Images of

ANTARCTICA

Ross Island Scenery

Photos © 2002 Seth White

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This is the Arrival Heights area as seen from the helo on the way back from Hooper's Shoulder. Crater Hill is in the background. The white hut in the center of the picture is my laboratory, and the green one to the right is the NZ lab.

Another picture of Arrival Heights. Crater Hill is again seen on the left, with White Island in the middle, and the green NZ Telecom dome and Observation Hill on the right.
This is Hut Point Peninsula and the Erebus Ice Tongue as seen from the A-Star helo, again on the way back from Hooper's Shoulder on Erebus. McMurdo is on the tip of the peninsula, and the Ice Tongue extends out nearly horizontally where the peninsula meets the main land mass of Ross Island. The area at the bottom of the picture is a heavily crevassed zone, which we flew much closer to on the way back from Three Sisters (pictures here.)
Another view of the peninsula and Ice Tongue.
The Erebus Ice Tongue. This thing is bizarre. You don't really see the structure of it from ground level, since it just looks like a slightly raised hump of ice. But from above the fern-leaf shape becomes very apparent.
The shape is even more apparent here. On a satellite picture it's really striking....this bizarre little tendril just sticks out from the island seemingly for no reason.
A nice picture of Hut Point Peninsula. To the left of center is Castle Rock, and the triangular peak to the right of center is Observation Hill.
An ice ridge on the way to Windless Bight, on the Ross Ice Shelf.
You can often see ground mirages across the sea ice here, where the temperature gradient in the air causes the light to bend on its way to your eye. Here, there appear to be cliffs at the bottom of the mountains to the right of Mount Discovery.
The NASA tracking station dome and Mount Discovery, as seen from Arrival Heights. I like this pic. I suppose I am attracted to nice lines and proportions in pictures. And this digital camera has actually made me a better photographer (although not actually a good one yet). The instant display on the screen generally tells me whether the shot was any good or not. If not, I can just obliterate it by hitting two buttons and nobody will know I ever took it! I have gotten better at taking square pictures, where horizons or vertical lines are not crooked, and in fact I'm obsessive about it now. Anyway - the point is, digital cameras are great. Just need more pixels.
Pressure ridges and ripples on the sea ice near Scott Base, taken from T-site (at the base of Crater hill).
One day I decided to head over to Scott Base and take some pictures of the sea ice pressure ridges. Scott Base is situated at a point where there is particular activity in the sea ice. It is very close to where the land, sea ice, and ice shelf meet. So a good deal of pressure builds up and the sea ice will buckle upward.
More of the sea ice ridges. The gentle light blue of the old sea ice is exposed, and the jagged blocks of ice create a beautiful scene. This is like walking around in Superman's ice cave. Americans are allowed to walk out on the sea ice along the Cape Armitage loop, which heads back to McMurdo. However, the Kiwis have flagged a pressure ridge trail of their own amongst the pressure ridges. Earlier in the season, we were allowed to walk over along this route. However, people in the RED PARKAS were seen walking well off the route, and walking right up to the numerous seals which pop up through the cracks to rest. Not only is it a bad idea to stray from the flagged route (obviously this is a very active crack zone in the sea ice!), but it's an Antarctic Conservation Act violation to approach seals too closely (especially in full view of the Scott Base management, whose offices look directly out to this area). And some yahoos from McMurdo were seen doing both things regularly. So, now the route is closed to Americans. Do Kiwis do this stuff? I don't know. But this really sucks, because I didn't get out to walk the sea ice route before it closed. So all these pictures were taken at a greater distance away, on the Cape Armitage Route.
I don't suppose there are many places in the world where you can look out your window and see this stuff. McMurdo has a better view of the Royal Society Range, but Scott Base has a nice view of Mount Erebus whereas you can't see it from McMurdo. Scott Base also has a great view of White Island, and of course these pressure ridges and the seals that populate the area. The US got the better spot logistically, but NZ has the better scenery.
