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i n t e r t r i p n
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...hello
again. i have been away from the
base for the last week, enjoying a
change of scenery and getting away
from thoughts of work for a bit which
is really rather pleasant.
actually i have been having a look at
the back of the scenery.
adelaide island is split into two main
parts consisting of the east (rothera)
side with our familiar sights and the
wormald ice piedmont; and the
"other", west side which is
accessible only through macallum's
pass - a route through the spine of
high mountains to the fuchs ice
piedmont of the far side.
anyway, i had never been through this
much talked of pass until last sunday,
when we (myself and GA james) got up
early and drove our sledge and skidoo
train through the gap and down towards
the shambles glacier. this being
an area of heavy crevassing we were
taking no chances and stayed on a
flagged route which had been
"probed" by the GAs earlier
in the season. all went
swimmingly and we then drove south
60kms to an abandoned chilean base
called carvajal (formerly the british
base adelaide island). this is
pretty run down, but it provided us
accomodation for 2 nights and no end
of fur seals which get into every
sense inlet in large quantities.
the weather went downhill pretty
rapidly whilst we were there but the
high winds and the fact that the base
is on the exposed southern tip of the
island provided some impressive moody
sea-nery... not too many pics of
this, i'm afraid, the light was a bit
poor. anyway, basically we
stayed at carvajal for 2 nights, then
2 nights camped about halfway down the
island, and then another 2 nights back
on the rothera side of the pass after
we made a break for it in
deteriorating weather to avoid being
stuck for ages (you need good contrast
to travel in crevasse fields - it has
been known for field parties to be
stuck on the west side for weeks
waiting for sufficiently good travel
conditions...). so, some
pictures of the highlights, mostly
squeezed into the short periods of
good weather, and some explanatory
words. enjoy, as i did: |
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me sitting inside what used
to be the carvajal bar, by kerosine tilly-lamp
light
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our camp below a hill called
the myth which is poking out of the cloud
directly behind the tent. we climbed
it the next day via the rocky ridge that
disappears into the cloud just to the right
of the tent, and descended by the skyline
ridge you can see falling off to the left
from the summit. there's a picture
below...
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a classic long exposure
"ghost-face" shot during our few
hours of beautiful clear darkness
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fun with head torches at the
myth camp
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yet more fun with a head
torch. you can just make out the
constellation orion above the right-hand end
of the light stream, with its two outlying
wings, rigel and betelgeuse.
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james on the ridge of the
myth. unfortunately not great light for
photos.
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we had a forecast for more
bad weather so decided to nip through
("nip" is a bit of an
understatement for a 40km ride through
potentially difficult terrain, but we made
it pretty niftily!) macallum's pass to camp
near trident, where i camped on my last
winter trip.
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since the weather was a bit
poor for climbing, we decided to have a look
into one of the crevasses that are visible
to the sides of the flagged route through
the pass. it was pretty exciting to
see what looks fairly innocuous on the
surface in it's full vertical
glory...! above, james is checking the
edge before he drops over the edge to see
what it's like...
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very very cool, as it turns
out! we abseiled about 15 metres down
to the "floor" (another snow
bridge) and then had a walk along the false
bottom, james banging in loads of ice screw
protections along the way in case it were to
give way. which it didn't, thankfully.
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we went along two full 50
metre rope lengths before we came to a big
hole and had to turn back, but it was pretty
powerful stuff, and i'm afraid the camera
always fails to do these things justice.
here's james where i join him at "the
end of the line".
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me on the way across.
this one gives quite a good feeling for the
scale of the thing. know your enemy!
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getting back out! using
a couple of nifty one-way locking devices
known as jumars, and a lot of energy, james
ascends the rope back to the top... me
next!
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getting warm now...
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getting very warm now, and a
bit knackered trying to get over the lip
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the rest of the trip, until
we finally made a break for rothera, was
spent in high winds and snow, so the best
imagery i can offer is of the door of the
tent from inside, safely tied up to wait it
out. n.b. it's not particularly
pleasant heading outside to our toilet pit
to drop one's trousers and bare ones lower
half to a blizzard in those
conditions... quelle
surprise!
and to finish off this
post, a few pics taken by drew cook of me
(it feels a little narcissistic to keep
posting photos of myself, but i suppose this
is my website and i think that's what people
want to see?? anyway, some of me with
various things in my world. cheers
drew.
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