Sunday in Shackleton. Beautiful mountains, phenomenal weather, fed three square meals a day, our own tents, no more ‘Poo bucket’; what more could we ask for?
In reality, there isn’t an enormous amount to do around here, but while away the time. Starting with a boring note, and ending this blog on a crescendo of sorts, I spent most of yesterday and some of this morning finishing a paper (as much as anything, so I could at least partly live up to my name with Scott from earlier blogs).
It’s about data we have collected on xenoliths from the Antarctic, so I thought it fitting to begin and end it here on the frozen continent. Ioannis is having a read of it for me (he loves xenoliths almost as much as I do). I think it’s extremely interesting, best seller on the New York Times list, I’m sure.
There was no breakfast this morning, so the four of us on team B slowly wended our way into the Galley Tent around 10 am this morning. From there, we hatched a plan (Scott, Ioannis, and I) to walk the 10 km loop around the Shackleton Glacier Camp, along the air strip and back, after lunch.
Since Sunday is a day of rest, there are no big Hercules aircraft, or Twin Otters, or Bell 212 ‘choppers’ to contend with, so a walk on the Glacier Runway is a must. We set off from camp wearing a couple of layers, but it is quite warm in the sunshine and the still air, so by the end I think we were all making the most of the temperate weather, unencumbered, for once, by heavy overlayers.
Despite walking on undulating ‘piste’, the views on the hike are spectacular. Glistening, crystallized snow, iridescent in the beating sun. Mountains capped with blue glaciers, tumbling down to the MacGregor Glacier below, in a chaos of crevasses and blocks. Sedimentary strata in the mountainsides, crosscut by massive sills and dikes, creating geometry in space. The shades of blue in the clear sky, from light to deep blue at the roof on the bottom of the world. The walked kept us in keen spirits and made for a nice change from moving from tent-to-tent to eat, work, sleep, repeat.
Now, I sit here in the Galley Tent, across from Scott, writing this blog. We’re waiting for dinner (it smells good), and things are quiet here in camp. We hear rumours that Team A will be in tomorrow. It will be good to see them after a month separated.
As for us, it’s possible we are back to McMurdo tomorrow. If not, we’ll find something to keep us occupied; there’s always chores to do around camp, like doing the dishes, filling the snow melter, or being otherwise helpful.
One of the main themes on our walk today was the number of e-mails we might have to deal with when we get back to McMurdo. None of us wanted to guess. In almost all ways, it has been nice to detach from this most paradoxical of communications; a necessity in the modern world but, all-too-often, a pain. Of course, we miss all of you back home, but let’s get together when we are back in proximity!
Posted by James from Shackleton Glacier Camp, Antarctica on January 14, 2018 at 17:00.