October 15, 2002., 9:00 A.M.
McMurdo Base, Antarctica
6 deg F, -10 deg F wind chill

It’s been almost a week since I arrived and I’m beginning to feel comfortable in this strange place. Tonight I’m staying up late to photograph the sunset, one of the last before the sun remains above the horizon for the rest of the season. Sunsets take forever here. The sun has hovered at the horizon for an hour now, hesitating, reluctant. The sea ice has turned peachy, waiting. At this rate I may be here another hour. Probably not a good idea since whatever nasty bug I picked up at Happy Camper School has already taken my voice away and would probably like a chance to attack the lungs. I am determined, however, and have promised a sunset picture to Karen, who is in charge of computer support here at Crary and who has been very helpful to me in setting up my office.

Today was Sea Ice School. This class, I really enjoyed. We spent a little time in the classroom, examining all the forces that work on the sea ice—environmental ones like solar rays, currents, icebergs, and tides, geologic ones like shoals and shorelines, and human ones like vehicle traffic. Then we packed our lunch in a strange vehicle called a Hagglund and drove out on the ice runway and out towards the Erebus glacier tongue and Cape Evans. Once you leave McMurdo, you are in a whole different world. The town is built on black volcanic rock and has a shanty-like feel. Once you leave, you are in an absolutely clean white world.

We stopped several places looking at ice cracks. The sea ice is an organic affair, and all the forces that act on it cause it to ripple up in pressure ridges or crack apart. Most of the ice in McMurdo Sound right now is about 12 feet thick, but the large cracks that form often have weak thin places. The airplanes are landing on the sea ice right now, and they have to keep a close look out for ice movement. The rule of thumb for driving on the ice is that you can’t cross any crack in a vehicle if part of the crack is less than 30” thick and that crack is more than 1/3 the diameter of the wheel treads of the vehicle. In order to find out how thick the ice is, you shovel off the snow and then use a large ice drill to find out how far down water is. Several of the cracks we saw, were slushy only a foot or so down, but none was very wide.

We also learned how to set up a tent on the ice, using the ice drill to cut opposing holes to run the guy wires through and using the ice as an anchor. It was cold and windy on the ice, but we didn’t spend too long at a stretch outside, so it wasn’t too unpleasant. The sight of the enormous bay of sea ice with the mountains in the background was worth it.

We then drove to Cape Evans, where Scott spent the winter before setting off for the S. Pole on his ill-fated expedition. The hut is now an historic monument and is administered by New Zealand. It’s a place I hope to photograph in over the next couple of weeks, since much of the expedition’s stores and furniture are still intact. We didn’t have a key to go in on this trip and little time, but we did walk around the hut and climb the hill to the cross on top. I photographed the outside of the hut, the weather station up above it, and another strange wooden contraption, no doubt with some scientific purpose. The site is magical. It holds many ghosts.

Visually, it is more spectacular than the photographs I have seen, since it is dominated by Mt. Erebus, which towers 13,000 feet above it, and which smokes and coughs. The air is so clear that you think you could climb it and that it couldn’t be that high… and you see the lava bombs that it has spit out all around the hut. I wonder if it is a female goddess that is the spirit of Erebus… if so, she is an icy one with a fiery core. Not at all like Pele in Hawaii who toys with humans. This goddess is totally above anything human.

Last night I went to a peace rally. More than 70 people showed up to be in a picture showing that even in the distant Antarctic there are folks who do not support America attacking Iraq. It reminds me of the old days in the 1960s in San Francisco with the big peace marches. It felt good to be able to do something… even though you know that it’s mighty little. After some discussion about where to take the picture, we all put on our parkas and traipsed over to the Chalet in the bitter cold. A number of people were concerned about using the headquarters building for the NSF to promote a political point of view and were concerned about their jobs. A compromise was struck so that we used the back of the building without the NSF logo but with a fine view of the sea ice and distant mountains.

Strange castes and social strata organize the social life here at McMurdo. On one hand it is very egalitarian in that everyone is doing a job, working very hard, and respects the work that others do. But, some are more equal. The scientists are the highest caste and everyone else is there to support them. But you hear that “this place would be great if it weren’t for the scientists.” Then there are the upper level Raytheon employees who run the place. They are there to serve the scientists as well, but they have lots of power over the mechanics and food service workers. I hear gripes about that, since people are not terribly well paid. They also don’t get to leave the station like I do. I spoke with the dentist at dinner last night. He said he had worked here for 3 years and hadn’t left McMurdo yet. He is the only dentist on the whole continent! It would be dreary to work here month after month and see nothing of the beauty of the Ice or the wildlife. Mealtime is one place where the castes can mix (though they often do not). I have had meals with firemen, the chaplain, heavy equipment operators, radio operators, janitors, as well as most of the Raytheon staff. You can find just about anybody at dinner time in the galley and discuss problems or plans and network for the future. Last night I met the head of the newspaper, the Antarctic Sun, and we discussed ways we might help each other over the season.

