I signed up for the Polar Sea icebreaker
cruise the other day and out of 600 names, I was picked as an alternate. They took two cruises with 200 people on each and luckily, (probably with much thanks to last night's Carp Shop BBQ - pictured here) not many folks showed up at 7:30 in the morning and even though I was pretty far down the list, I was one of the last names called.

(This hungry little skua got plenty to eat)

We left town and steamed out the channel for an hour or so until turning around just before the ice edge. However, we did see plenty of open water within the channel, as well as penguins, seals and even several minke whales. It was so great to be on a boat, to feel the engines rumble and the slow turning and listing of the ship. Not to mention, just staring over the edge and watching all the brash ice peel off to the sides as we cut through at 11 knots was pretty amazing.



I was lucky enough to be up on the fly bridge when the whales went by so we could watch them swim under water and come up for air. Just before seeing the whales, the captain announced that we needed to ram the ice shelf in order to turn around. It was a bit smoother than I thought it would be as we just kind of floated up on top, then sunk through the 17 foot thick ice.

The last picture is from yesterday, when two hovercrafts came near town from a cruise ship that was out in the bay. I watched both of them arrive and noticed that one seemed to have some trouble maneuvering and just didn't really sound right. Turns out it broke down and they had to get some mechanics out to fix it. Apparently the USAP tried hovercrafts for five or six years, but they were simply too problematic and they couldn't figure out how to avoid tearing up the bladder on the sharp ice. They sure would be fun though... the working one looked like it was easily going 50 or 60 miles per hour.

~G

Well, the trip to Erebus was my last field excursion of my time in Antarctica, but I'm happy to say it was a perfect finale to the whole experience. The mountain, the caves, the crater, the views... all truly magnificent.

I'll be leaving in less than two weeks to do some traveling, see my family in Hawaii and rescue my broken Toyotas from Juneau. I'm pretty excited for the new chapter in my life and couldn't be more thankful for where I am right now.

Cheers!

~G

More Photos :
1. A giant lava bomb, that has collapsed
2. A neat fumarole tower










3.Lava bomb down on the Fang Glacier

4. Hanging out on the Fang Glacier with camp in the background
5. A look at Fang camp from the ridge




6. Burmy and I building "the phase changer" a solar heating unit used for thawing frozen foods

~G

Although it may be hard to believe, we were actually 'working' for some small portions of our high mountain vacation. In addition to building this set of stairs, we re-shimmed the hut, shoveled the drift, fixed broken stoves and closed down the whole camp.

~G

Visiting the crater was a pretty amazing and humbling experience. The weather was supposed to be getting worse so we figured we'd better take advantage and go, even though it wasn't the greatest day (in terms of plume activity.) We rode snowmobiles up to Nausea Knob, parked and climbed the last few hundred feet (about a half hour hike.)

The view from the top was truly spectacular. All around us the snow, mountains water and icebergs were sparkling in the sun. Looking over the 800 foot wall to the floor of the creator was not as scary as I thought it would be... had it been very windy, I might have felt otherwise.

The lava lake below was constantly steaming and boiling occasionally and waves of sulfurous steam would hit us periodically. We all made phone calls from the satellite phone and took tons of pictures.

We took our time coming down and picked up plenty of Erebus crystals. They are apparently only found in two places in the world; Mt. Kenya and Mt. Erebus. While making our way down, I was asked over the radio by the crew how long I wanted to stay. I replied saying that I wouldn't mind hanging around a bit on the off-chance of catching an explosion. Literally, seconds later the mountain blew and the ground shook; however, this particular 'burp' did not manage to fling any lava bombs out the top (which was probably for the better since we were well within range)... but we were all really hoping it might happen anyways, so that we could find some fresh lava (assuming we survived.. haha.)

I did how ever come across a bomb the size of a Volkswagen that Burmy and I saw get pitched the day before. It looked kind of like a big beached whale, only made of molten lava. It was hollow on the inside and had burned the rocks all around the base. Pretty cool!

~G

Here's some photos of the different fumarole caves we explored. These caves are made by warm steam flowing up out of the rocks, which melts the snow on top and over time creates these tunnels and big rooms. It's kind of risky business being on the surface, though, because you never know what's beneath you. Any time we stepped off rocks we would probe with our glacier axes and be pretty cautious.

The snow and ice formations on the surface are pretty wild and once inside the caves it is pretty incredible blue light. Some of the fumarole towers are pretty massive, like the one that looks like it's about to eat Deb. The last set of caves we found were over some exceptionally warm ground where the snow was melted away and the moist soil even had algae growing on it! The temperature inside felt like a humid 70 or 80 degrees. Pretty amazing stuff!

~G

We left for Fang camp last Friday in the afternoon and arrived with enough time to poke around a bit and make dinner and sleep. Our four days at Fang seemed to fly by and we all slept about 12 hours each night. Maybe it was the cold? It seemed like cooking and eating only happened once a day since it was such an involved process to cram us all in a Scott tent and boil snow in -20 degree weather. However, we had some pretty nice days without wind, where we enjoyed some quality time outside.

