Summer temperatures are here, it is often just above freezing in the middle of the day, and of course we are almost at the summer solstice, when the sun is highest in the sky. We have had 24hr sunlight for nearly 2 months now.

The sea Ice is beginning to get soft, so airfield operations have been moved out to Pegasus, the runway on the permanent ice shelf.
McMurdo is turning into its usual summer dust bowl conditions as the snow and ice melt away from the volcanic grit & rock underneath.

I've been getting a lot more footage to help make the summer section of the movie flow more smoothly, and putting the new time-lapse dolly I built through its paces. So far it has performed very well.

Here's a few new photos


The dolly at work at the sign overlooking Scott Base


Filming close-up detail of melting ice


The airfield out on the sea ice in front of McMurdo Station. The ice is about 2 meters thick, floating over very very deep ocean. Planes weighing up to about 250 tons land there. A month from now when the ice has thinned, the annual supply ships will be making their way through the same area where the planes are now parked.


Lenticular clouds forming around Mount Erebus the other night, as seen from the sea ice runway


Walking around at work the other night in blowing snow giving flat light conditions. You have no sense of direction, no shadows, everything is white, you can see your feet, but can't make out the ground under them, so it is easy to trip up on snow drifts.


Scott Base in black and white and green


Merry Christmas from the largest group of Santas furtherest from the North Pole.