Marble Point Traverse. We left McMurdo 16 October about 9:30 AM with two Deltas (a large red truck with giant balloon wheels…to get up to the cab I had to climb a small ladder) and a Challenger Caterpillar (that came along to retrieve a sled that malfunctioned on the last traverse to Marble Point a few weeks ago. Marble Point is about 50 miles from McMurdo, across the sea ice to the northwest. It is a tiny outpost used for staging supplies for research field stations in the Dry Valleys and as a fueling depots for helos (helicopters) that are the major form of transportation in the area. Several truck caravans are sent across the sea ice at the beginning of each season to supply the station. I was excited to be going on the journey. It was the moment I’d been waiting for, my first time off station where I would have an opportunity to photograph.

The day was gray with a slight wind. Minutes out of McMurdo, the town vanished. We could see red flags marking our path across the sea ice but little else. I rode in a large heated cab in one of the Deltas with Ralph, who has been coming down for seven years, first working on station but gradually doing more and more trips like this that take him further away. After an hour or so, the weather settled down even further on us and snow began to blow across the track. We were following a track made by the previous traverse and marked every mile or two by a red flag. When the horizon disappeared, visibility dropped to a few feet just in front of the truck. Ralph had to hunch over the wheel to peer through the grayness and see the line of tire tracks ahead of us. With no horizon, it’s hard to judge and organize space, and suddenly we lost the track completely. Ralph stopped, and the drivers converged.

“I’m sure we’re off to the left of it,” said one. “I think it’s over that way,” said another pointing off at a ninety degree angle from the first. “Good thing we’ve got GPS,” said the third. They punched in figures, looked at their charts, and headed off into the featureless gray. To my relief (and theirs) we soon saw another red flag.

Mid-afternoon, the weather was still opaque. We broke out our sandwich lunches and juice and ate as we drove. We followed the track when we could and followed GPS readings when the red flags disappeared. The Deltas max out at about 17 mph and average about 10 mph on the traverse, so it was a leisurely pace. The sea ice is not smooth; it has lots of ridges and unexpected humps and dips that you can’t see with these light conditions, so occasionally I was tossed a few inches off my seat. The previous traverse had smoothed the ice quite a bit, though, so it wasn’t too bad. You get into a slow rhythm, not too different from being on a long road trip in the Southwest.

We stopped briefly to say hello to a group of Kiwis (New Zealand has a small base, Scott Base, just a few miles from McMurdo, so we’re neighbors on the Ice.). They were dragging several green huts, on their way to Granite Harbor to do some sort of geological research. A little later we came across the malfunctioned sled and loaded it up on the Challenger’s trailer. Only in the Antarctic can you abandon a vehicle loaded with cargo and not worry about theft or vandalism until you get back in a couple of weeks to pick it up. About 4:30, we left the ice and started over the small spit of rocky land that is Marble Point over to the station.

Marble Point Station is luxury for a field camp. It has electricity from its own generator, adequate water, well insulated buildings, a telephone and dial-up Internet connection. The weather here is a little more benign than that at McMurdo—less windy and warmer in the summer months. A layer of snow covers the rocky ground now but it will melt soon. The camp consists of half a dozen small buildings. The main building is a large living hut with bath, kitchen, office, living/dining room, and two bedrooms. I sleep in a separate heated bunkhouse that has two rooms with two bunk beds in each; it has no windows but it has electricity, real sheets, and is toasty warm. In addition there is a repair/storage shed, a building for the generator, and a small hut for the camp manager.

Only 3 people work and live at Marble Point: the camp manager, a fuelie for the helos, and a cook. Sarah is the cook and weather person, When she isn’t on the Ice down south, she works up in Greenland. She has cooked for all sorts of field camps, large and small. The Field Service provides her with meat, poultry, seafood, as well as dry goods, frozen veggies, pasta, and lots of condiments. Since these supplies weigh quite a bit for helo transport, out traverse has the job of bringing in several enormous cases of supplies for the station. Naturally everything in the cases is frozen solid, so no fresh veggies or salad materials come in this way (“freshies,” like fresh fruit or vegetables are treasures here). Even at McMurdo, you get bananas for 3 days and then none for the next week.). Sarah loves to cook and bake. In the couple of days that I visited the camp, she offered us baklava, carrot cake, and several kinds of cookies. A typical dinner might be steak, roasted potatoes, pasta salad, homemade bread, and dessert. Another was chicken and shrimp and sausage gumbo. Her kitchen is stocked with real saffron and vanilla beans. She is an amazing cook who simply loves to make people happy by feeding them well.

