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!
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.
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| Setting off |
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Sundogs
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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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| Al pitching the climb |
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| 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!
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Our pyramid tent for the week! |
