It's another foggy day with no visibility for flying and so we sit and wait for the weather to clear. Imagine a 35 minute flight across the sea ice (flat and white) and how without a horizon line or ground definition it could be easy to become disoriented or lose vertical reference with the ground. So I will take a minute to tell about our flight on Thursday...

Thursday morning I was the lucky helotech assigned to assist in escorting Prince Albert II of Monaco around on his tour of Ross Island and the Dry Valleys. He traveled with his friendly entourage of 3 as we first visited Lake Hoare Camp nestled behind the Canada Glacier where he spoke with Dr. Fountain about the glacier studies there. Lk Hoare's camp manager and assistant have been returning for many years and are very helpful in loading and unloading cargo and passengers when we land but rarely do we shut down or see their home. Inside the one room hut is a kitchen with a large table filling most of the room, bunk beds for the unexpected guest, and a large pot for melting snow on the stove. Hanging from the ceiling are fine wire sculptures of fish, birds, a helicopter and a butterfly presumably twisted together by the visitors who have dined at their table. A watercolor given by artist Alan Campbell hangs behind glass protecting the message scrawled below the peak.

From there we took an aerial tour of the Dry Valleys, the Labyrinth, Upper Wright Valley ice falls, and stopped at Bull Pass to walk through the ventifacts sculpted by the wind over time. Then we were off to Marble Point, our primary fuel stop on the far side of McMurdo Sound, where Karen was there with another wonderful lunch of fresh bread and a selection of cheeses, soups, hummus, crisp apple slices, and herbal tea prepared in their warm, homey kitchen.
After lunch we returned across the Sound to Cape Royds where Shackleton's Hut sits facing a large colony of Adelie Penguins. They could be heard from a distance and as we approached we could see the fuzzy charcoal grey penguin chicks standing nearly as tall as the adults, some still warming and protecting their eggs. Open water surrounds the Cape so we were able to see them swimming, hopping up onto the ice, waddling to and from the rookery.

We entered the hut and stood in the place where those early explorers did-- socks still hanging on the drying line, bed rolls ready for rest, provisions stacked and neatly organized on shelves fashioned from packing crates stenciled with 'British Antarctic Expedition 1907'. Outside there are several dog houses, tools hanging on weathered wood, and a small heap of rusted trash and broken glass- an archeologist's dream.


Scott's Hut at Cape Evans was the next stop but it is currently under restoration and behind sheets of plastic as the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Fund cleans and replaces what is structurally falling apart. Still, to see the skis that they used, the snowshoes used by the horses and their names painted on the stable walls is an amazing thing. The view of the open water and Barnes Glacier, thoughts of what they must have encountered...

All the while Prince Albert II was kind, interested and funny while they were gathering information about the area, interviewing a few scientists, and getting another glimpse of the Antarctica that they are protecting with the signing of Monaco to the Antarctic Treaty.

We are just a few weeks away from departure with a lot of work to complete between now and then. Travel plans are beginning to be finalized and folks are questioning whether they'll return for another season, only time will tell!

Missing you,

ali