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.

OK, here’s what you’ve been waiting for … PENGUINS.

One of the absolute highlights of my prior trip to Antarctica was the day we spent in a helicopter flying along the edge of the ice and making occasional stops to see places and things of interest. The highlight of that highlight was a  magical visit to a colony of Emperor penguins many miles from McMurdo, at the edge of the melting sea ice.

I certainly wanted to retrace those steps to see what would be different this time of year, at the end of the austral summer rather than the end of winter. So Mike and I suited up in our ECW gear and walked down to McMurdo’s helicopter terminal. We met our pilot Barry, did a brief safety check, donned our flight helmets, and lifted off. Our first stop was Cape Royds, a wind-whipped promontory at the extreme western point of Ross Island, more than 20 miles (36 km) from McMurdo Station.

Cape Royds sits at the foot of Mt Erebus. It’s the site of a hut built in 1907 for Ernest Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition, as well as the home of a colony of Adélie penguins. The colony has approximately 2,100 nests, down from more than 4,000 because of a large iceberg that grounded nearby about ten years ago. The iceberg caused McMurdo Sound to ice over completely for several seasons, creating too long a walk to open water and causing many of the penguins to abandon the colony to nest elsewhere.

Although conditions were mild at McMurdo, the winds intensified as we flew toward the cape. By the time we arrived, the wind was literally howling. We were whipped fiercely throughout our visit by snow blowing down the slopes of Erebus. You can get a sense of the environment from the photo (above) of our helicopter, taken just after we landed and were walking away toward the Adélie colony.

When the wind temporarily eased a bit, I took the photo below to give you a sense of the rocky terrain of Cape Royds. The colony was about a kilometer from our landing site, across these rocky hills.

One of my scientist friends told me that the colonies in the Ross Sea area contain more than 5 million Adélies. Large colonies, such as Ross Island before the iceberg, support as many as a half million penguins.

As we crossed the first rise, we could see the edge of Cape Royds and the open sea of McMurdo Sound. In the far distance beyond the water was the Antarctic mainland and its vast Wilson Piedmont Glacier.

Adélies nest in the rocky mounds near the water. As we approached, our eyes adjusted to the black-and-white environment, and we began to make out the forms of penguins among the rocks. (Look near the bottom left of the photo below.)

I walked briskly because I was anxious to see chicks. I was too early in the season the last time to see juveniles, and of course we did not intrude close enough to see eggs in the stone nests that Adélies build.

Adélies breed from October to January. Eggs incubate for just over 30 days, and chicks remain in the nest for about 20 days before moving on to crèches (group nurseries).  I knew from my prior visit that the largest concentration of Adélies at the site would be on the hill pictured below.

Still photos don’t do justice to the dynamism and personality of Adélies. The colonies are loud, raucus, bustling environments with penguins scurrying around, pushing, playing, sliding, arguing, and calling. I stood for an extended period in the high winds, thigh-deep in snow, watching the interactions within and among social groups on the hill.

I laughed out loud a couple times, including when one of the young Adélies waddled up to a mate from behind and knocked him down with a coldcock to the back of the head. Good-natured rough-housing ensued. If you look closely at the photos you can see a few juveniles still in their dark gray down feathers.

Adélies are highly social and curious. The diaries of the early explorers are filled with humorous stories of the penguins insisting on inspecting the new arrivals, chattering among themselves as they went, and getting into a variety of trouble, including suicidal approaches on tethered sled dogs.

Apsley Cherry-Garrard, a member of one of Robert Falcon Scott’s expeditions, noted, “They are extraordinarily like children, these little people of the Antarctic world, either like children or like old men, full of their own importance.”

I crouched low in the snow, to be as unobtrusive as possible. I ended up, though, catching the eye of the penguin at the bottom of the photo above. He and a buddy decided to come over to see what I was up. 

As they approached, I made a mental note to congratulate the Happy Feet folks later for the marvelous way in which they simulated the movements, attitude, and personality of Adélies. Neither of my new friends had the haircut or sang Sinatra, but either one of them could easily have been Robin Williams.

