Wednesday 23 June 2010

Winter begins – winter trips

With the departure of the last aircraft and ships we can now settle down into winter; with shortening daylight, colder temperatures, and few distractions from the outside world.

Throughout the first few weeks of winter we have regularly had four or six folk off base for a week at a time on their winter trips. This is an opportunity to get out into the ‘real Antarctic’ away from the modern comforts of base, going climbing, skiing, or sightseeing during the days and spending the nights in a tent. The camping equipment we use is probably something Scott and Shackleton would recognise; pyramid tents, Tilley lamps for light and heat, and primus stoves for cooking.

DSC01826Pyramid tent

I was out on the last round of trips before midwinter, which was the second week in May. At this time of year the daylight is fairly short, dawn arrives at about 10am and it is dark by 5pm. This was still more than enough time to get out and about during the day which is exactly what me and my GA (called Cheese) did. Once we had set up camp next to a peak called Trident we spent the first day of out trip ice climbing in the gullies nearby.

20100512-P1000136 Looking up

The second day we aimed for something a bit more adventurous and set out for an ice climb that had not been recorded as having been climbed before. The photograph below is of the peak but it doesn't do it justice as this is a 450 meter route and took us about five hours to summit.

20100514-P1000145 Our route up the first gully on the right of the picture

20100514-P1000143 Walking off the summit

The next day we had a lie in to recover from the exertions of the day before and climbed another of gullies close to our campsite in the afternoon.

By this stage of the trip the weather was beginning to deteriorate and the forecast wasn't looking great so on our fourth day out we did a spot of ski touring and reckied some other possible climbs for other days, but any hopes of further climbing were dashed because as the day continued the wind rose and blowing snow drove us back to our tent, the stormy weather set in properly that night and continued blowing for the next two days. At times we estimated that it was gusting at 60 knots – enough to keep Cheese awake thinking that we might loose the tent, and enough that whilst going outside Cheese was blown clean off his feet by one strong gust.

20100605-weekend 017 Ski touring

20100517-P1000148Digging out the tent

Eventually the weather did allow us to break camp and after a lot of digging to uncover the tent we packed up and headed back to the comforts of Rothera.