Mt. Erebus Volcano, Antarctica

For the last week I have been working on Mt. Erebus here in Antarctica.  Mt. Erebus is the most active  volcano in Antarctica and has a permanent lava lake in the crater.  Its elevation is 12,248ft.  We are based in a hut around a thousand feet below the summit.  Most of us sleep in tents, but we have the hut to cook in and warm up in when we need it.  For out trip we have both good and bad weather.  Our first four days here included winds of 50mph and temperatures dipping to -32 C.  Since then the weather has improved and we have been able to get lots of work done.  

Brining the Thanksgiving turkey.  Unfortunately we only had one bucket available.

Helo delivering supplies.

My tent in slightly better weather.

My tent in not so good weather.

The main goal of being here is of course scientific research.    The group I am working with has an interest in micro biological life on the volcano.  

Collecting sampels with the science group near some hot ground on the volcano.

Collecting samples.

Mt. Erebus summit crater.

Fumarole close to our hut.

Fumerole with a sundog in the background.

Tim enjoying the good weather.

Another fumarole close to our hut.

More photos to come in the next few weeks.  We have been collecting samples in the ice caves below the fumaroles in the last few days.  Here is one photo from yesterday.

Getting out of the cave.

The Barne Glacier

Here is a pretty picture to start your post election day morning.    

Shackleton's Hut

Last week I headed out to Cape Royds here on Ross Island.   This is the location of the Shackleton hut.  It was built here in 1908 for his Nimrod expedition.  On this expedition he and his group came within 100 miles of the south pole, but turned back knowing he may not make it back alive if they made the pole.

Emperor Penguins

Out on the sea ice the other day we ran into these guys.  I don't really have much to say except this was an amazing experience.  

Weddell Seals

Each day we are on the sea ice there seems to be more and more seals.  It is birthing time here for the seals, and we have already seen one baby.  The seals can be found at cracks in the ice, where they work to keep holes open by chewing on the ice.  We watched one seal attempt to get out of a hole three times before it started to make the hole bigger by scraping the ice with its teeth.  Many of the seal holes have blood around them from the males who guard their holes from other males.  It is not uncommon to see bloodied male seals outside the holes covered in snow having not appeared to move for many hours.  These seals are exhausted from fighting for their holes.   As soon as they are rested they return to the water to continue to guard the hole.  Below are a few photos from one of the hole we saw the other day.

Mother and pup.

An exhausted male.

A seal looking up through its hole.

This seal took four tries to get out of the hole.   The one in the background had a blood trail from the hole to where it was laying.  There are several large wounds on its back flipper and around its genital areas, which is where the males bite each other.

A seal rolling in the fresh snow after getting out of the hole.

A seal carving the hole with its teeth.

Resting.

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McMurdo Station, and My First Glimpse of Wildlife.

A couple of photos from yesterday.  It was an amazing day here and I was able to walk up the hill above McMurdo Station to shoot some photos.  The second photo is a high resolution shot of all of McMurdo Station.

Looking over the sea ice from McMurdo.  Hut Point in the foreground and a Kiwi Hagland driving by behind.

McMurdo Station from the hill about Hut Point.

Weddel seals lay out on the ice.  These are most likely pregnant females .  They birth here.  They will often come out of the water where there are cracks in the sea ice.  Here the crack is clearly visible as an "s" shaped deformity in the ice.

The Scott Hut

Today after work I went for a walk to Hut Point here on Ross Island.  This is where Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Hut is located.  The hut was used for the 1901-1904 expedition.  It was later used by Shackleton during his 1908 expedition.

Also located on hut point is Vince Cross.  This is the cross to commemorate T. Vince of the expedition who died in an area close to here.

The Hagland

Today we went out on the sea ice to set up our class room for the Happy Camper course.  This is a course that everyone has to take prior to going out in the field.  It was a very overcast and foggy day, so I did not shoot many photos.  The sun did come out later in the day right as we were leaving, so I shot a few photos.  

The Hagland we use to get around.

Ben and Ned enjoying the ride.

Chandra doing the driving.

Traveling to Antarctica

Yesterday I made the five hour flight here to McMurdo Base on Ross Island.  McMurdo is the main US base in Antarctica.  Due to our roll as search and rescue we were on the first plane to arrive for the summer deployment.  Our plane was an A319 which is modified with extra fuel capacity to be able to fly to Antarctica and back to Christchurch.  There were 54 other people on our flight. 

The inflight entertainment

The views of the continent from 30,000ft.

 Once over the Ross Sea we descended to 20,000ft which gave us a great view of the glaciers and sea ice.

Landing on the ice runway.

Getting ready to exit the plane.   Outside temperature was about -20.

