Summer in Antarctica

A family friend, Todd, is spending the summer at McMurdo Station … the Antarctic summer that is. Right now there are 24 hours of sunlight each day and the temperature is a balmy 11 degrees F with light snow.

Here are some of the things he has experienced and seen in his own words and in his own photos:

“The dry valleys, across McMurdo Sound from the station, have a lot of science going on, as this is the closest thing to Mars that we have on the planet. I’m slated to go there on Monday with a team of scientists from Colorado who are studying cryconites — melt holes in glaciers that have microbial life in them.

My job is to get the scientists safely onto the glacier and to also assist them getting to the summit of a nearby peak to collect soil samples.

“In one pic you can see a pond at the base of the valley (there’s a reflection in it). This is Don Juan Pond. It’s the second saltiest body of water on the planet and never freezes, not even during the Antarctic winter! Next week I’m supposed to assist another scientific group that wants to rappel down the valley walls and collect soil samples to see if the water within the pond is getting its salt from the hillsides above.

“The other pic shows a part of the Labyrinth, an area with a bunch of complex canyons. There are some pretty big cliffs here (maybe up to 400 feet) that look like they might be welded tuff.

“I spent two more days out on the sea ice this week removing flags from now-closed travel routes and reconnoitering a new route down to the sea ice for when the ice breaker arrives and you can no longer access things directly from McMurdo. It’s still very trippy to spend the day traveling around the frozen sea on a snowmobile.

“As a member of the US Antarctic search and rescue team, we are learning how to use radio direction finders to locate downed aircraft or a person who has a radio that we can home in on. Last week we learned how to use ground penetrating radar to locate crevasses hidden in the glaciers.”

Looking at these photos make it seem like being on another planet.