Stay tuned. I’ll post more penguin pictures after I spend a bit of time with my curious new friends.

As I wrote in a previous post, my first trip to the South Pole 14 months ago was an extraordinary adventure. I have been eagerly looking forward to returning, and I wasn’t disappointed. Although conditions were quite different, the second trip was just as awe-inspiring as the first. And, just like last time, I am struggling to find words to describe the experience.

We flew over Beardmore Glacier, which Robert Falcon Scott ascended 100 years ago en route to the Pole. Beardmore is the largest glacier in the world.

Surrealistic. Blindingly white on a clear day. Sometimes with no horizon line, as though you are standing inside a cloud or vast monotone sphere. Covered in ice, but extraordinarily dry. So crushingly silent on windless days that you can actually hear your heart beat. So thunderingly loud on windy days that you can’t hear yourself shout.

Harsh and unforgiving. Annual average temperature of -58°F (-50°C). All-time record high temperature of only 9.9°F (−12.3°C). Fierce winds that pile up more than a foot (0.3 meters) of snow and ice per year. Snow and ice that never melt. No plants. No animals. Literally in the middle of nowhere.

To reach the Pole we flew through the vast Transantarctic Mts, which run 2,100 miles (3,500 km) across the continent and are 120-130 miles (200-300 km) wide.

Romantic. An ultimate quest. Symbolic beyond its tangible reality. Like the Moon, Mt Everest, and the North Pole. Drawing adventurers, explorers, and dreamers like a magnet. Testing human ingenuity, endurance, and spirit. A true end point.

Pristine. As clean and pure as one finds on Earth. Unspoiled precisely because of its inhospitality. Unchanging in many respects because it never thaws. Where the ice contains a record of our atmosphere’s history and evolution and helps us study the origins of the universe itself. A canary in the bird cage to many, giving us a hint of things to come.

At times during the flight it felt as though I could reach out and touch the slopes.

On a planet populated and explored by humans for many millenia, the South Pole long remained beyond reach. It was only 100 years ago that expeditions succeeded in reaching the spot. The centennials of those expeditions were commemorated this past December and January.

It was on December 14, 1911 that a team led by Roald Amundsen first reached the Pole. A team led by Robert Falcon Scott arrived 33 days later, on January 17, 1912. The United States’ permanent scientific operation at the Pole is officially named the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in their honor.

Roald Amundsen at the South Pole, December 14, 1911.

I already knew quite a bit about the two explorers from my association with the Antarctic Heritage Trust, but I did supplemental research last month on their preparations and paths to the Pole. Amundsen’s various accounts and Scott’s diary make for powerful, poignant, uplifting reading.

They also convey strong, ironic personalities. My favorite quote from Amundsen is, “Never has a man achieved a goal so diametrically opposed to his wishes … [H]ere I was at the South Pole. Could anything be more crazy?” Scott wrote in his diary, “Great God! This is an awful place.”

Scott pushed toward the Pole from Cape Evans, near McMurdo Station. Amundsen started from the Bay of Whales, on the other side of the Ross Ice Shelf. The Pole is more than 850 nautical miles (1,370 km) from McMurdo. The red dots show the locations of the three permanent American research stations.

Jumping forward to the present, my second visit to the Pole was very much like my first. Mike and I toured the extraordinary Station facilities, discussed current projects with scientists and staff, had lunch in the cafeteria (it was taco day, with real jalapeños), and left the Station in a Cat to visit the telescopes and several field project sites.

On our way back we stopped at the ceremonial orb and arc of flags where the recent centennials of the Amundsen and Scott expeditions were celebrated. We then walked the remaining distance to the current geographic Pole. (Because of the movement of the ice on the plateau, the precise location continually shifts.) Although a short walk, it was an exhilarating experience to approach the Pole on foot through the driving wind and whipping snow.

Mike and I at the ceremonial orb with the Station behind us, during a brief break in the weather.

Many of the major scientific projects are long-term efforts and thus the same as I saw in 2010. In fact, in certain disciplines, readings from the South Pole are among the longest continuous observational data sets available, including decades of measurements of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric gases in the air. I am told that such records are of general, rather than simply Pole-specific, significance because the air at the Pole is the best available representation of global average gas content.

