Antarctic Tourism

We were surprised the other day to hear helicopter traffic outside
our window. It was a Sunday and there weren't supposed to be
any helo flights scheduled. It turns out that tourists had arrived
from the Kapitan Khlebnikov tourist ship and were visiting Hut
Point and the historic Hut. If it looks rather dangerous in the
photo, that's because it is! The helicopter and tourists are actually
walking on ice, over fairly deep water that is not as thick as it
should be this time of year. I'm happy to say that everyone had a
safe visit and the helo took off with no incidents.
We get visited in the Ross Sea Region by a couple of cruise ships
every year. When it's convenient, numbers of McMurdo residents
volunteer to lead tours of the town, including the station store,
science facilities, historic sites, etc. It's really the only way to see
McMurdo unless one is a member of the US or NZ Antarctic
programs. Most cruises also cost upwards of $10,000 to take.
It gives one a new appreciation of spending time here and being
able to take in the local attractions.

Rocks

Most of Antarctica is covered in snow and ice. However,
much of McMurdo is rock and dirt. All shades of gray,
brown, black, even rust. Ross Island (where McMurdo is
located) is volcanic. The only vegetation I've ever seen
growing here is some bright green slime in a melt pond.
Back home, I take used coffee grounds to our garden and
scatter them...trying to make the soil more fruitful.
Every time I empty my coffee pot here, I have to stop
myself from doing the same. It's fruitless. Without a
major shift in the earth's climate or the earth's axis,
the ground here will NEVER get more fruitful. It will
always be barren and next to lifeless and look exactly
like this photo.

Ob Hill Loop

Overlooking McMurdo is Observation Hill...or Ob Hill
for short. It stands 750 feet above sea level and
provides a wonderful view of the surrounding area.
On this night however, I didn't climb Ob Hill...I
hiked around the base of it, on the Ob Hill Loop.
This is one of several fun hikes that make up the
Ross Island Trail System. At 3:00 in the morning
there are very few folks to share the trail with so
I found myself alone while making this interesting
hike.


Hiking around the base is a bit of a misnomer. In
most cases one walks across it, about halfway between
the summit and McMurdo Sound, far below. See the line
about halfway up in this photo? That's the trail. Not
a lot of room for error, especially since the trail is
less than a foot wide for most of it's length. When
I told Lynn afterwards that I hiked this trail by myself
(which is totally within the rules), she told me she was
glad she didn't know because she would have been a nervous
wreck!


On the backside there is a small crater that holds a
tiny pond. I had no idea this was here before I saw it.


Most of the trail meanders a bit, with lots of switchbacks
to cover elevation rises and falls.


Although there isn't any life along the trail (Characteristic
of all of Ross Island), there were some areas that seemed
even more barren than others, containing thousands of
square feet of volcanic cinders.


From one point, one gets a great view of Scott Base,
seen on the edge of the Ice Shelf. The fog was pretty
heavy, making it feel very "Brigadoon-ish".


Along one section there were bleached penguin bones
scattered along the cinders. Skuas apparently take
their penguin prey here for dinner and only the bones
remain.


The wind does some weird and powerful things to the
rocks, causing strange formations.


I found it really interesting to see all of the
different colors that were present in the volcanic
rock that makes up Ob Hill.


I knew I had reached the end of the trail when I saw
the trail marker sign showing the beginning if coming
from the other direction.

It was a great hike. It was really really nice to have
complete silence away from town and even have my adreneline
flow a few times. Well worth the couple of hours to
commune with nature.