Hiking to the Commonwealth Glacier
Here’s another, even more amazing, text & photo essay from the intrepid painter/writer/naturalist Laura Von Rosk (see her first report from Antarctica here) who flew to Antarctica (it’s spring there) early in Septembet as part of a scientific team headed by Albany, NY, cell biologist Dr. Samuel Bowser (friend them on Facebook at Bravo! 043 or visit his blog). In this report, the team continues its training at McMurdo Station’s “Happy Camper” school before heading to their own research site. The team’s mission is to dive (under the ice) and conduct studies on the the single-celled organisms known as Foraminifera from a field camp at Explorers Cove, situated at the base of the Taylor Valley, in the Dry Valleys, west of McMurdo Station in Antarctica.
Laura Von Rosk (normally) lives with her dog Molly on a lagoon just outside Schroon Lake, New York. She curates the Courthouse Gallery at the Lake George Arts Project, a gallery dedicated to the experimental and the avant garde. She’s an old friend and a wonderful landscape painter. See Laura’s paintings on Numéro Cinq here.
Antarctica map 1, map 2, map 3, map of Ross Sea area, map 5. Virtual tour of McMurdo. Map showing McMurdo Station and Taylor Valley.
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More Adventures at the Bottom of the World
Laura Von Rosk Reports from Antarctica
View from the Observation Tube: Henry, Cecil, and Dannie
Over the last three weeks I’ve had some unusual experiences which included camping out on the Ross Ice Shelf with about 20 other Happy Campers, as we are called, observing tiny sea creatures 20 feet below the sea ice in the Observation Tube at McMurdo Station, taking my 1st Helicopter ride over McMurdo Sound, Assisting the divers at Explorers Cove, hiking to the massive Commonwealth Glacier, and seeing Weddell Seals up close as they popped up through two of our dive holes.