On a purely social note, I was pleasantly surprised to see several familiar faces in the hallways and the cafeteria. It’s great to see so many scientists, managers, and support staff returning year after year. I could reminisce for another few paragraphs, but rather than tax your patience I’ll just refer you back to my November 30, 2010 account for the images, experiences, and information that have largely remained unchanged.

I was squired into the field in the same Cat as last time.

So, what was different? The weather was the big change. My prior trip was at the beginning of the season, at the start of the austral summer. Now, winter is fast approaching. Clouds and blowing snow obscured our view of the Station until just before the Herc’s skis hit the snow runway. When I stepped out of the plane, the wind was fiercer and the temperature much colder than I recalled. While Mike and I were out in the field, wind chill drove the temperature down to -76°F (-60°C).

Also, the Station’s population was much smaller than last time. The summer contingent of approximately 250 people is now well along the process of drawing down to the 51 intrepid souls who will remain when the Station is cut off from the rest of the planet for the long, harsh winter. By Wednesday of next week the Station will complete its seasonal transition and be battened down for the dark days ahead.

With one of the Ice Cube sensors displayed in the Station.

With respect to the science, a few of my favorite projects cleared major milestones while I was away, and I enjoyed seeing and hearing about the progress.

For example, the extensive Ice Cube square-kilometer array, the world’s largest neutrino detector, is now completed.

After years of work and many challenges, dozens of strings with hundreds of beachball-size bundles of light-detection instruments are now buried in bore holes as deep as 8,000 feet (2,450 meters) beneath the clear ice, recording.

With that prep and deployment work now done, the scientists are able to study the paths of neutrinos that reach the array from the North Pole. The mass of the planet screens out the other particle noise, revealing the elusive neutrinos.

Among other notable signs of progress, one of the large telescopes, inoperable when I last visited, was back in service and pointed up (or down, depending on your point of view) again. It was successfully repaired last year by jacking the entire structure several meters up so that ball bearings at its base could be replaced. That was no mean feat, given weather conditions and limited resources at the Pole.

There were a couple of more distant sites that I had hoped to see, including the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration’s Atmospheric Research Observatory. Unfortunately, the weather continued to worsen, and it began to appear as though we could be stranded for additional days.

Some distance from the Station, this solitary polar outhouse stood ready on the barren landscape in case nature called. The camera picked up a horizon line. At the time, all I could see was a black box floating in a gray-white cloud.

I would have relished the extra time and experiencing a polar white-out. I know, though, that the presence of an Ambassador or other official distorts the environment and creates extra work and anxiety for folks with more important tasks to perform, particularly at season’s end. So Mike and I accelerated our schedule and caught an earlier flight back to McMurdo.

Although visibility was poor at the Pole, the clouds cleared near the edge of the plateau, revealing more stunning views of the terrain that Amundsen and Scott traversed a hundred years ago.

I spent the flight very much as I did the last time. Exhilarated. Ebullient. Thinking about past explorers who trekked to the Pole through the harshest of weather, surviving for many weeks on only what they could carry across the ice. And thinking about present-day explorers who airlift supercomputers and build neutrino detectors, seeking clues to the origins of the universe in that same ice.

The United States’ McMurdo Station and New Zealand’s Scott Base sit close together on McMurdo Sound, an inlet of the Ross Sea.  Incredibly rich in nutrients and biodiversity, the Ross Sea is one of the last bodies of water on earth not harmed by human activity (other than the seemingly inevitable commercial over-fishing of certain species).  Back from the South Pole, we decided to take a nice long walk along what will be the shore line of this special body of water when the ice of McMurdo Sound breaks apart for the summer over the course of the next few weeks.

We headed this way on our walk.

Last night I heard that someone had fallen through the ice while walking back from the “ob tube,” so of course that’s where I wanted to go first.  Good-natured as always, Dr. Lisa (Clough) agreed to squire us there.  Smart and prepared as always, she asked her colleague, Michelle, and McMurdo fireman André to accompany us, in case she needed help fishing me out of the water.

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