We had been invited by Rae at Lake Hoare camp to come have a Thanksgiving meal along with anyone else doing research in Taylor Valley. We were told that morning the meal would be at noon. We were expecting it to be later, so we had to get ourselves in gear. We were told it was a two and a half hour walk from our camp, and we wanted to do some looking around and perhaps some sampling on our way there.
We loaded up our packs and headed out. We walked along the top of several moraines noting whether there were kenytes or sandstones, noting the shapes and orientations, and generally just taking mental notes trying to put a story together.
Looking down from the moraines, we noticed some other people at the edge of Canada Glacier, probably from Lake Fryxell camp and also headed for Thanksgiving "dinner". They were walking on the frozen water forming at the glacier edge, and making pretty good time. It was then that we realized we probably needed to speed up our pace. So, we headed down towards Canada glacier while still heading West in the general direction towards Lake Hoare. We walked on or next to the ice.
Canada Glacier's edge was right next to us - a big wall of ice. It varied in height as we went along and there seemed to be quite a bit of melting on the surface and in the ice we were walking on.
After having walked for over two hours, we finally got to Lake Hoare. It is a long, narrow lake wrapping around the Nussbaum Riegel. The surface of the lake ice has melted and refrozen over and over creating a very rough surface as seen in this photo. Some of those ice "pinnacles" are as tall as me - 5 feet.
Slowly, we walked along the edge of the rough ice, but the ice closest to the glacier was melting, so it was a bit dicey. It was fun though. All the while, we could see the Lake Hoare camp off in the distance, blending in with the mountains behind it. Finally, we arrived at the camp and were greeted by Rae.
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