Darkness is coming to an end.

 

A few weeks ago a couple of us headed up to Vals and bivvied on top of Reptile ridge for the night. It was -20 degrees Celsius. Sleeping outside with just a thermarest, sheep's skin and a down sleeping bag inside a bivvy bag was pretty exciting. With the spot lights that surround the buildings of Rothera it was great to get away from the small amount of light pollution that we create and really embrace the Antarctic fresh air. The stars were incredible and we regularly saw shooting stars. 

 

 

 We had some food at the caboose before heading up to our camp for the night.

 The darkness that surrounded us for the past few months gave us great opportunity to take night time photography. I've learnt so much about photography whilst I've been here and can't wait to get home and invest in some more kit.

 Ali Rose is a great photographer and has been giving us all tips on our photography skills.

 A 30 minute exposure.

 It was absolutely freezing the night I took this photo on my winter trip with Al, it must have been around -30. It was difficult to mess around with the camera settings so the best shot I got is the one below...!

With only 5 weeks until the first Borek aircraft arrives back at Rothera which marks the end of our winter! I can't believe how fast time has gone, we've all got so many winter jobs that we've got to finish in the next few weeks before Rothera opens up for the summer.

 

With the flag up ceremony just a few weeks ago the light is coming back very quickly. It's now light before work which is amazing so we can go out diving and sampling at 9 am now instead of waiting until a few hours later when it got light. The other exciting thing is that twilight hours are now after work time so as of last week we can play outside after work!!!!! A few of us have been skiing and snowboarding on the ramp behind base a few times after work this week just because we can...it was pretty tough conditions as we have hardly had any snow this winter so the ramp is pretty icy!

  

Soon the 21 of us will be invaded by the summer people of Rothera...exciting and slightly scary!

Work & play/Play & Work

Work and play here can sometimes be the same thing...this job is pretty amazing!

After an epic weekend of walking up a mountain called Gwendoline outside the flag line on Saturday, with Al leading us up the icy and sometimes snowy walk.

We set off early..lovely colors!

 It was outside the flag line, so we each had a skidoo. Two people were tied together and pulled a half unit of emergency supplies just encase the weather prevented us from getting back. 
 So good to be able to play in the sun.

 Rob loving it. Me, Hector and Rob were all snowboarding so walking up was much more tiring that Al, Kate and Bradderz who were skinning up on their skis! Maybe I will learn to ski....

Hector trying to look cool...

-20 with a slight windchill...pretty chilly so down was needed!

 The fun for the weekend did not stop there. Malcy and I decided to tackle Orca again, but this time it was the mighty Alpine route of Toulouse Lautrec on ORCAAAA!! A 6 pitch ice climb and then a 2 pitch mixed climb at the top. A calf burning mission.

 I was wondering why I was finding it so difficult...after my 3rd pitch Malcy and I decided to see if my shoes were undone because my feet were killing...and of course they were!!!

 Amazing view of the Sheldon glacier.

 A pretty epic day....no wonder I fell asleep at 6pm and didn't wake until 8am the next morning!!!

 

Struggling!!

But I did make it to the top for an epic view!!!

I woke up Monday pretty tired and achy. However, no rest for the wicked it was time to test the sea ice that had been forming since last Tuesday.

We all loose our grip sometimes...

 Fantastic fast ice formation in Ryder Bay, this is a tide crack covered by frost flowers.

 Manhauling to site 2 which is 3 km south of Rothera....pretty tricky over the brash ice that formed inbetween the fast ice...I'm not going to lie it is terrifying skiing across a bay which you are used to being on a boat on! It is however very safe as we checked the weather conditions for the day to check for a stable air mass with light and variable winds and low air temperatures (working in -15 all day is pretty tough)!

Frost flowers



Polar hero pose

Working here is pretty amazing, but it was a pretty stressful week. I didn't sleep much on Tuesday night because I was stressing about the fact that the next day we were about to skidoo across the sea ice 4 km away to site 1 in order to sample. I was down at the Bonner by 6 am ensuring everything was well prepared...!

On our way to site 1 with over 600 kg of weight we skidooed across the fast ice. WE were drilling to check the depth of the ice all of the way, it had to be >30 cm for us to continue. We made it to site 1 1.5 hours later!! I was hoping that all of the instruments were still going to work in the -20 conditions.

