Among the differences that I’ve noticed during my second trip to Antarctica is the abundance of animal life in and around McMurdo Sound this late in the austral summer. Over the course of the week I’ve seen many hundreds of Adélie and emperor penguins, dozens of Weddell and leopard seals, Antarctic skuas, and a surprisingly large number of whales including minkes, orcas, and fins.

I am tempted to talk at length about biodiversity in Antarctica, a topic that fascinates me. Instead, though, I think I’ll just share a few pictures of what I actually saw in the McMurdo environs. Unfortunately, I’m not a quick-draw professional with my camera, and most of the animals I encountered had no patience for posing. So I missed the most fleeting and dramatic encounters, and the photos I did get are definitely not National Geographic quality. Sorry.

I stumbled across this Weddell seal napping along the shore of Cape Evans.

He roused himself to examine Mike and me for a moment.

And then he went back to his nap.

On a helicopter tour around the edge of the ice we saw dozens of whales below us, including these extra large ones. I couldn't see clearly enough to identify them, but our guide said they were sperm whales.

We saw orcas and minkes in openings in the ice around McMurdo Station and Scott Base. I actually saw a couple of orcas breach at close range. Here is one of a pair of minkes that I watched for an hour one day.

I could never quite get a clear picture of his head when he surfaced.

I concluded that he was a minke because of the shape of his dorsal fin.

Outside of the rookeries I saw groups of Adélie penguins here and there along the sea edge as I hiked.

This curious fellow approached me near the Terra Nova Hut at Cape Evans.

Skuas eat penguin eggs and chicks. We saw several skuas dive-bombing the Adélie rookery at Cape Royds.

Leopard seals also prey on penguins. The big guy at the center of this photo didn't look like a leopard seal to me, but he steadily moved toward the Adélies, and they kept skurrying away from him.

Of course, there were Emperor penguins in abundance.

OK, now for a few informational notes. Recent studies indicate that there are more the 1,200 animal species in Antarctica. They range from microscopic mites to huge blue whales, which are believed to be the largest animals ever to have lived on Earth. Most of the species are marine. There are very few purely terrestrial species on the continent. A flightless midge measuring 1/4 inch (6.35 mm) long is the largest of those terrestrial animals.

There is great marine biodiversity, relying in large part on phytoplankton. The phytoplankton are consumed by krill, tiny shrimp-like crustaceans which form the base of the food chain for squid, fish, seabirds, seals, and whales. I saw huge masses of krill when I descended into an observation pipe through the ice during my last visit.

At this point in the season the sea ice around McMurdo is too thin to support the observation pipe. It will be reinstalled once the ice thickens over the winter.

The bottom line is that the Ross Sea is a unique and largely intact marine ecosystem with a robust food web and abundant predators. It is a glory to behold, and it has fascinated and awed humans since the arrival of the first explorers.

It is also, though, a very fragile ecosystem facing serious long-term challenges such as anthropogenic climate change and encroachment of invasive species, as well as more immediate threats such as the introduction and expansion of commercial harvesting of fish.

However bothersome or inconvenient self-restraint may be at times, we cannot in good conscience avert our eyes from these challenges. Only man can protect the Ross Sea from man.

At the turn of the 20th Century, waves of explorers from around the world launched expeditions to Antarctica. A few of the expeditions were derring-do races to be “first” to this or that place. Others mapped the continent, and yet others collected data and artifacts and conducted scientific experiments. Some were a mix of all of those activities.

Whatever their objectives, the men who came south were forced by the harsh, barren environment to bring building materials, supplies, and large quantities of food with them. One can still find along the coast the huts built by those explorers to store provisions and provide shelter against the extreme cold and wind. The Antarctic Heritage Trust, on which I serve as Ex-Officio Trustee, is engaged in conserving and restoring four huts in the Ross Sea area. I was fortunate to be able to visit three of those structures while on the Ice.

Hut Point, with Discovery Hut at far right.

As I noted in a prior post about my first visit in 2010, the Discovery Hut (sometimes called Scott’s Hut) sits on Hut Point, on the edge of McMurdo Station. The hut is named after the ship Discovery which carried British Royal Navy Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his crew to Antarctica in January 1902 on the first official British expedition to the continent. The party built the hut as a land base for sledge treks on Ross Island and the Ross Ice Shelf, and for an unsuccessful attempt to reach the South Pole later that year.

At Cape Royds, next to the Adélie penguin rookery that I described in my last two posts, sits the hut built by Anglo-Irishman Ernest Shackleton in 1908 on his Nimrod expedition, named for the ship that carried him to Antarctica. Shackleton had planned to establish his base on the other side of the Ross Ice Shelf at the Bay of Whales, but he was blocked first by calving ice that obliterated his chosen location and then by impenetrable pack ice. After also failing to reach Hut Point because of pack ice, he finally selected Cape Royds as his winter-over site.

Nimrod Hut, at Cape Royds.