I took the first picture on the second day at Fang when we heard a loud boom and felt the mountain shake. We all looked up the ridge expecting to see an avalanche or something, but then saw this little cloud of smoke rise up from where the crater was. This became a regular thing and we usually felt the mountain "burp" twice a day. However, to our great excitement, upon reaching the upper camp, we noticed that most of the little explosions shot lava bombs the size of cars all over the hillside below the crater.

As shown in the third picture, that day was a "plumey day". Sometimes the mountain has a huge plume and sometimes, nothing. You can also see the main hut in the foreground with only a little bit of the shoveling work done on the drift.

The last pic is of some weather moving in at Fang... quickly.

~G

Water!! That's right, the ice edge may still be several miles out, but McMurdo is officially no longer ice-bound. It's just amazing to see the stuff, let alone stick your hand in... maybe I'll go for a swim.

~G

Well, we made it back from the mountain! We were 4 days at Fang Glacier for acclimatization and 7 at the Lower Erebus Hut building stairs, fixing stoves, shoveling snow, closing camp and seeing the sights. I think I took several hundred pictures, so I'll have to give you the abridged version... especially since I'm leaving again for the field on Saturday.

Well, here's a few shots!
1: Fang Camp (8,000 feet)
2: looking north from Fang ridge (Mt. Byrd and Beauford Island)
3: our home sweet home, with 'Ol Smokey in the background
4: A fumarole cave

~G

I toured the Coast Guard icebreaker "Polar Sea" last night. It was a pretty neat boat with lots of power. 75,000 horses to be exact. Apparently she's got 6 diesel engines, 3 Jet turbines and 4 generators aboard. I can't remember how much gas it burns in a day, but the figure was pretty astronomical. The ship is currently carrying 1.5 million gallons of fuel... that's a lot.

It's pretty odd to have all these coasties in town, especially since most of them are younger than I am... and there's 150 of them. Mactown has been invaded! Good thing I'm leaving, haha.

I also popped up to check on our little skua family last night. There are two chics that have hatched within the last week and a very protective mother and father. I think I mentioned this earlier in the blog, but the fascinating thing about skuas is that they always have a clutch of two, but the mother eventually kills the weaker one and feeds it to the stronger chic. Wow, what an amazing survival strategy!

Well, I'm off tomorrow afternoon, so until then my friends.

~G

It appears as though there has been a slight change in travel plans for the latter part of this week and although I was very excited about going out to the plateau to find the ITASE traverse crew and help them get closed down for the winter, I'm not at all disappointed to be going to up Mt. Erebus for a week instead.

I'll be going with a team of two others; Burmy (a senior carpenter) and Deborah (works at the Berg Field Center and is a climbing and mountaineering guide off the ice). There are no scientists up there now so we'll be the only ones in the neighborhood and we plan to spend 3 days at the Fang Glacier camp (8,000 feet) to acclimatize and four to five days at the top doing our work. The summit is at 12,442 feet so there it will pretty cold. Apparently this year has not been very windy or stormy, but it has been a cold year for sure. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some 25 below weather.

We've got some maintenance on the hut to do (inlcuding some serious ice removal) and a few stairs with a landing need to be installed. In our spare time, we'll be able to hike around a bit and even take snowmobiles up to the crater to have a peak at the lava lake. I recommend checking out http://www.ees.nmt.edu/Geop/mevo/mevo.html for some great photos, facts and videos if you're curious.

I feel pretty darn lucky to have been chosen, not many people get to go up there and especially after all the great trips I've somehow found my way onto, I almost feel like this is just too much. But oh well, I'll take whatever comes my way.

~G

It's been a very lovely Sunday, indeed... brunch, church, rugby game, penguins and beautiful weather! At 3:00 I boarded Ivan the Terrra bus and rode out past the Kiwi base to watch the anual McMurdo vs. New Zealand rugby match. Aparently, this year marks 8 years and running since the US team has actually scored a single point against the Kiwis... hmmm must be the haka. I'd like to see them take us in a baseball game. The match was well played and very entertaining as the ice/snow field made for a lot slipping and sliding. There was only one serious injury and it will probably just take a few stitches above the eye to set things right again. When I asked my roommate (who played in the game) how he thought it went, his reply was, "well, we lost the game, but we won the after-party." Oh boy, glad I passed on that one.

After a long walk back, a quick dinner and a lovely phone conversation with my fiance, I headed down to Hut Point to see the ice breaker that docked up during the game today and the flock of Adelies that have been taking up residence in McMurdo. The penguins are great fun to watch and are very curious as well. They are not shy of humans at all and were weaving in and out of conversation circles and groups of people sitting about the beach, it seems as though they wanted ALL the attention. They also seem to like picking up rocks and setting them down in new locations for some reason... I haven't quite figured that one out yet.

~G

PS Larson, you should see about bringing St. Andy's down to the ice, I bet they could take those Kiwis... even if they can't haka.