Trip to Bandits Hut
Taking a breather from all the hard ridingAfter my last post, we got away not long after midday. The wind dropped dramatically enabling us to head off. The plan was to head to Bandits to get the hut ready for the night and then to try to get to Walkabout Rocks. But because we spent a bit longer getting to the hut, fading light stopped our attempt to get to Walkabout. The reason we took a bit longer was because of all the time stopping to look at all the icebergs trapped in the sea ice. There are hundreds, if not thousands of bergs in the ice all the way along the coast - some the size of a house, up to some the size of apartment buildings. And all different shapes and colours too. Some are your traditional white, some are different shades of blue (ones that have recently turned over) and then there are the jade bergs. These are amazing.
Jade berg - to put it into perspective, the vertical face on the right would be about 25 meters high
This one has a jade vein running through it - this one would be about 15 meters high
Some of the "plain" bergs are just as amazing, with the formations including arches and tunnels.
A berg with a clearly defined arch
On Thursday morning we tried again to get up to Walkabout rocks but again we were stopped, this time by poor visibility. The wind was driving snow straight off the plateau at us, reducing visibility to about 5 meters. The decision was made to turn around, and about 5 minutes later we were in perfect sunshine. The trip home was going to be via Tryne Fjord, but when we got there we found some areas of open water. We drilled to get the depth of ice, and it was 380mm. We walked on a bit further and drilled again and found the thickness to be 280mm so we turned around and took the same route back to station. The minimum for quad travel is 400mm. Over the two days we covered about 120km on the quads
Just a few of the bergs at dusk
Well that is what I have been up to the last few days. I had a ball, and I'm sure Tony had a (40th!) birthday he will never forget!
posted by Brendan... at 5:54 AM
6 Comments:
So... if white icebergs are 'normal', blue ucebergs are ones which have turned over, what are the jade ones?
These photos are amazing. It looks like they are just off a movie set. What a fantastic experience for you. Keep enjoying.
Hi Katie, good question. I meant to explain it in the last entry but I forgot!
This is what my vast research has uncovered - the origin of jade green ice is uncertain. Jade ice includes a mixture of contaminents, especially particulate protein-nitrogen, but it's particular appearance seems to derive from a pure, bubble-free ice fabric that apparently originates in the vigorous shear zones found in mountain glaciers.
Well call me a glaciologist! How clever is that? I hope this clears things up.
Yeah, clear as mud!!
Glad to see you enjoying it in the blue green or white continent
Thanks for keeping us informed from a differant perspective of course.
See you soon
Jude
Wow, those are beautiful.
Post a Comment
<< Home