The past four days Anthony and have been camping in the Antarctic Dry Valleys at Lake Vanda, a frozen jewel of a lake nestled in a sweeping glacial valley. This entry will have a ton of photos, because it's really hard not to include most of them. Also I am blogging for four days worth, so hope you don't mind.

Last Tuesday, after being given a safety brief by Gina the helicopter tech (henceforth referred to as "helo," say "hee-low")  and dropping off all our food and field gear at the helo pad (which was so much, they had to put it in a big cart, but we were told this is normal and we really didn't have THAT much stuff for what we are doing).

We were escorted to our helo, a "212," the larger type helo that is used here. I'll skip all the photos that I took of us getting on the helo, and "hey, look how cool Antz looks sitting IN the helo with that cool helo helmet," and I'll just jump to the some of the things we saw along the way.

Antz snapped this photo of an iceberg trapped in the sea ice of McMurdo Sound. WOW.



This is the riverbed for the Onyx River, the only river in Antarctica. It only flows for a couple of months out of the year, during the summer when it is warm enough that stuff starts to really melt. Lake Vanda feeds the Onyx River. (I dedicate this photo to our friend Libor, who wants to see the Onyx, but wouldn't fit into any of our bags).



A glacier oozing its way (very slowly) into the valley.



A aerial view of Lake Vanda as the helo approached.



The helo set down in a circle of rocks and, with the rotors still thumping loudly overhead, we plonked our stuff down in a big pile. "Here you go guys, you're on your own, see you in four days."



After the sound of the helo faded, we took in our awe-inspiring surroundings. As you can see by the photos, it was a stunning day, with big puffy white clouds floating around. The words that describe this place best are immense and ancient. It is barren, yes, but with undeniable presence and majesty. It is quiet. The only sounds are the ones you make and the wind.

With the day as beautiful as it was, Anthony immediately set up some cameras. Then we set up the tent.



Guy lines on the fly of the tent give the tent strength, if we should encounter strong winds (which we didn't).



Next we explored our surroundings. Antz checked out the lake. This photo gives some perspective on the immensity of the valley. Notice the curve of the slope indicative of a glacial valley.



Unusual clusters of wind-smoothed boulders highlight this view of the valley in the other direction.



It was at or below freezing the entire time we camped, which is a normal temperature for this time of year. Luckily, it was warm enough in our tent that our drinking water didn't freeze. We realized with some amazement, that this is our first time in a tent together. We enjoyed each other's ever-changing cases of bed-head and hat-hair.



Yellow is a good color for a tent. It gives the illusion of warmth.

I tried a little knitting, but it's a bit tough when your fingers feel like popcicles.



Oh, and we found this dessicated husk of a Weddel Seal. Nature only knows why this seal dragged itself miles and miles up the valley so far away from the ocean to its eventual demise.





Magical Lake Vanda

We were blown away by the beauty of the ice of Lake Vanda. It's at least 3 or 4 feet thick, but it was hard to determine by looking through it. Most of the lake ice is a lattice of cracks, fractures and bubbles, but in some areas where the ice is clearer, you can see the rocks on the bottom. The ice varies a lot from place to place. The ice is plenty solid enough to walk on, but the surface is slippery and uneven in places, so we had to be especially careful. Antz spent a lot of time on the lake.



Lace-like patterns of air bubbles. Isn't this amazing?



We walked for hours in the spectacular but little-known ice canyons of Wright Valley.



Just kidding. This is actually a crack in the ice of Lake Vanda and the "canyon" walls are only 4 inches high. Isn't this an amazing photo that Antz took?

The sky reflected in the edge of shore ice.



Melt water along the shore and drips that have refrozen.




In just a few small areas of the lake ice, when the sunlight reflected at just the right angle, we saw flashes of rainbow colors just like fire in quartz crystal or opals. Anthony captured it best with his camera, but it still doesn't quite as good a job as the human eye. To me, it looked like tiny flashing gemstones in every color were trapped in the ice. I was entranced.



After four days, Anthony shot 39 time-lapse sequences totaling 20 gigabytes of data. We can't wait to see these pictures in motion! But it will have to wait until we get off the ice and Antz has time to work on them. Right now it's all about getting the pictures.

Luckily, the summer temperatures here are not too difficult on cameras and batteries. To recharge batteries in the field, he uses two portable solar panels, connected to a 12-volt battery which is connected to an inverter. The inverter basically turns the power stored by the 12-volt battery into a regular power outlet that things like camera battery chargers can be plugged into. He uses a multi-meter (that has two pointy things* attached to wires) to check to see how much the batteries have charged up. He also used the 12-volt battery units to directly power the cameras using a voltage regulator (if some of you are lost at all this technical speak, you are not alone). Some of you will understand this perfectly.

*Christine's own brand of technical term that she understands perfectly.

We loved Lake Vanda. I must admit it makes me so happy to have Anthony's images to remind us of this place.



What's next for us? A few days in McMurdo then a trip to Cape Bird.