EPS in Antarctica: B2, I sunk your Battleship Promontory

Dec. 25th:
Merry Christmas (and happy non-Christian winter holidays as well)!
Yesterday we moved to our 3rd and final camp out below Battleship Promontory in the Convoy Range, a 40 minute helicopter flight north from our Olympus camp, but our move was not without incident. As usual, we flew out first to the new site, along with half of our gear. Upon arrival, we set up our big cook tent (remember that it’s called the Endurance), tied it down to several stakes and began to eat lunch inside. In the middle of our meal, we heard the helicopter returning with the second half of our gear (all wrapped up in a sling load) and we all went out to help as the load was dropped off. Unfortunately, the drop site was a little too close to our cook tent and the combination of rotor winds and the worn state of the tent fabric quickly caused the whole tent (including table, chairs, and food) to rip from over half of its moorings and take flight into the air. With the helo still overhead, the airborne tent dumped its contents out into the blowing winds and Robert and I ran about grabbing these smaller items while Rob and Allen took hold of the tent itself. It wasn’t until the helicopter finally flew out of the valley and we had collected everything that had escaped during the “unscheduled release” that we realized the extent of the damage to our beloved Endurance tent- the entire length of a crucial seam had ripped apart! Luckily, we had been travelling from camp to camp with an extra Scott tent (just in case) and we were able to set this up for use as our new cook tent – so camp life has not been significantly affected by our little mishap. We’re just cozier now.
In other news, to celebrate the holiday, we made ourselves a hearty breakfast and headed off for a little fun on the glacier just a few miles down valley. I never thought I’d be ice climbing on Christmas before, but what else does one do in Antarctica for the holidays?

Dec 28th:
It’s been a couple days since we’ve posted, but that’s because we’ve been hard at work. The past couple days have taken us to the top of Battleship Promontory, a beautiful location flanked by huge sandstone cliffs, a prow (as the namers of the location thought) sticking out into the sea of dolerite around and below. Sheer on the sides, one would expect the top of the promontory to be fairly flat layers of sandstone – instead the entire area is dotted with potholes sunk down up to 50 feet in places. Everywhere you turn, there are more of these features, some connecting in channels, sometimes sharing snowbanks, and often toppling debris into themselves. Many of the holes have ponds (liquid in nice weather) at their bottoms. We’ve been sampling in the bottoms, on the ridges, up the channels, and everywhere in between – even dragging up the large DGPS to measure elevation change in these features and make small 3D maps. Today, after a longish breakfast necessitated by all our extra food, we headed down the Alatna Valley, hooking around Battleship Promontory to sample all the features at its base. Again, we found a lot of potholes, and a fairly large lake right beneath the Promontory. We could even see a darkened area where liquid water was leaking down the side of the cliffs and feeding into this pond – we were stunned to see so much liquid water around! We also found part of a mummified seal; originally described by Jenny and Rob as looking like a cabbage with bones, it seems to have been fragmented and transported (really far from the coast) by the wind. Of note is the amazing weather we’ve been getting. Hovering around freezing on Christmas, 4°C (~39°F) on the 26th and 8°C (~46°F) yesterday! Even though it got back to more normal (maybe even freezing) temperatures today and we have fairly high winds this evening which made hiking home a challenge, it’s been pretty constantly sunny. Yup, it’s a harsh continent. And made so much harsher by the absolutely stunning locale – Battleship Promontory’s sheer sandstone cliffs, the two glaciers draining into Alatna Valley before us, and the Convoy Range rising behind us. Certainly, it’s a very tough life out here in the field. Trust us.