Ivan the Terrabus.  The vehicle used to get us to the base.

Some Birds of the Bolivian Altiplano

Here are a few photos of some Bolivian birds that I have shot in the last week or so.  I have not figured out what some of them are yet, but I will label them when I figure it out.

La Paz, Bolivia

I am currently in La Paz, Bolivia and have spent the week preparing for a trek into the mountains of the Cordillera Real.   La Paz is a huge city in a valley at 11,000ft elevation.  The photos below give an idea of the scale of the city.

Some photos of the people in La Paz.

Not a local

Today we went to El Alto to see some Cholita wrestling.  Words can not really describe this.  Only a video clip does it justice.  The most entertainment $10 can buy.

I will post more photos as soon as I return from our trek.  There may also be some additional Cholita videos...

American Alpine Institute Denali Team 5, 2012

I just got back from my second Denali trip of the year, and once again the weather ruled the trip.   This was my second trip of the season, and unlike the first was quite warm.  Unfortunately the high winds were still present, and were accompanied by lots of snow. 
With the strongest team I have had on the mountain I left Talkeetna fairly optimistic about our summit chances.  The first few days on the lower glacier were perfect.  Not too hot and not too stormy. 

When we got to 11,200ft camp the weather changed, and as is typical for that area of the mountain we got a lot of snow overnight.  So much in fact that it collapsed our cook tent and broke all our poles.  This combined with a little stove accident pretty much ended the life of our cook tent.  We spent the next day repairing the tent.


We did manage to carry a load up and around windy corner after a short delay. 

The following day we moved to camp at 14,200ft.


Once arriving at 14,200 the weather took a turn for the worse and the snow started falling. 



We did manage to carry a load up to a cache spot of 16,700 ft.  Little did we know on this day that the weather would never improve enough for us to return and retrieve our cache. 

After returning to camp a storm rolled in and dropped several feet of snow, which is fairly uncommon at 14k this time of year.  In addition to the heavy snow there were very strong winds which caused some very dangerous avalanche conditions all over the mountain.  See the previous post for some photos and a short movie. 
We had cached 4 days of food just below Washburn’s Thumb, and then sat at 14 camp day after day watching the winds hammer the upper mountain, and load the leeward slopes.  We were stuck at 14 camp unable to go up and get our cache, and unable to go down.  Below are some photos of some of our time at 14. 

With only a single dinner left and no lunch to hand out until we got down to a cache at 11k camp we had to descend without ever returning to the upper mountain.   The only team that summited within a week of us leaving was a group that had been sitting at 17 camp for 11 days.  Each person in the group sustained serious frostbite injuries in what might be one of the worst pieces of decision making I heard of on the mountain this year. 
The move down from 14 camp was not a simple walk.  Thigh deep snow around windy corner made travel difficult. 
We walked through the night to get to basecamp for the flight out the following morning.  It was truly a beautiful night…

Avalanches at 14k Camp on Denali.

Just got back from my second Denali trip of the season.  Here is a video of some photos I shot of an avalanche running through camp at 14k.  The news has just been released that there was four climbers from Japan killed in an avalanche on Motorcycle hill just a few hours after I shot these photos.  I have never seen such unstable snow conditions on Denali as I did on this trip and the video below shows just one of the many avalanches we witnessed over a 48 hour period.  

Lots of new snow and very high winds created very unstable snow conditions over much of the mountain.  This made it too dangerous for us to continue up the mountain, and just as dangerous to go down.  We were stuck at 14,000ft camp for several days waiting for the conditions to improve.  During this time several other parties were either climbing or descending the fixed lines.  Two of these groups were caught in separate avalanches.  One group of three was caught just below the fixed lines and lost much of their gear and sustained numerous puncture wounds.  The other party was caught just above camp and sustained relatively minor injuries.  The decision to move higher or lower on the mountain is often a difficult one, but in the conditions that we observed there was no disagreement that our group would not be moving until conditions stabilized.  When conditions were safe for us to descend we had only one meal left, and we were forced to abandon our cache of gear and food higher on the mountain due to safety concerns.  Luckily our cache will almost certainly be removed from the mountain by another American Alpine Institute group later this week.

Avalanche debris from a slide of the Messner Coulour.

A huge debris pile from a slide on the Orient Express.

The photo below is looking back toward Motorcycle hill, and clearly shows the debris and crown from the avalanche which is now believed to have killed 4 climbers.  Upon deciding to leave camp at 14,000ft we had heard from a group at 11,000ft camp that the hill had avalanched in the night and therefore was safe for us to  descend.  At that point no one knew that the avalanche was human triggered and underneath the debris were 4 climbers.

More details of the accident can be found here: Anchorage Daily News.

