Magic Mountain

Outside the hut it is -29 deg C and blowing 40mph, with blowing snow and only a few metres visibility. That puts the wind chill around -65 deg C. Finally after great weather since we arrived we can take a rest day. Erebus is a beautiful place when it's nice and very unforgiving when it's not.

It's not that often that I get to work on an active volcano, let or lone the only one in Antarctica and one of the highest mountains this side of the continent. Mt Erebus - 3794m and straight up from the sea to form Ross Island. Pretty amazing. A bubbling lava lake, fumaroles, ice caves and rock crystals that are completely unique to this place in the world. And cold. All the time.

After two nights at an acclimatisation camp on Fang Glacier (above) we moved up to the main camp at 3270m. We've been extremely busy since. Firstly installing 80 seismic stations around the Volcano by skidoo, then drilling 15m ice cores all over the place, filling them with explosives and now we're blasting them all.

The surreal view into an ice core hole

Life "upstairs" is as varied as ever - one day drilling holes, another circumnavigating the volcano on skidoo installing seismic stations. Visiting the ice caves on an evening, dealing with helicopters during the day, flying around to recce sites, organising camp. Variety is the spice of life as they say, and this year I have a more varied job than ever. Busy busy with loads going on all the time.

This is me hitching a sling load whilst the 212 Helicopter hovers over my head - an exhilarating experince to say the least!!

There were 14 of us until yesterday and, weather permitting, we'll be down to ten by tomorrow evening for Christmas, just like a big family! Seismic stations out, drilling finished and only another 4 holes to blow. Then the task is to fetch everything in again by the start of January.

Another hard day at the office.

These last four images are of the famous Erebus Ice Caves. The rock is hot but the outside temperature is a max of -20 C. Snow falls and accumulates as ice, but the warm rock beneath hollows out caves from below. The colours inside range from black to blue to white and every shade inbetween. Amazing. We can walk into some, but others require a 20m abseil and a climb back out again. The Fumaroles are ice towers created as the warm moist air hits the cold dry outside and the moisture condenses immediately making a hollow tower that gets bigger until it collapses. The volcano is covered in these towers and caves and I'm on a mission to get into as many as I have time and energy for!

So that's it for the moment. Christmas is around the corner and I'm sending this out at last to wish you all a very Happy Christmas and hopefully I'll have the time to post another blog before the new year. Love to all my family on the big day - I'll be thinking of you on this, my 10th Christmas away from home. Thanks for all the love and support over the years and see you at the end of January!

Tim

Antarctic Arrival

Well, after a long long journey down through LA and Auckland, I arrived safe and well in Christchurch and flew to Antarctica a few days later. Good to be back as always - amazing place and some wicked people here at McMurdo station - run by the United States Antarctic Program.

At around 1200 people, it's the biggest research station on the continent. A bit of a eyesore mining town in beautiful surroundings. Captain Scott built a hut here in 1902 and it still stands in good shape, looking out over the monstrosity of the station alongside.

Captain RF Scott's hut built more than 100 years ago looks out over station.

The station has a series of sculptures as you walk around...

I spend a LOT of time on this motorway and thought this was a suitable symbol...

I'm working with a team of people aiming to put out a grid of seismic monitors across the summit region of Mt Erebus (3794m), an active volcano with a bubbling lava lake at 78 Degrees South, drill a series of holes around Ross island and the volcano itself, fill them with explosives and blow them up. Sounds pretty exciting and hopefully it will be!

Mt Erebus from the sea ice

The idea is that the high resolution seismic array will be able to use the information gathered from the blasts to create a 3D image of the insides of the volcano and the magma chamber leading to it. Phew.

First we have a few days on station - people have to do training courses and other bits and bobs including skidoo school - a school to train people in the use of skidoos on difficult terrain (side traverses, steep slopes etc)

Practicing skidoo control on blue ice

The volcano just goes straight up from sea level to 3794m in one go.

We've also got this man on board - he spent ten seasons here from 1978-88 and hasn't been back since. He's now a middle school teacher and is sending stuff back to his school every few days as part of an outreach project run in association with the National Science Foundation. He's Mr Enthusiasm and will be lots of fun!

Tomorrow we're scheduled to head up to Fang, an acclimatisation camp, for a couple of days before hitting the high hut and starting on the seismometers. Busy season ahead as always....