Due to some extenuating circumstances, I spent about 3 months at McMurdo Station on Ross Island…ANTARCTICA. During that time I attempted to write my first blog to capture what I was experiencing, please enjoy those posts below.
quick aside: I am not being elusive about the “extenuating circumstances” it is just that I have outlined them in embarrassingly gruesome details on a post from the archived blog: antarctica:
I have changed sites and largely abandoned that blog, but I’ve pulled along the content ever since. In this most recent endeavor, I have even gone through to clean up the links to photos and attempted to use higher resolution photos that I had not posted previously. I, mainly, left everything untouched (even some blatant typos) but did update a few thing here and there so it is not exactly the same, but pretty darn close.
I took a picture of myself every day because one of the things I was doing was not cutting my hair or beard. I’ve probably had a dozen beards since then, but that was my first. It is chronicled here:
My motivation and enthusiasm from yesterday’s hike, well…took a hike today when I nearly froze my face off on a short hike after dinner. The ambient temperature didn’t feel very cold, but when the wind blew, it blew with malice.
Yesterday was Thanksgiving in Antarctica. It was very nice. I went to work in the morning, but technically had the day off so I didn’t stay too long. A nice co-worker invited a few of my co-workers to come over before the dinner and also organized a table for us all to sit at.
So, today was Thanksgiving for you in the US. Happy Thanksgiving. My day was a work day and pretty busy. The last two days I have volunteered to help dig out under, and subsequently cover up a 2 inch pipe filled with our fiber optic cables that go up to “T-Site”.
I was whisked away unexpectedly to Scott Base, the New Zealand station right over the hill after dinner last night. That’s why I didn’t write anything yesterday. Sorry. Well, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone there in the US.
Well, after having been gone for a full 2 weeks, my clean clothes situation has become dire. I have simply run out. In all honesty, I lasted longer than I thought before doing laundry.
There were some questions posted in the comments to my “pressure ridge” post, which I will try to address now. The pressure ridge is made over a long period of time and while it could be moving while we were out there, I don’t know for sure and I certainly didn’t feel it moving.
This is going to be a quick teaser, but I went on a tour of the pressure ridge today. It is where the thick, permanent Ross Ice Shelf that is fed off the giant glacier flowing down from the polar plateau collides with the less permanent “annual” sea ice (although it has been here for years).
[I look pretty evil in my picture today…and I am pretty evil »]
Well I know how much it irritates me when someone goes to a different country and makes no absolutely no attempt to learn the language, so I’ve taken it upon myself to learn “Antarctican” and I have mastered it rather quickly.
Well the trip to Cape Evans Hut and Ice Caves was canceled so I signed up for a walking tour of “pressure ridges” on the ice shelf. But that was canceled because of the weather also.
