Words and Photographs by Aylin de Campo & Lottie Stevenson
Five scientists walked into a bar… But we're not joking when we say we were in Antarctica, enjoying the 24-hour daylight/sunshine that drenches the continent in summertime. Over December and January, our team went down to the icy continent for an epic adventure to collect rocks. We were part of a mission to study the past behaviour of Byrd Glacier, one of East Antarctica's largest and fastest-flowing glaciers. This meant we were treated to the true Antarctic experience of camping in tents on a mountain—cooler still, our mountain was named after the ancient tuatara. Our team consisted of an Austrian (Aylin) and a Kiwi (Lottie), both on The Ice for the first time, along with a Brazilian mountaineer and two American geologists who have been down dozens of times between them.
Back in the 'Tatty Flag' bar at Scott Base (Aotearoa's research station in Antarctica), we were reporting the successes and obstacles of our mission.
A few months on, we’re still more than happy to share our experience with everyone we can, as this is not an opportunity that usually lands on your doorstep!
If you’re hoping to go to Antarctica, maybe someday you’ll be in the same awestruck position as we were; each wondering, how on earth did I get here?
SURVIVAL GUIDE:
HYDRATE OR DIE! This warning is printed in bold on our water bottles to remind us of the risks and symptoms of dehydration. Antarctica is a polar desert—it’s the driest place on Earth!
Five meals are offered each day at Scott Base (and there’s always snacks available) since your body uses up so much energy just to stay warm.
Antarctic Field Training is essential for everyone who plans to spend time out in the challenging environment. Our trip also required crevasse training, during which we learnt to tie all kinds of knots.
We each packed 3 pairs of sunglasses, sunscreen, and a sleeping mask to cope with the 24-hr sunshine.
Poo bucket + pee bottle + she-wee.
Extreme Cold Weather gear (see glossary).
You must know how to use a few types of radios: handheld ones, and antennas that you set up on poles in the field.
A gazillion shovels to collect snow for boiling water, along with electrolytes.
NICE TO HAVE:
We turned our drink bottles into hot water bottles at night time when sleeping in tents.
Boots suitable for knee-deep snow (sastrugi are your friend!).
Camera for photos of penguins.
Wet wipes for taking showers in tents.
NO SUMMER FOR US
We arrived at Scott Base in early December, and immediately started preparing to fly out and spend a month at Byrd Glacier. Scott Base is perched on Ross Island, along a trailing peninsula of volcanic rock ejected from Mt. Erebus. Erebus itself puffs out steam in long strokes across the bluest sky. Scott Base is a cluster of green tightly-sealed containers. It’s cosy inside, with a view across the broad floating ice shelf. An illusion called fata morgana stretches cliffs in the distance, so they appear five times their height.
We were shocked by so many things at Scott Base. The whole place is charged with static electricity, so these were literal shocks, but also, there were so many ordinary things in the middle of an extraordinary place. A ski field? 24-hr pizza at the American station around the corner? WiFi? A 10 km run in onesies? By late December we still faced delays, so enjoyed a huge Christmas dinner at Scott Base, then celebrated New Year’s at Ice Stock, a music festival held at the American base.
Who’d have thought we would be watching the midnight sun float across the sky from a hot tub on New Year’s Eve?
The temperature was usually only a balmy -6°C (and we stayed inside on the day it was -23°C) so we weren’t constantly scrabbling for the hand-warmers stuffed in every imaginable pocket.
DAY IN THE LIFE AT SCOTT BASE
06.45 – alarm rings in our 4-person bunkroom
07.30 – breakfast with cereal, yoghurt, toast…
08.30 – team catch up, discussing what needs to be done that day
09.00 – preparing gear, crevasse training, learning knots, packing food
10.30 – smoko (cheese scones or cinnamon rolls or ginger slices or cookies)
11.00 – continue preparing, training, packing….
12.00 – lunch (1 hot meat dish, 1 vege, pasta salad, couscous salad, cabbage salad…)
13.00 – go on an outing in the Hagg (crevasse training, camp building practice, exploring ice caves…)
15.00 – smoko
15.30 – clean up gear, pack more stuff
18.00 – dinner (similar to lunch)
19.30 – science talk in the bar, AKA the Tatty Flag, or an after-dinner walk (don’t forget sunscreen and a radio!)
21.00 – 3 minute shower
22.00 – bedtime
We also went helicopter-hopping on day-trips to fill this time. Here, we learnt not only how to identify good rock samples, but also the consequences of carrying heavy rocks in our packs while trekking up steep hills… when we could have left them in the helicopter.
