Amazing Natural Beauty

The natural beauty of Antarctica is incredible and hard to describe, and my pictures don't do it justice, but here are some of them anyway. The first is a picture of Mt. Discovery, the 8800' foot peak directly across the frozen sound from McMurdo Station. This picture was taken on the hills above the station during Pisten Bully (snow tractor) training.

The next picture is of Mt. Erebus, 12,500 feet in elevation and the southernmost active volcano, and one of only three volcanoes in the world with a liquid lava lake in its crater. It has been continually erupting for many years, and its eruptions are called "Strombolian eruptions", after the famous volcano in the Aeolian Islands of Italy. Coincidentally, I climbed Stromboli last year.

Here is a beautiful sunset over Mt. Discovery. The last sunset happens tonight and after that it will be continuous daylight.

Next is a photograph of a C-17 transport inbound past the beautiful mountains to the south of McMurdo Station. The broken, blocky ice in the foreground was caused by the icebreaker ship that delivers supplies in the summers.

Below is another photograph of the mountains to the south.