Shackleton launched several successful expeditions from the Nimrod Hut, including being the first to reach the magnetic pole and the first to ascend Mt Erebus. He also had the perhaps ignominious distinction of bringing the first motor vehicle to Antarctica. Nature fought back, and the automobile proved useless in the snow

In December 1908 Shackleton made an attempt on the geographic South Pole but fell 97 miles (156 km) short. As his supplies ran low, he calculated that his team could make the Pole but would be unable to return all the way to Cape Royds. As he later told his wife, “I thought you’d rather have a live donkey than a dead lion.”

Mike in Nimrod Hut.

I visited both the Discovery (Scott) Hut and the Nimrod (Shackleton) Hut during my 2010 trip. I had planned at the time to visit a third structure as well, the Terra Nova Hut at Cape Evans, but extremely high winds prevented our helicopter from landing. We had to divert directly back to McMurdo so that we wouldn’t be forced down and stranded for the night. This time around we were a bit luckier with the weather.

Terra Nova Hut, at Cape Evans.

The Terra Nova Hut, again named after the ship that carried the party of explorers to the Ice, was a pre-fabricated structure erected by Captain Scott in 1911 on his second and last Antarctic expedition. The hut was the largest of the structures built during that era, and it provided greater comforts as well as more space for the men.

A section of the sleeping quarters in Terra Nova Hut.

As Scott himself wrote in his diary, “The hut is becoming the most comfortable dwelling-place imaginable. We have made ourselves a truly seductive home, within the walls of which peace, quiet and comfort remain supreme. Such a noble dwelling transcends the word ‘hut’, and we pause to give it a more fitting title only from lack of the appropriate suggestion. What shall we call it? The word hut is misleading.”

Terra Nova's kitchen area.

A view of Scott's sleeping area, with the expedition dining table at left.

The Terra Nova carried vast stores for the expedition including more than 160 mutton and beef carcasses, cheese, butter, eggs, many dozens of crates of flour and tinned food, drums of kerosene, and a large amount of compressed coal. Scott also brought new technologies to the Ice including Burroughs Welcome medical equipment and supplies, photographic equipment and supplies, and various surveying, navigating, and scientific instruments.

I was suprised to see hundred-year-old eggs in the pantry.

We saw a variety of condiments on the shelves.

There was plenty of tinned fish and meat.

For ground transportation, the expedition brought numerous sledges, 33 Siberian huskies, two Siberian ponies, 17 Manchurian ponies, seven Indian Army mules, and three motor tractors. To keep those various engines running, the Terra Nova carried drums of Shell petrol for the tractors and tons of Geelong fodder, bran, and crushed oats for the animals.

I was startled to find this skeleton of one of Scott's dogs as I walked through the stables built along the side of the hut.

Once camp was established the impressive team of scientists included in the expedition began to take measurements, collect specimens, chart the environs, and conduct experiments in the fields of meteorology, magnetism, glaciology, gravity, geology, and marine biology.

Laboratory equipment at one end of the hut.

Scott’s primary goal was to reach the Pole. He was tantalized by Shackleton’s near success and deeply distressed by the news that Roald Amundsen of Norway was en route to launch his own attempt on the South Pole.

It had been thought that Amundsen was heading to the North Pole, but he turned his ship southward when he belatedly received news that Robert Peary of the United States had already reached that Pole first (on April 6, 1909).

Captain Scott in his corner of the hut, 100 years ago.

That corner as it looks today.

Scott selected four of his men and started for the South Pole on November 1, 1911,, using his old Discovery Hut at Hut Point as one of his supply depots. The team crossed the Ross Ice Shelf, traversed the Beardmore Glacier, trekked over the vast Polar Plateau, and reached their goal on January 17, 1912, only to find Amundsen’s tent, a Norwegian flag, and a note from Amundsen to Scott already at the site.

A personal photo in one of the bunks.

Scott wrote in his diary that day, “Great God! this is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority … Now for the run home and a desperate struggle. I wonder if we can do it.”

The party turned back. They were pounded by blizzards, slowed by injuries, and weakened as food ran out. After weeks of arduous effort, they perished approximately 150 miles (240 km) from Hut Point, and just 11 miles (18 km) from a field supply depot that they had established on their way to the Pole.

A shoe left behind in the hut.

The century-old huts and their well-preserved contents are extraordinary reminders of the great spirit, courage, endurance, and ingenuity of the explorers who first landed on the inhospitable shores of Antarctica. As the wind howled and the snow blew beyond the walls, I walked briefly in their footsteps and communed with the refuges they created in the alien environment. It was the poignant personal touches at the end of the world – a family photograph, a shoe, a postcard picture of home — that I found most powerful.

In case you were wondering, yes, I got my ECW boots on in time to get back to the flightdeck as we started our descent to McMurdo Station. McMurdo sits on Ross Island in the shadow of Mount Erebus, an active volcano, just off the coast of the Antarctic mainland. I couldn’t see McMurdo at first because of a thick mass of clouds beneath us, but Mt Erebus was clearly visible, puffing steam from its crater as usual.