WE’RE IN DEEP; DEEP-FIELD
Finally, the clouds lifted, and we flew towards the Transantarctic Mountains. These mountains are propped up like a dam, with outlet glaciers spilling floods of ice through deeply gorged valleys. Byrd Glacier is one of these outlets, and it took a full 17 minutes just to fly over it! For about a week our team camped on Mt. Tadpole, next to Byrd Glacier, otherwise known as a “deep-field” camp, since we were ~350 km from Scott Base. Looking south, the spiky spine of Mt. Tuatara stood centre stage.
Our homes were yellow tents; a smattering of dome-shaped blips on an otherwise white landscape. The glaring sun casts a tint on everything inside. Here, we had “showers” using wet wipes—don’t worry, it’s too cold for the smell of sweaty socks to soak up the air—and slept, buried in three sleeping bags with our eyes completely covered over. Our dinner tent, the Endura, was a dome big enough to fit us all (though not very comfortably). Last but not least, the triangular toilet tent, accompanied by a ‘P’ flag, stood at a distance on its own (for obvious reasons).
We had exhilarating panoramic views from Mt. Tadpole and Mt. Tuatara. We could see the immense frozen flow of the Byrd Glacier, mountains buried neck-deep in ice on the eastern horizon, and a snapshot of the limitless polar plateau. The scale of everything is immense. “Big” or “vast” or “immense” just cannot describe what it is like to see these mountains rising before your eyes.
When we weren’t hiking, we were cooking and melting snow. This takes more time than you’d think, since a huge pot of snow melts down to only a few cups of water. Our brunch of vegan sausages and pancakes definitely rivalled the Sunday waffles served at Scott Base! We were lucky to have the sun always guiding us back from a long day in the field, as we often arrived back at camp for dinner at 10:30pm.
Glossary of Antarctic Slang
Sastrugi: The sassy compacted dunes made out of snow that are easier to walk on than fresh snow!
The Ice: Official phrase Antarcticans use to refer to the continent.
Base: Shortened version of Scott Base, Aotearoa’s Antarctic research station where we were based.
Sked: Daily radio update (comms) between Scott Base and the groups that are out at field camps.
Snowbridge: The arc of freshly fallen snow that conceals a gaping crevasse below.
Crevasse: Vertical gaping crack in thick ice, can be hundreds of metres deep and open up from a small slit at the surface to a wide cavern under the ice.
ECW: Extreme Cold Weather gear; base-, mid- and outer-layers, gloves, windbreakers, thick socks, beanies, neck buffs, etc.
Freshies: Rare fresh fruit and vegetables which have arrived via plane. If you haven’t been at Base for long, leave these to those who have.
To “get trayed”: After each meal at Base, dishes are done communally, and the last person to fill the tray has to put it through the dishwasher and re-stack the clean dishes.
Super-fun-times: A roster for cleaning the kitchen; everyone at Base is expected to contribute.
Antarctic Field Training: Learning to survive in Antarctica by spending a night or two in tents (or ice caves) a short distance from Scott Base, setting up gear, melting snow, and eating dehydrated food.
Hagg: Nickname for Hagglunds, the tracked vehicles used for travel on the ice shelf/mountain terrain.
Endura: Name for the large tents often used as a kitchen and shared space to chill.
SCIENCE ROCKS
In short, our aim was to wander the landscape and pick up bits of it, for “dating” the bits later in Aotearoa. We want to know just how old the bits are, as this unlocks the history of the massive Byrd Glacier. We were specifically searching for cobbles which had fallen as “erratics” from the glacier while it was thinning from its previously larger extent. Monitoring the vital signs of Byrd Glacier is important for forecasting the future of Antarctica’s ice sheets—and understanding the vital signs of the planet.
In theory, our target rocks are easy to identify; lightly coloured, glacially-smoothed cobbles perched on a dark, sharply-angled bedrock surface. They have absolutely no business being there! In reality, if you ask five geologists to identify a rock in Antarctica, you’ll hear twenty different opinions.
BACK TO REALITY
Arriving back was strange. The air felt oppressively humid. The hills across Wellington harbour seemed like a miniature model imitation. Our eyes had to re-adjust to the vivid greens, to the shape of leaves.
The landscape left a profound mark on us and we hope to leave an equally positive mark there too. As part of our fieldwork, our team crossed the unnamed glacier flowing between Mt. Tadpole and Mt. Tuatara. We will attempt to name this Gecko Glacier to continue the theme.