Flight on the Pegasus Over the Alaska Range

A few nights ago I had the chance to fly over the Alaska Range on an evening flight.  The main idea was to explore the less viewed sides of Mt. Foraker and shoot a few photos.  Here are a few selected photos from the flight.  Thanks Tony!

Little Switzerland

Denali, with an unfortunately placed cloud band.

The Infinite Spur

A south facing ridge on Mt. Foraker.

The northwest face of Mt. Foraker.

Denali from the west.

The Cassin Ridge

Mt. Hunter

Mt. Hunter.

The Mooses Tooth.

Some crevasses.

Arctic Terns

I spent a few hours down at the Talkeetna River today shooting photos of arctic terns.  These incredible birds just arrived in Alaska in the last few weeks and are now feeding pretty much continuously.  Their migration is one of the longest of any animal on earth moving between the arctic and the antarctic each season.

American Alpine Institute Denali Trip #1

I just got back from an early season trip on Denali.  The expedition was exceptionally cold and windy.  There were a few day on which I was able to shoot some reasonable photos however.

Soon after arriving at camp 1 the weather changed.  I have had periods of bad weather low down on the mountain, but never bad enough weather that we were not able to carry loads to our cache.  This storm was a bit different however.  Below is a video of Aili working on getting dinner ready.

Birds often get blown off course and  into the range with storms.  This unlucky tree sparrow spent his last few hours with us at camp.

 Sastrugi snow after the storm.

The next day we cached at about 9700ft and moved our camp to 11,000ft the day after that in mostly good weather.  A third day of good weather allowed us to retreive our cache at 9,700ft the following day.

The following day was fairly good weather but a little windy.  We decided to cache around windy corner this day followed by a move to the 14,000ft camp the next day.

The move to 14,000ft is a difficult day, so we took a rest day in good weather the day after.

The following day of good weather allowed us to retrieve our cache 600ft below camp.

Chris

Zlatko

Returning from our cache.

Climbers returning to the 14,000ft camp.

After a rest day at 14,000ft we decided to carry food and fuel up to the top of the fixed lines at 16,200ft.   When we woke up that morning we could all see that the weather was changing fast.  I was very worried about getting separated from our food and fuel so I chose not to make the carry, and instead spend the morning fortifying our camp.  We also took this chance to send Lorenzo down with Chad due to altitude issues.

A lenticular cloud over the summit of Denali.

Lorenzo heading down.

 Sergey and Vitali spent at least part of the day building an igloo.

Sergey and Vitali building an igloo.

The master builder at work.

By the middle of the day the weather started to worsen and by night the winds became very strong.  We spent five days hunkered down at the 14,000ft camp due to very cold temperatures and high winds.  This amount of time in one place on the mountain is pretty trying, but we managed to entertain ourselves by listening to NPR, an making some videos of both the weather outside, and our attempts to cook appetizing meals for ten without the use of our cook tent.

A short break in the storm allowed us to get outside and do a little digging and maintenance

Cooking for ten...

Mt Foraker after the storm.

After spending way too much time in our tents we made the desision to decend rather than attempt a fast trip to the summit.  I was concerned about the possibility of getting stuck in bad weather at 17,000ft camp after the ascent as the weather window to summit looked to be very short.

Denali

In two days I will be flying into the Alaska Range for a Denali West  Buttress expedition with American Alpine Institute.  This is the route we will be climbing.

I will be calling in a daily dispatch of our teams progress which will be posted to this site.
http://aaidispatches.blogspot.com/

Photos to follow in a few weeks.

The Red Rocks Rendezvous

I just got back from Las Vegas and the Red Rock Rendezvous.  After skipping last years event, I was really looking forward to getting back down to Red Rocks, working the event, and doing some climbing after.

The first day started with a multi-pitch climbing day.  This is the first day they have done this at the event and it was a ton of fun.

On day two and three I instructed the Fall Safe clinic.

Following the event, I climbed with Kate and Liz for a couple of days.

More photos when I get a chance.

Vantage Climbing Accident

Here are a few photos of the accident and Vantage this last weekend.  It looks like the person who was involved is going to be ok, but probably has quite a bit of recovery ahead of him.  Injuries included a broken hip and ribs.  The accident was most likely caused by the failure of a piece of gear.  I inspected and photographed the gear that broke and also shot photos of the accident location, but have refrained from posting them for now.  Cheers to the rescue folks out there, and everyone else who was willing to help out.  Best wishes for a speedy recovery to the victim.

Snowy Owls

After hearing all the reports of Snowy Owls wintering much further south that usual, I decided it was time to go find some.  Working on some good advice from a friend who saw some last weekend, I drove to see what I could find.  The weather was less than perfect with strong winds and heavy rain, but it made for good photos.