The MEC (Mechanical Equipment Center) is tasked this
winter to put 250 hours on the new Tucker tracked vehicles.
Once a week, Sean and Josh take two people from town out on
the Castle Rock Loop on a two hour trip. This week, Lynn
and I got to go. We hadn't been to Castle Rock before
and we hadn't ridden in the new Tuckers before so it was
a doubly nice trip. The Tuckers are tracked vehicles so
they roll over the snow easily and had no problem at all
climbing from the Sea Ice up the glacier headed to Castle
Rock.
I was pretty surprised how steep the terrain was around
Castle Rock and it's definitely a long slide down to the
bottom of the glacier. Lots of people make this 9.3 mile
loop trip on foot or skis, but they definitely have more
energy than I do. I was very happy making it in a warm
vehicle.
On the way back, we were riding along the top of the glacier,
so we were fairly high up compared to McMurdo Sound to the
right and the Ross Ice Shelf to the left. At this high
up, you could see that it's a lot brighter to the north,
but you'd have to go hundreds of miles to actually see
the sun. And this was at 3:30 in the afternoon. We had
a great trip and hopefully we'll be able to go out again
after it's completely dark to see lots of stars.
5 comments:
Wow! Awesome pictures. I'm jealous. I would much rather be there than in the Denver snowstorm today!
What snowstorm?!? I am in Denver and while the weather isn't great today, we are hardly in the midst of a snowstorm.
I remember the first time I went to Castle Rock. The view was amazing and it was one of the best days of the summer. Of course, it was even better since I was playing hookey from work. :)
Was that while you were supposed to be working for me Ben???
Tom, I really enjoy your stories and photos! Hi to Lynn!
Former Shuttle Sharon
No, that was when I was working for "Crazy Jan" who, coincedently, was at the most recent job fair in Denver. I would never hike to Castle Rock while I worked for you Tom. It was much too cold for that sort of behavior!
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