McMurdo, Antarctica Photo Gallery

Here are a few pics from the journey so far. Captions below the photos share details. Enjoy!

Above: View of Mount Erebus while driving to the airfield from McMurdo Station. One of the perks of being a Jano is that I get to drive a four-wheel drive truck off base to other facilities to clean. This is on the way to NASA’s Long Duration Ballon (LDB) facility and Williams Field airfield.

Williams Field, (Willy for short) one of two airfields on the ice, with views of Mount Erebus in the background.

One of the firefighting vehicles at Willy Field. Note the “wheels.”

A C-130 Aircraft parked at Willy Field. The runway is an ice runway with packed snow on top.

Ice pressure ridges at Scott Base, the New Zealand base just down the road from McMurdo. I got trained to be a guide for pressure ridge tours. The ice fields press ice from the Ross Sea unto the sloping shoreline causing the ice to crack and then rise up in shards. So beautiful.

More pressure ridge shots.

Helping with the installation of the Observation Tube near McMurdo Station. The tube is about twenty feet long. A hole is drilled through the ice in the Ross Sea, and the tube is installed through the hole. The tube has plexiglass inserts in the bottom. You climb down a tight ladder until you reach the bottom. Then the top is closed back up, making it dark inside. As your eyes adjust to the darkness, the beauty of the sea under the ice comes into view.

Climbing down the tube.

View under the ice. So beautiful. Note the feathery ice crystals at the top. At the bottom, you’ll see the sea floor rising up near the shoreline. The light that is filtering down is from a crack in the ice, a small pressure ridge of sorts. If you are lucky, you may see a seal swim by. I didn’t get to see any seals, but did hear them calling to one another. There are also small fish and jellyfish in the area, which I did get to see.

Hiking on a “warm” day, hut point looking toward McMurdo Station in the background.