7th January 2000
Starting a New Year
Greetings to you all. Hope you are well and had an enjoyable holiday season. I
am now back at Lake Hoare after spending several days in McMurdo, doing some laundry and
meeting my boss, Andrew, who just arrived from the states. He came down with another
person I know, so it is great to see them both. The next three weeks are going to be the
final push to the end of the season. Time will go by quickly since we will be really busy.
I am scheduled to leave Lake Hoare on January 31 and McMurdo on February 2. I plan to meet
Janet on February 3 and we are planning to travel around New Zealand for the remainder of
the month.
For the New Years I was up at Lake Bonney, which is the next major lake up. We had an
enjoyable New Years, lavishing our bellies with fine food and toasting the end of the
world. By midnight we had on our best home-made party hats for the occasion and somehow we
managed to stay up till Midnight. There were no major Y2K calamities and the hut was still
standing. It was actually nice to be removed from the whole Y2K hoopla.
On New Years day I hiked up above the Lake Bonney camp. There were some amazing
ventifacts (rocks that are scoured by sand), some as large as a garage that have been
shaped by the wind (see the second attached
photo). Others as small as a table, but molded and gutted to please the imagination.
It was definitely a fine collection of Mother Nature's rock sculptures. After weaving in
and out of the ventifact exhibit, I hiked over to an area cover with red and black
volcanic rocks. The smooth surface, paved with small rocks was quite a contrast to the
rock garden. The volcanic pavement continued up the side of the Kurki Hills and I decided
to follow it up to get a killer view of the valley. Well, the view did not disappoint me
at all. Taylor Valley was exposed in its full grandeur. I could see all the way up to the
West Antarctica ice sheet, plus all of glaciers and peaks in the upper part of the valley
(see photo). After taking in the
magnificent view, I look down directly in front of me and realized I had to go back down
the slope. I am getting tired of scree slopes and looking forward to the blazed trails of
NZ. It took me as long, if not more to work my way down off the side of the hill. After I
reached the bottom I sauntered over to the terminus of the Hughes Glacier. The ice exposed
on the near vertical cliff was very pure, with no sediment to discolor the milky white
color. Water was dripping off in a cool cascade of delight and flowing lazily through the
area of ventifacts. I merrily made my way back home, with a mission to return and eat
food. As I headed down the hill I saw some amazing lenticular clouds much farther up
valley.
As for Christmas I had a very nice relaxing day and wonderful dinner at Lake Hoare.
There were 10 of us sitting down to a grand meal of smoked ham (the turkey did not thaw in
time), fresh vegies, a wonderful salad, and some hot buns right out of the oven. We
feasted in darkness except for one skylight left uncovered and four candles on the table.
The skylight had a stainglass-like motif, with Lucky the Hamster (the camp mascot) as the
saint. It was strange to have the main hut filled with darkness. I have a feeling it will
be a shock to get back to a place where the sun sets, since I am getting use to 24 hours
of light. Darkness seems like an uncommon thing to me now.
After eating we participated in the gift exchange game. We all picked numbers and the
person with number one picked first. The person with the next number can either pick a new
gift and take a previously opened gift. If a gift is taken from someone, that person can
either choose someone else's gift or open a new one. The only restriction is that you can
get the same gift twice. I was the third to last picker and I decided to take Craig's
gift, which was a hand-woven neck gator. I only had that till the next person took the
gator and I choice from Renee her black and white photo of Mt. Erabus. That turned out to
be my gift since nobody left decided that they wanted it.
After the gift exchange, we went out to the "beach'" to play some Frisbee.
Unfortunately the sun was partially blocked by the clouds, so the sand was not as warm as
it can be and the air was a bit chilly. We still managed to frolic in the sand for awhile,
before retiring for the evening. All in all it was a nice Holiday season.
Take care and drop me a line when you get the chance.
cheers...Thomas
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