Today is my last day in McMurdo. The weather is very nice after a couple of days of clouds and a little snow. I thought I would put up some photos of around McMurdo, starting with where I am now, in our office at the Crary Lab.






Crary is where most of the McMurdo based science happens. It has three "phases" - or three levels connected by a ramped walkway that goes all the way down. We often come into the lab in the staging area through the heavy metal door pictured. Then we walk down one of two parallel hallways in the galley-side of Phase I Crary (the highest level). Mike sits near the window in our lab/office and I usually sit just to the left of him (around the corner from the green sign). Ron has been sitting in the office part of this room lately - to avoid having to sit on the high roller chairs. We have a great view of the ice runway (not used anymore) and the mountains and some of the dry valleys. The weather is very clear today, few clouds over the mountains.

During our last three days in Taylor Valley, I took far too many photos. Well - not really, but too many to post here and maybe too many to put on the other website. We went to two really interesting places - the Commonwealth glacier stream channel and Nussbaum Riegel - opposite directions from camp. At that time, we were down to three people as Allan and Jon had made plans to be back at their homes for Christmas and so pulled out of camp early. It was quiet around camp and since we no longer had the radar gear, we spent our time "doing geology". We inspected outcrops, surveyed the landscape with our eyes, contemplated moraines, and walked a lot. And I used the GPS backpack to take points of moraine topography. I definitely got a workout walking up and down and along all kinds of landscape features.




3-6-Juliet (our helicopter) dropped us off near bedrock. It was highly weathered, so it took on a very foreign appearance. Here are some interesting photos of the terrain. I think the second photo makes the rock look like large logs laying on the ground. The wind must really howl up there sometimes. Makes sense. The Nussbaum is smack dab in the middle of the valley and much higher elevation. We had an excellent view of Lake Hoare, Suess and Newall Glaciers, and of course the mouth of the valley with Canada and Commonwealth Glaciers and Lake Fryxell. There is also a really good view of the glaciers on the South side of the valley. They are smaller and look like they are hanging, trying to reach the valley floor.

 

There were all kinds of ventifacts (wind-carved rocks) up on the Nussbaum Riegel. Another reason why I took many photos. I like the unique shapes.

 

By the way, you can see all of these new images here. Not a fancy site, but it does list all the images by name and you can click on them.

As you may have guessed, I finally made it to the Dry Valleys - that is why the blog has been quiet for two weeks! Unbelievably, the permanent camps in the Dry Valleys have wireless internet access through a repeater on one of the higher mountains. This means that I have been able to get online - but only intermittently. I haven't had any time to work on updating the blog until today. It is Sunday and we are taking a day off. We have been working hard since we got here, starting after breakfast and going until dinner, then there is data processing to do after dinner.

We flew (stuffed in with half our gear) in a Bell 212 helicopter to East Taylor Valley and landed fairly close to Lake Fryxell and Delta Stream with an incredible view of Canada Glacier. Here is a view from our campsite, as well as a picture of our campsite. Today, we moved one of our tents because we originally pitched it on some snow, but the weather has been pretty warm - mostly above freezing - and with the sublimation, our snow is rapidly disappearing. It did melt right under our cook tent, so we started to have a bit of a swamp and some of the hidden rocks became quite noticeable! Thus, we moved it to a flat, dry spot. Much better. Today just happened to be an incredible sunny day with temperatures near 40. Well, I am just guessing. The wind started up a while ago and now the thermometer reads 30 outside. With the dry dry air and no clouds, it sure feels a lot warmer. In fact, I haven't been cold in my tent at all. Quite the opposite! I have been struggling to find ways to not overheat in my -20 degree F sleeping bag! The North Face VE-25 tent I am sleeping in is also great at retaining heat. I won't complain. It is really nice to wake up and not be afraid to get out of the sleeping bag.

So, I would like to continue this discussion on my personal website because it will be much easier for me to put my photos there. Just click here or look at the links on the right side (if I can get it on there!).

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Well, you can guess that I never had a good enough connection to actually get anything added to my blog or website. But now it is available. I am back in McMurdo after an interesting 5 weeks. Of course, one of my first tasks was to take a shower! It felt really good. I’ll have to tell more about it later because there is a Christmas party going on and I don’t want to miss out.