More of the pressure ridges.
Last one of the pressure ridges.
The first time I hiked Observation hill was a week or two after I arrived. Having officially 'conquered' Antarctica, I thought a hero shot was in order.
Two hero shots, actually.
This is the view from the Arrival Heights hut, looking out toward Cape Evans. The Islands from left to right are Tent, Inaccessible, Big Razorback, and Little Razorback. Not a bad view from the office!
A view of Castle Rock from the Ross Ice Shelf. Out of sight to the left are Scott Base and McMurdo.
The Black Island communications station, as seen through the Crary telescope. McMurdo transmits to this station, which then sends all of our off-continent communications up to a satellite where they are transmitted to a ground station in Brewster WA.
An evening view of White Island and T-Site from Arrival Heights.
And another.
I really like this one. The same view as the above two pics, but it just turned out better. White Island is sooooo pretty.
The McMurdo Ground Station radome at twilight.
Another one - a better view of the radome this time, with Mt. Discovery. I drive up and down to Arrival Heights almost every day, and this view of the dome and Mt. Discovery never gets old.
Winfly 2003. First flight: August 21. On board this flight: Three shipments of chewing tobacco (Yeah, BAD habit, but a winter without such sins makes one long for the indulgence), a letter from my mom, a new goggle-fog-stopping implement from the company which makes my PSolar EX face mask, and my NEW CAMERA. The chew was courtesy of my bro Dan, my buddy Tim, and my friend Susan who was down here this summer. They were kind enough to resupply me (and my roommate Steve) with heavily chemicalized and processed tobacco products. Thanks! And the camera was my idea...one of the best purchases in recent memory. My old one had been getting worse and worse as the season wore on, since the CCD elements inside are evidently prone to damage from cold exposure. The new camera: A Canon G3. My old Canon digital did so well in spite of numerous abuses that I decided to get another one. The G3 has 4 megapixels, movie capability (with audio), fully adjustable shutter speed, aperture, and film speed, as well as white balance options, and a myriad of other bitchin' features. I got a wide angle lens, a telephoto lens, and a UV filter, extra battery, and carrying case as well. Is it obvious? Can you tell I'm jazzed about this? Well, for good reason. I have been taking the best pictures of my life recently. And Winfly has turned out to be the most scenic time of the year. Here are a few of the pics taken with the NEW CAMERA. I went out with Dave and Steve one morning to Pegasus as they had to work on the TACAN and wireless systems out there. And I'm glad I did. While we were there these unbeliveable clouds formed over Erebus and Terror. And the sun backlit them as it rose. Incredible. This is a little panorama of the scene. I haven't seen such pretty clouds over the mountains before or since.
This is a closeup view of the clouds above Erebus. The little landmass in the foreground is Hut Point peninsula. When you're around McMurdo, you don't really get an idea of just how BIG Erebus is. But it just towers over the landscape once you get away. I haven't seen that many of the world's mountains, but I have to agree with the sentiments of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who was a member of Scott's last expedition. He calls this mountain the most inviting and friendly volcano he's ever seen. It really does seem like the protector of this area. Its snow-covered slopes are gradual and soothing. And it's usually puffing away with a little plume of steam and gases from the open lava lake inside its crater. And over the course of a year, you will no doubt see some incredible clouds surrounding it. And these were by far the best. I was lucky to see this.
On the way back to town, this was the view. McMurdoland is at the bottom left of Ob Hill and Erebus...just a speck.
This is the cloud cover over Erebus from closer in. It was as if someone set off a bomb at the top of the mountain. One of the projects I support is the Mount Erebus Volcano Observatory. All this time I thought they were involved in peaceful scientific research...geochemistry, vulcanology, seismology, etc. But no, their ultimate goal, as it turns out, was to nuke the Erebus! But they didn't succeed....it's still there, as majestic as ever.
