Saturday, November 15, 2008

Field Trip to Cape Royds


This Sunday, November 9th, we set off on a field trip to visit the Barne Glacier, the explorer Shackleton's hut, and the penguin colony (called a rookery) at Cape Royds. DJ and I took snowmobiles and the rest of the team rode in the Pisten Bully:


We headed north over the the sea ice of McMurdo Sound. We passed Cape Evans and the two icebergs trapped in the sea ice there:
Shortly thereafter, we reached the Barne Glacier - a river of ice flowing (at a glacial pace) off Mt. Erebus: You can get a feel for the size of the glacier face by the person walking in front of it.

After the Barne Glacier, we continued northward along the sea ice to Cape Royds, where the explorer Shackleton had built a hut to use as a base camp for exploring the continent of Antarctica. The hut was built in 1909 and is remarkably well preserved:
The other neat aspect of Cape Royds is the big penguin rookery there. What is it about those goofy penguins that appeals to humans so much? Perhaps it's because they look like they're always having fun? Who knows... Each year, the penguins return to the rookeries to mate, lay eggs, and raise the young. They were certainly doing a lot of mating when we were there!


Finally, as we were leaving the cape, I saw the following tracks in the snow. On the left are penguin tracks walking up the hill and on the right are tracks walking down the hill followed by a belly-slide the rest of the way!


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