Panorama of the landscape with a sun halo

The sunlight glinting of the ocean-like ice fields

 Every fairytale has heroes and villains, has beauty and beasts. Antarctica is no different. In fact Antarctica is both Beauty and the Beast. Today I will tell you about the Beauty.

Antarctica is the most beautiful and magical place I have ever visited, of all 7 continents I have been to. It is breathtaking, especially here up on the ice plateau. The air is so clean, clear and dry that you can see for miles and miles. Because there are no reference points for distances (like houses or trees or streets) everything looks like its incredibly close by. The mountains, the moraines, they look like you can just take a quick walk to get there when in reality they are several miles (sometimes several tens of miles) away. The air is so pure that there are no smells, absolute none, no matter how hard you try to smell something. And it is quiet (when there is no wind going that is). I have never in my life experienced such quietness. You are standing on this huge expanse where you can see from one horizon to another and there is absolutely no sound around you. Nothing! And suddenly you realize how many things in our normal life make sounds around us without us really noticing because they have become white noises: cars in the distance, airplanes in the sky, people of course, birds, insects, tree leaves rustling in the wind, flowing water (rivers or fountains), etc. Here there is none of that. Absolutely nothing on a windless day. It is so quiet that you can hear your own heart beating in your chest (which gave me quite a scare at first because I didn’t realize what that thumping noise was that I was hearing). On windy days though Antarctica produces the sweetest sound I have ever heard in my life. When the wind howls over the ice and moves the snow and ice crystals around you can hear them colliding. It makes this crystal clear, faint ringing sound of a thousand little faint bells. It is so beautiful.
And then there are the colors of Antarctica. White of course, the purest white ever, of the snow. But the snow is made of hexagonal ice crystals. And when the sunlight shines on them in a specific angle, the crystals act like prisms and refract the light into rainbow colors. Then the snow sparkles in colors of reds, greens, blues, oranges, and purples like a gazillion tiny Christmas lights. It is truly magical. When the ice crystals are contained in clouds high in the sky around the sun (and aligned in the correct angle) they paint the clouds in rainbow colors. The sky itself has an intense deep blue color high above and gradually turns into a very intense light blue near the horizon. It is breathtaking.
The ice sheets. Oh, the ice sheets are truly pieces of art. They stretch all the way to the horizon. In all directions. And they really look like a frozen ocean. There are ripples, rolling hills and swells like waves, ridges, wind scoured holes, rilles, sun-cups (which to me look like fish scales), and steep slopes. The ice itself has an intricate pattern of frozen cracks, lines, and tiny air bubbles that are frozen into the ice. It turns the ice into a beautiful mosaic. The ice is overall blue and translucent but has all these different shades depending on the lighting. The colors range from milky white to icy-gray, from light teal to blue-green, sometimes even with a tint of yellow, from an intense light baby blue to a deep deep blue. When it is a clear day and the sun shines directly onto it, the ice sparkles, looks polished and wet. When it is an overcast day the sunlight gives the ice a waxy and dull shine instead. It is amazing how it changes in color and property depending on the light. It almost gives the ice the impression of something that is alive.
Even the wind here is beautiful. Besides bring responsible for the sweetest bell sound, the wind here is a true master of art. It carves the ice sheets and rocks into intricate sculptures. It creates wind scoops around rocks that can range in depth from a few cm to a few meters. It forms wind streaks made of ice and snow behind the rocks and carves out intricate swirly patterns on the sides of those icy streaks. It moves the snow around on the ground in a way that it looks like moving and alive snow-snakes that are several tens pf meters long creeping along the surface, racing us on our skidoos when we drive downwind.
Antarctica is a truly beautiful place and if magic ever exists on this planet you will find it here. We are so very lucky and truly humbled that we get to experience such an amazing place. We love it here. But every fairytale has a dark side and next time I will tell you about the Beast of Antarctica.
Juliane, Dec. 23nd at 5pm in the fairytale-like land of Antarctica.