Back in town, I turned around and looked back out over the sea ice. And this was the view. I couldn't believe it. I asked Dave to stop the van and I hopped out to take some pictures. The only possible source of this light ray pattern was the two clouds hovering above Erebus and Terror. But why did they converge to a point near Mount Discovery? There is surely a clear explanation involving the atmospheric effects on the light, but I really don't care. This was amazing. The dozer in the foreground, working on the sea ice transition area, is a nice touch. I've taken quite a few pictures here, many of which didn't really turn out as nice as I'd hoped. But after about an hour of Photoshopping, I got all three pics to merge seamlessly and it was perfect.
More of the light over Mt. Discovery.
And more still. This was reasonably early in the morning, and from the people I talked to, most didn't see this. I've missed quite a few good shots, but this time everything lined up perfectly and I caught this spectacle. This new camera is my pride and joy. I didn't lock my office door over the winter, but since I have this camera and all the new people have arrived, I have started to do this!
Here's another picture of the Erebus clouds from later in the same day, from Arrival Heights. I think the ragged-looking clouds at the top are actually the plume from the volcano itself.
I stopped on the way back down to this shot again - it's one of my favorites: The Radarsat dome and Mt. Discovery. The shadows from the clouds over Erebus and Terror were still casting faint dark rays toward the mountain.
Another random picture - Ob Hill and the Radarsat facility.
As if I hadn't already posted enough nacreous cloud pictures to this site. Well, nonetheless, here are some more. Towards the middle of September, I heard from the beakers in atmospheric sciences that they thought there probably wouldn't be any more nacreous clouds, as the atmospheric conditions and amount of water vapor weren't going to be right for them anymore. They were right...except for one day. On this day, the clouds appeared in full force. They were around at sunrise and put on a spectacular show. But, naturally, I wasn't there since I slept in until about 10 that day. Hmmm. But they stayed around all day, filling the sky. While the sun was up at a high elevation, they just appeared as wispy white forms in the sky. They were basically saturated with light, and there was just too much light for the human eye to see the spectrum. But later in the day, as the sun went down, the prismatic effects became greater. However, as the day went on there were fewer and fewer clouds. Still, the view from Arrival Heights (and from town) was pretty good. I invited a few people up to the hut with me, and we stood around gawking and taking pictures. Here are a few from around sunset. These first few were taken through my sunglasses. Yes, after months and endless months of winter, I finally dug out my sunglasses. Thought I'd never need them again!
A neat effect is had by using polarized sunglasses. The sun was still relatively high for good nacreous colors, even as it was going down. So with the naked eye the clouds were still mostly white. But with the polarized sunglasses, so much of the light was cut out that the colors just jumped out. So I took some pics with my camera looking thru my sunglasses. Here's the result.
Looking to the right of the sun itself, this was the view: a very soft, warm scene with pastel colors. Nice.
A picture of the clouds and sky directly above the sun as it set.
After the sun went down, the clouds started to show their "true colors". Here's a pic.
The clouds themselves, without the sun.
The winds must have really been whipping up in the stratosphere today. These clouds appeared disturbed and turbulent...something I hadn't seen before with nacreous clouds. But still awesome.
I like this one. It's a pic of one single cloud, from McMurdo. I took this one from the steps of the Crary Lab, just before heading up to Arrival Heights. It just boggles me that something like this could exist in nature. To create a scene with this sort of thing in the sky would be a credit to any good painter. But this is completely real. Tiny ice crystal clouds, created by disturbances in the stratosphere tens of kilometers high, refract different wavelengths of the incoming sunlight by different amounts...and *poof*...here it is. It's September 25 as I write this. 5 more days and the first flights of mainbody 2003-2004 are scheduled to start. I suppose I'm getting a bit sentimental about the past year, living here on the ice. But all the same, and at the risk of sounding overly dramatic, looking up and seeing nacreous clouds in the sky has been one of the most awe-inspring experiences of my life.