is a ridge where we have a lot of communication towers. Our mission was to lower and then raise a dummy patient down and up a steep slope using anchors and rigging. ConeZ sits at about 11,700ft, and when we got there, it felt like summer! It was so warm and no wind. Completely different than we expected. My role was to be the litter attendant, so I had the cool job of being lowered and raised with the litter giving patient care and making sure the litter movements went smoothly. Our SAR lead, Loomy, wanted us to due to the practice on supplemental oxygen due to the high altitude and in order to test how much oxygen would be needed in the event we had to do a high altitude rescue—despite the supplemental O’s, a couple people still got altitude sickness (AMS). I, however, felt fine, which was good b/c I would need to be up there several more hours for my Environmental work without oxygen.

The views from the top were amazing! You could see other islands, the open ocean, the Royal Society Range, the dry valleys, hut point peninsula (where McMurdo sits), the icebreaker (it had just arrived to the ice edge), the Erebus Glacier Tongue stretching out into McMurdo sound, Mt. Discovery, Minna Bluff, and more! It was a fun exercise for me as I donned my climbing harness, built a chest harness, put on crampons and a helmet, put on my supplemental oxygen, and then was lowered down a steep pitch of snow (that looked like an awesome chute to ski!), and then raised back up.

After the mission, I was picked up by a helo pilot to take me to LEH. I was able to convince him to fly over the crater. This time, I got a really great view into the smoking crater and could see where the lava lake was (though it wasn’t glowing as it was so bright out) as he flew rather low and close and there wasn’t too much steam. I then was dropped off at LEH to do the water sampling. LEH sits at about 11,300ft on a more moderate slope below the summit crater.

I was lucky b/c my helicopter ride back was delayed by quite a bit, so I got to do some walking around. I first visited the downed helicopter. It “crashed” (actually just was unable to take off) back in the 60’s. No one was hurt or injured, but the wind did blow it over. Camp occupants since then have put a skeleton inside as a joke. After visiting the helicopter, I checked out 3 of the nearby fumaroles. These are really awesome and unique to Erebus. Hot steam coming out of vents from the volcano quickly freeze creating stalagmite type fumaroles. This hot steam coming out of the vents also creates pretty cool and complex ice caves. In the older and wilder days of McMurdo (early 2000s), you could go into the caves, which were pretty awesome b/c they were warm like a sauna and are illuminated in the cool blue hues created by ice. They’ve found some really unique microorganisms living in the caves, so they’ve stopped letting people go in without a permit and a Tyvek suit (The upcoming season of National Geographic’s, One Strange Rock will feature these caves as they were able to get a permit to film inside this year).

The caves create a hazardous feature across the landscape, as the weight of a person could cause a roof collapse in weaker areas, so you have to be careful as you walk around, mainly sticking to the rocks. The rocks are cool b/c they are filled with Erebus crystals (an anorthoclase feldspar mineral). Erebus crystals are only found here on Mt. Erebus and on Mt Kenya as they require a certain chemical make-up of the magma and probably specific heat and convection currents in the lava lake to create the crystals.

After some more exploring of the nearby area, the helicopter came. I was traveling down with 2 friends (Salava and Aurora), and we were able to again convince the pilot to fly over the crater. This pilot flew much higher over the crater, giving us a really excellent bird’s eye view of the crater. We stopped at Cape Royds on the way back to McM, so I was able to see (from the helo) the large adelie penguin rookery and Shackleton’s historic hut on Cape Royds.