November 27, 1996

Ice on Lake Chad Taylor Valley

Day three without a shower and bad hair days are becoming the routine. "The 'wet look' is what we call it around here; it is back in style you know," Paula noted as I dragged my lint covered brush through the thicket. The weather still looked the same; grey and indeterminant, hovering in the 20s. It was warm, but without direct sunlight--and the alternation with shadow, the glaciers would remain relatively quiet. I still had several days, so I knew to be patient. I had been enjoying Penelope Lively's book, "Cleopatra's Sister" and getting into cooking. Today looked like a good day for a hike up to the Suess Glacier and Lake Chad--some 6 or 7 kilometres distant up the valley. Paul and Dave headed out, via helo, to check survey markers on top of the Taylor Glacier. Ray, Emily and Nate had gone for an overnight visit to Lake Fryxell to collect samples and check in on a few experiments. Everyone else had work to do in the labs, while Dale and Peter worked on melting a hole in Lake Hoare for diving. Unlike the sea ice, where a large drilling machine can be driven out to site to bore a dive hole, getting through 4 metres of lake ice far from McMurdo Station involves a different technology: a copper coil element, filled with glycol is heated using a generator. The ice is melted and a hole gradually widened to accommodate a diver. The process takes between 2 and 3 days--with fairly regular monitoring.

At 11:00 am I checked out my radio and signed out for Lake Chad and the Suess Glacier. I packed a modest recording rig--a DAT recorder and few contact microphones-- and set out by myself in the direction of the Matterhorn and the Suess Glacier. Distance and space, as I have noted elsewhere, are hard to judge down here. The absence of scalable landmarks, such as trees, and the clarity of the atmosphere seem to attenuate perceived distance. I "knew" how far it was to my destination, because I had asked; but I couldn't sense it. Keeping an eye on the weather was also a concern and I took heart knowing that Rich Dipboye would be flying his helo overhead later in the day, enroute to picking up Dave and Paul on the Taylor Glacier.

Paul and Dave head out.

Matterhorn and the Suess Glacier

I scoped out a path that would take me above Lake Hoare, parallel to the shoreline and planned to descend around a moraine berm that formed a boundary with Lake Chad. It took nearly two hours, of tricky hiking to reach the lake. The ground and the pitch of the slope changed as I made my way; at once negotiating fist-sized rocks. then larger boulders and sand that had the consistency of quick sand. I quickly overheated and was glad to have worn several layers. A warm and rather brisk wind came down the valley--I was looking forward to having this at my back on the return trip.

Several people had to told me about the ice on Lake Chad and about the mummified seals that lay amongst the rock strewn shores. On arriving over the moraine, I picked up a trail of earlier trekkers--probably Dave and Nate, who regularly tended a stream station at the base of the Suess. I wandered out onto the ice, losing my footing rather quickly after plodding for the last hour through sand and rocks. Once comfortably level, more or less face down, a magical realm of ice came into view. Thin, gossamer-like tissues of trapped air and coral-like formations of bubbles, which had not reached the surface, described a seemingly infinite labyrinth of intricacies. Dale Andersen had described described to me how heavily saturated gases, forced by glacial stream action, produced this amazing kaleidoscope of textures. I negotiated my way across several zones of ice--some smooth, like glass and others deformed and modulated, but translucent, and yet others increasingly opaque--older ice.

Returning to shore, the Suess Glacier shot up in front of me. Descending from the precipitous flanks of the Matterhorn, the terminus is confined to a narrow channel in the Taylor Valley--where it makes a sharp turn. The terminal moraine is piled high, as if a frontloader had simply dumped a small mountain ridge of earth perpendicular to the valley walls. The terminus itself was a jagged and fractured front, a testament to the downhill force of its passage.

Suess Glacier.

Suess Glacier terminus

Right near the edge of the lake, I spotted the bleaches bones and preserved hide of a mummified seal. It was hard to imagine the journey this creature must have made--disoriented, seeking the waters of McMurdo Sound. It was a full 20 miles off course, and I learned that others had been found nearly 60 miles from the ocean. They are more agile overland than we may think--but it doesn't say much for an innate sense of direction! The condition of the carcass was pretty well-preserved, as it had been freeze dried. I stooped and hovered over it for a quick examination and moved on, contemplating my own demise in such a place.

At the moraine, I checked several routes up to the Suess face and decided on a course which would allow me a reasonably easy access. On the way up, I encountered two more mummified seals--one a crabeater seal, whose krill straining dentition was immediately apparent. The other was just a flank and flippers resting against a rock. The coat looked as soft as a pup's lanugo. Incredible!

Mummified seal.

Mummified crabeater seal. (Note the teeth, which act as krill strainers).

The sky seemed to brighten momentarily and I listened to the smallest of streams trickle down the front of the glacier and stayed for an hour. From my stupor of half-attentive awareness, I could hear the pulsing throb of Rich's helo coming up the valley; it must be getting late, and I contemplated the long walk back. Rich flew over and I waved, putting my recorder and microphones away. It had been rather quiet and the recordings appropriately sparse. Maybe tomorrow the weather would turn...

Streams cut into the face of the glacier.