Winterer's Antarctic Field Trip - Part 1

With the summer season behind us and with only the Halley winterer's left at Halley V, winter trip season is now upon us. The winter trip is essentially a week away from the base and a break from ones work. The winterer's go out in pairs to explore the Brunt Ice Shelf (a seasoned field assistant accompanies them to ensure that they don't fall in to any crevasses). This trip is repeated in October so, in total, the winterer's spend two weeks away from base as Antarctic explorers.

My trip began on Sunday the 6th of March and myself, James and our wintering field assistant, Ian headed out to the Hinge Zone. The fresh water glacial ice flows from the Antarctic Continent on to the sea. This ice then floats on to the sea forming the Brunt Ice Shelf. Just as with a land bound glacier, this process is ongoing and the Brunt gets bigger and bigger until huge chunks break off at it's  extremities (referred to as calving events). The Hinge Zone is the area where the glacial ice from the continent begins to float. Like an actual hinge the zone supports the rising and falling of the huge ice shelf as the Brunt extends out to sea. It is an area of ice caves, contorted ice forms, dangerous crevasses and other fascinating features.

Ready to go. The blue sky didn't last long though....

Every winterer is privileged to have the opportunity to explore this wilderness. It says a lot for BAS that it is one of the few organisations, if not the only one, that still allows it's staff explore in this way. Other countries limit expeditions to those individuals who have to make such trips e.g. scientists etc. Some people come to work in Antarctica and all they get to see of it is the view from their window. In BAS every one of the wintering staff has the opportunity to explore; the chef, the vehicle technician and so on.

However, it's not that straight forward, The wintering adventurer has one enemy….The Weather!

I am two days into my trip as I write this and I have been tent bound for all but four hours. High winds, blowing snow and poor contrast limit our activities to peaking our heads outside the pyramid tent to see if the weather has improved sufficiently for us to get going. I am still lucky to even get this far though. The winterer's have week long slots allocated to them and if the weather is bad through their allocated week there is a chance that they wont even get off of the base! It's just too remote and dangerous to take such gung-ho risks such as charging off into the wilderness in poor visibility and contrast. In poor contrast the diffuse light from the clouds 'hides' the relief of the land meaning that one may not even see the crevasse or even a sharp drop that may be just a few feet in front of them. There are no risks to be taken out in this wilderness. If you get yourself into trouble the emergency services are not coming to get you.

The pyramid tent. The Antarctic explorers 'home from home' of choice

So if the weather is bad? You stay put. And, to be honest, this is no bad thing. I'm enjoying relaxing and kicking back especially after the busy summer season that we have just left behind. James, Ian and I did manage a few hours exploring in the local area. As we headed off into the Hinge all contrast was lost as the cloud came in. As it was a route that Ian had already marked we continued on. Breaks in the cloud afforded a short spell of reasonable contrast. Seizing the opportunity we wandered off route during which we managed to stumble across melt pool. During the summer the 24 hour sunlight is extremely high in UV (there's no ozone to keep this strong radiation from the sun at bay) and this energy does cause the ice to melt in some areas. The water runs off forming pools that continually freeze. I've never seen ice that looks so blue.

The frozen melt pool (an oxymoron?)

With care we made our way back to camp, sorted ourselves out for the night and collectively hoped that the next day brought better weather. It didn't and we spent the day cooped up inside the tent. I still made the best of it and, to be honest, it was no hardship. Not even a disappointment. Again, it's just great to be somewhere else doing something else even if that 'something else' amounts to 'not very much else'. Time to recharge the batteries so to speak. Sometimes, There's a whole lot to be be gained from doing a whole load of nothing.