 

Adam chainsawed two holes for us. I needed a big hole for the profiler as it was the first time that this has been done underneath fast ice. Mark Inall from Oban left me with a profiler which measured turbidity, I had to assemble the kit on the ice as it's pretty fragile so we didn't want to break it on our way out to site 1! The boys conducted the CTD and water sampling for me in a separate hole just to speed up the process. It was a great day and we were finished after lunch in time for me to complete the lab work!! I was so happy that everything worked well!

A stressful but very good day! We were happy to have a celebratory drink that night! It's now the end of the week and I can safely say that I am shattered!

48 hour film festival

Last weekend we competed against the other Antarctic bases in the 48 hour film festival.

The aim was to devise  a script, film and edit the film within 48 hours.

It had to include the items; A mythical creature, the noise of an elephant, a stethoscope, ''may the force be with you.

The photos below are throughout the 48 hours whilst we plan and film!

Planning the night before filming

Recreating Shackleton's men walking through a whiteout

Getting inventive with our modern moving shots

Starting to edit and discuss what else needs to be filmed

Discussing the shot

Getting even more quirky with the moving cam

You can view our video here: https://vimeo.com/177997320

The other base videos should be available in the next few weeks.

Tonight we all watch the rest of Antarctic base videos and decide on a winner!!!!

Holiday No.2!

 

Al and I set off on our weeks holiday (my second winter trip) with our skidoos and sledges packed.

 

 The week before we left we had the flag up ceremony to mark the sun coming back! So happy to see Rothera lit up by the sun again. Photos of this are on Ali Rose's amazing blog along with some fantastic shots of me and the dive time diving through the ice!

 

http://www.mountainstotheseaphotography.com/2016/07/sea-ice-divers-and-the-raising-of-the-flag/

 

We were hoping that the contrast would be good enough to get through McCallum's pass, an area hindered by deathly crevasses. Luckily for us the clouds parted for us to nip around the south side of the pass. We were linked up via skidoos, we were wrapped up in down clothing to keep us warm for the long journey.

Setting off

 

Sundogs

 

The route around to the campsite called the Myth was stunning. The mountains towered over us as Al navigated us to our destination. Seeing the sun rising above the clouds was a great site after being so long without it. 

Theme of the trip: Frozen hair

  

 

 The amazing view on the way to our campsite! When we arrived at camp we set up camp ready for the storm that was heading our way!

 

 

 

Al digging the hole for our poo tent!

 Al and I had left on the Saturday as the weather looked bad for the next few days, we knew that we would be in lie up (stuck in the tent) but it was worth it as we managed to get to our campsite called the Myth (the mountain on the left of the photo below). It was amazing to think that we were so far away from people on the island embracing the magical landscape.

Our campsite with Myth on the left and the mountain called Zoo on the right

 During lie up Al and I kept ourselves entertained. We read a book called On Antarctica by Len Airey which I recommend to anyone who wants to know what it's like living here as we found it very relatable. We (Al) also made lots of great food ranging from pizzas, bread and obviously melted cheese and biscuit browns! A great chef, we hardly needed to eat manfood!

 

 

Melting cheese on the tilly

 We finally managed to get out on the Tuesday of our trip, it was mighty cold but we wrapped up warm. The contrast wasn't the best so we headed for a short trip to Monster Mythical nunatak which is infront of the Myth. We did a mixed climbing route of snow, ice and rock. It was a great climb but I got hotaches way too many times (great video on my facebook), hotaches are when your hands get cold but then suddenly warm up as you stop belaying and then start climbing. I went a bit supersonic, banged my head into the snow and had a little laughing cry but when the aches finished I had a great little climb up a brittle ice route.

Al pitching the climb



We were pretty relieved to get to the top and check out the view

Type 2 fun as Al calls it! We had a great day and were happy to get back and warm up in the tent! 

So frozen and his lips cracked that Al couldn't even smile!

 The photo below shows the frustrating cloud that prevented Al and I from skidooing to a run down base on the coast or for going for a walk! It's too dangerous in this area to drive around in bad contrast even if you have a GPS.

Snow!

A great week and chance to get away from the daily routine of base. A time to relax, catch up on sleep and to generally chill out. Also, a chance to get a real taste of Antarctica and to live for a week in what some may say is a hostile environment.  

Our pyramid tent for the week!