There is running hot and cold water in the kitchen and bathroom sinks but no toilets. Here in the Dry Valley area, you are not allowed to pollute the ground with any kind of waste. All the water that goes down the kitchen drain is evaporated in a large black kettle outside. You can pee in a small waterless toilet inside (which is collected outside for eventual transport). The heavier stuff you do outside in a warmed hut into a plastic bag which is then put into a plastic barrel for transport. It’s a strange added complexity to body functions that is intimidating at first, but not too onerous after I get the hang of it.

Everything comes down to water. In Antarctica, water has to come from snow melt (unless, like McMurdo, you have a desalination plant—very pricey!) Here at Marble Point, they have a large snow melt boiler and storage situation. Crunch (nickname for our camp manager) goes periodically with his little bulldozer scoop to the nearby Wilson Piedmont Glacier and scoops off a layer of snow and dumps it in the large boiler. The water goes through several filters before being piped into the kitchen. However, since it gets warm here in the summer, the snow on the glacier melts and then they don’t have as much to melt as other camps do. So, they are very frugal with water. A short shower can be taken once a week. The laundry is sent into McMurdo.

They have a brand new generator this year, Crunch tells me. Last year they had two old ones that kept malfunctioning. The electricity would shut down about 3 AM, and he’d have to go outside and repair the generator. Since it was –15 deg F this morning when I got up, I don’t think that would be much fun.

The morning after I arrive, the traverse drivers head back to McMurdo with the Deltas. I head off with my camera gear for a short walk over the hill to the Bay of Sails. Here you can see stranded icebergs out in the sea ice with Erebus in the background. The other direction you look down on the station and off to the glacier behind it. There are not enough words in my vocabulary to do justice to this scenery, so I photograph it instead. I also photograph details of station life, interiors, and portraits.

It’s hard work photographing in the cold. You wear a heavy parka and very heavy boots so walking any distance is more work than you’re used to. If you exert enough to sweat, which you will do if you carry camera gear any distance, then you tend to get cold when you stop. I still haven’t figured out the ideal combination of gloves to keep my hands warm and have enough dexterity to work the cameras. You have to wear a face mask and goggles against the incredible UV in the bright sunlight here, which make it hard to see. Forget changing film in the field—it’s impossible to do with bare hands and you get frostbite if you take off all the gloves. I’m still learning.

I’m also trying to learn to stage gear so that I can manage most outings by myself. It’s very hard working without an assistant here. There are lots of macho women at McMurdo. Many women run heavy equipment. It’s an unusual unisex environment where women are expected to do the same work as men. I’m too old to be macho and I’ve already had one knee ACL repair. I do feel like a total wimp asking for help to carry all my gear but I have no choice. Fortunately, no one minds helping, but they always look surprised that I can’t carry a large duffle, 2 camera bags, and a tripod by myself.

The good news is that I haven’t had any problems with my gear. I keep my digital camera inside my parka and I haven’t had a battery go dead yet. The Fujica 6x17 hasn’t given me any problems yet either, though I haven’t used it for long stretches. I consider all this to be a dry run exercise for the cold that I’ll encounter at the South Pole when I go there in late November.

My second day, it is again overcast so I can’t get back via helo. Perhaps life is telling me I need a day of rest. The men move heavy cabinets all day and wisely spurned my offers of assistance. Sarah makes dill buns for our dinner of bacon and avocado burgers and refuses my offers of help, too. I write in my journal and read a K.C. Constantine mystery. In the evening we all curl up with blankets and watch “The X-Files Movie,” a funny choice since it really does look like the Antarctic in the final snow scenes.

The next morning, the radio crackles. A helo is on its way to pick me up for return to McMurdo. I collect my gear and say good-bye. It’s like leaving family. I’m very grateful for the welcome I received and the kindness shown to me during my stay. I wish I could go to Albertsons and get a package of blue corn chips and some red chile to send to Sarah, who would make something tasty with it. I, unfortunately, have little to give. I give hugs all around and climb in the helo.

The ride back to McMurdo is spectacular. We fly from Marble Point to Lake Hoare in the Dry Valleys and put down briefly to pick up one more passenger. The scenery reminds me of the foothills of the Himalayas. Lots of wind-blasted large rocks tossed across a snow-covered mountain landscape. A jumbled frozen waterfall coming off one of the glaciers. The camp is a puny-looking affair in the bottom of a great valley. I’m looking forward to photographing here in December.