Discovery Hut

Like I had mentioned in my last post, we are located right next to Scott's original Hut. They have named this building Discovery Hut. This building remains locked for historical purposes and is opened when Tours are given to groups of people.
I just happen to be lucky enough to know the Recreation Coordinator (Erin) and she let me follow along one day on a private tour through the building.
Just to describe a little bit about the inside of this hut, so you can get an idea of what it was like to be in there: It structurally reminds me of a barn, all wood, vaulted ceilings, not much insulation. I would guess its about 1200 square feet of open space and different areas are divided up by big tarps and blankets. There is an old, rotting smell that reminds me of horse stables, not unbearable but definitely smelly. Almost everything is frozen it time, everything has been left the way we found it and nothing has been refurbished.
Fair warning, some of the pictures you are about to see include bones, carcases, and unidentified animals hanging on walls....you have been warned.


Enjoy the pictures!

This is an amazing piece of history and I am so lucky to have been able to see this with my own eyes. There are only about 20 historical Huts in all of Antarctica and I get to see one of the most famous ones.

Autumn :)

Hut Point

Back about 100 years ago, a man by the name of Robert Falcon Scott sailed to Antarctica on a journey to be the first man to reach the South Pole. A man by the name of Amundsen beat him there by about a month, but that's not the point! Scott found himself on Ross Island and set up camp.
McMurdo Station currently resides on Ross Island about a 1/2 mile from Scott's original Hut. The Hut still stands to this day and all McMurdo residents are welcome to walk out to Hut Point and check out the views and the outside of the building. Its about a 15-20 minute walk out there and if you are lucky, sometimes the seals will have come up through the ice cracks, and this is a prime spot to look out into the ice and watch them lay there and do nothing.....really, they just lay there and breath.
I have been out to Hut Point 3-4 times so far and its always nice to get out of town for about an hour or so.

The Beautiful Views

I try and keep my camera in my coat at all times around here just in case I see something exciting, beautiful, weird, etc. Here are a couple random photos that I took as I was walking from building to building, the scenery is the same every day, but depending on where you are standing, it looks a little different and always beautiful. We are basically located on a frozen island ocean front facing the actual land that is Antarctica. We are on Ross Island, located 20 miles across the frozen water from the main land. A lot of the mountains that you see are islands between us and the main land or are actual mountains on the main land. Once the weather warms up, the ice will mostly melt  and I can take pictures of the same mountains so you can see the difference.
Enjoy!



One of the first sunsets I witnessed here on the ice.

Observation Hill

The Ice Runway in it's first week of operation

This is Mount Discovery

These are nacreous clouds. They form when the temperature drops below -80 degrees in they sky. They look like a rainbow of water colors smeared across the sky.

Birthday and a New Look

Ok Everyone, its time to play catch up. Since the start of the summer season here, things have been pretty busy and I am having trouble finding time to blog as much as I'd like. For the time being, I am going to combine 2 different events that happened to me in the last few weeks.
As everyone knows, I celebrated my 28th Birthday here on the ice this year. It was a really good day. My boss Dan had the kitchen make a cake for 2 other girls and myself who all shared the same birthday and we each got a little goodie bag of fun nick nacs.

Later in the evening I held a little get together for some friends at a place called Hut 10. Its this 3 bedroom house used for the VIP's when they come to visit, but when it is not in use, we are allowed to rent it out for the evening and throw parties.
The party went well and everyone had a good time.

On to the fun pictures!
After a month and a half on the ice, I decided it was time for my hair to go. The harsh, dry weather had turned my hair into a rats nest filled with split ends and never ending static. I asked Erin if she wanted to cut the pony tail off and agreed to do it. We cut it out by the Station sign so that I can send pictures to Locks of love when I donate my hair.

The day we cut it was really windy and pretty cold.

You can see by the completely horizontal direction  my ponytail is 

flying through the air that it was super cold and windy.

Once the hair was cut, we went back to the barber shop and Ildi trimmed it a 

little more and styled it the way that I wanted.

And the final product.........ta da!

I am really enjoying it short and could not be happier with my choice. It takes about 5 minutes with my hair dryer and when I am ready to go outside, I just put a hat on and I am done......it just became that easy.

Yeah Short Hair!!!

Autumn :)

Pressure Ridge Tour

As We started to get settled in, one of the first things we did was head out of town to the Pressure Ridges. A pressure ridge is when the the sea ice freezes and starts pushing up against the permanent ice shelf. The ice shelf runs into the land and has nowhere to go. The pressure starts to build and the ice starts to move upward having no other option. These sharp ridges are created and slowly grow over the course of a month or 2. Erin and I went about half way through the first month, and were told that there were kind of tiny right now but if we come back in a few weeks they will look completely different.

I got a little cold in the end because I didn't wear enough layers on my bottom half, but other than that I had a lot of fun. I hope to go back and visit again in a couple weeks to see the difference.

Til next time!

Autumn :)

New Zealand Day 6....kind of.

On day 6, the clouds parted and, wait for it......we actually loaded the shuttle at 6:15am and headed to the CDC to put our extreme cold weather gear on for our departure from Christchurch. Its actually happening!!!!

We got dressed and headed over to a different building for some breakfast. After we ate we had a quick safety briefing and started to board the plane. We were so excited we took lots of pictures.

Once we were in the air, they allowed us to go up into the cockpit and look out the front windows and take some pictures. There were 4 pilots total and they were all really nice about letting everyone take pictures. They even had this secret window that look out into the cargo area to make sure everything was going safely.

About 4 into the flight, they made an announcement that we were officially over Antarctica, so Erin and I took an adventure to the door windows to have a looksie. It was amazing to look out and see all white.

Once we landed, everyone cheered and we slid to a stop. No really, we landed on the permanent ice shelf and slid into place, it was the plan all along.  We all bundled up and headed off the plane and into some waiting vans and deltas (more pictures of the vehicles to come.)

We then had an hour drive into town where we had dinner and another briefing before getting our room assignments. After getting our linen packs, we all walked up to the cargo building and grabbed our luggage. At this point exhaustion kicked in and I was done for the day.

This has been a long time coming, but I am finally here!!!! Yeah!!!!!

Autumn :)