Ross Island comprises four volcanoes and sits on the edge of the immense Ross Ice Shelf, which is approximately the size of France. Fed by massive glaciers, the ice shelf pushes outward across the Ross Sea at a rate of between 5 to10 feet (1.5 to 3 meters) per day. The shelf is largely ”permanent” ice, and it does not melt away in summer.

The ice shelf thus connects Ross Island to the mainland year-round. The island, though, is not surrounded by the shelf. Parts of the shore abut open sea which freezes over in winter and thaws in summer. Our descent carried us over the ice shelf toward Ross Island’s Hut Point Peninsula, on which McMurdo Station sits.

The United States’ National Science Foundation engages an ice breaker each austral summer to insure that an approach to McMurdo is kept open through the residual sea ice. That channel is what you see in the photos above and below. My last visit was at the very end of winter, when the ice was still frozen all around the Station. In fact, the C-17 landed on sea ice where you now see blue water in the photos.

Below is a closer view of the tip of Hut Point Peninsula as we approached and descended. The peak near the center of the photo is known as Observation Hill, which I climbed one night after dinner during my last visit. To the left of Observation Hill, near the water, is McMurdo Station:

The next photo is an even closer view of McMurdo through the cockpit window as we continued to descend. By this point I was able to pick out familiar structures and even see that a couple of buildings had been painted since my last visit. New Zealand’s Scott Base is just around the other side of Observation Hill, about a mile walk from McMurdo.

We flew past McMurdo and over the water that in a few months will freeze into our sea-ice airfield. A few minutes later I saw in the distance the sheds and huts of Pegasus, our permanent ice shelf runway.

The field takes its name from a C-121 Lockheed Constellation that crashed nearby in October 1970 in driving snow and zero visibility. Thankfully, none of the 80 people on board was killed. As we circled to align for landing, I could see the pieces of the original Pegasus, with the tail section and right wing some distance from the fuselage. (Don’t strain your eyes, the wreckage is not shown in the photo.)

Yes, the runway really is just ice, as you can see in the photo below. Because of the harsh winds and the snow that blows down from the mountains, the airstrip requires constant grooming, as well as frequent checks for crevasses.

We taxied past a line of LC-130 Hercules, the workhorses of the US Antarctic Program. Mike and I will be boarding one of the Hercs tomorrow for our flight to the South Pole.

To prevent confusion, particularly in bad weather, everything at Pegasus is clearly marked. We fell in behind this guy and followed him to our designated snow gate.

On a blindingly white ice shelf the size of France, somebody has to tell you when to hit the brakes.

Although I thoroughly enjoyed the flight, I couldn’t wait to step back onto terra glaciem. I got the same electric ripple of goosebumps as I did 14 months ago when the snow crunched under my boots and the blast of frigid wind hit my face.

We hiked away from the C-17 as heavy-duty tractors began to remove the pallets and containers of cargo from the rear of the plane.

I chuckled as we approached our ground transportation — the biggest, heaviest, most ungainly bus I’d ever seen. I guess it has to be big and heavy to transit the ice, snow, and rocks successfully while keeping passengers safe and warm.

We stowed the luggage, climbed on board, and then rolled toward McMurdo over the ice highway constructed by the United States and painstakingly maintained by our National Science Foundation.

The ice highway runs 14 miles (22.5 kilometers) across the Ross Ice Shelf to Ross Island, and then links to a mile-long dirt road up the slope, past Scott Base, around Observation Hill, and to McMurdo Station. There are many interesting sights along the way, including pressure ridges in the ice near Scott Base.

After almost an hour of driving, we reached McMurdo Station. Established in December 1955, McMurdo is the logistics hub of the US Antarctic Program, as well as the largest base in Antarctica. With a population that swells to 1,500 during the summer and contracts to about 150 in winter, the Station is a fully-functioning town with more than 90 separate buildings.

The building where Mike and I will be staying (above) is one of the smallest structures in town. My room is the third window down the side of the hut, and it’s tiny. About the size of a bathtub. But it’s got a million-dollar view through that window …

Now we’re going to unpack and head over to the mess hall for dinner. Since the sun doesn’t set this time of year, I think we’ll then take a stroll through the Station and out to Hut Point, to orient Mike. And then tomorrow it’s off to the South Pole. I can’t wait.

Dinner last night was a great pleasure.  Ola, a few friends of ours from McMurdo, and I drove 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) through the howling wind up and around the hill to get to Scott Base on the other side of the point.

First sight of Scott Base when coming over the hill (in a photo borrowed from Google Images, since the storm obscured the view last night).

Scott Base has been New Zealand’s permanent base in Antarctica since 1958.  Like McMurdo Station, Scott Base sits on Ross Island in the Ross Sea.  The Antarctic mainland is 70 kilometers (42 miles) from the Base, across the ice of McMurdo Sound.  Named after Antarctic explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the Base accommodates up to 85 researchers and staff at any one time during the summer, with a skeleton staff of about a dozen remaining for the winter.

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