The Dry Valleys

The Dry Valleys are littered with the corpses of dead animals. Occasionally, one of the penguins or seals that land at the shore will wander up valley and become disoriented. These unfortunate individuals soon become fully lost and start a long and difficult march until they collapse from lack of food and exhaustion.

No one is quite sure why seals and penguins would wander inland to begin with. One theory thrown around is that they see the reflection of light off the lakes and head towards it thinking it’s the ocean. This event is not as rare as one might think: researchers have proposed that one seal may enter the valleys every 8 years, and penguins are even more common.

Another Dead Leopard

These awkward marine mammals crawl on their bellies up staggering heights and distances. Weddell and Crabeater seal carcasses have been found up to 35 miles up the valley, and at elevations as high as 5000 feet. Dating the age of these bodies has remained difficult, however some initial carbon-dating research has labeled corpses anywhere from several hundred years to 2600 years old.

The last remains of a terrifying Leopard Seal

The Dry Valleys are a desert. This means that the lack of moisture and the cold, dessicating air dries out the bodies long before they get the chance to rot. The absence of any carrion feeders means that the bodies remain intact as they dry. The one exception to this are Skua – a type of sea bird that comes to the Valleys only to nest. These birds pick out the eyes of the dead animals. However, since the seal’s skin is rather thick, the birds are unable to tear at the flesh unless the animal had been initially injured (from falling off a cliff, etc). Seals that are hundreds of years old lay on the rocky ground, dried stiff, missing only their eyes. As the centuries pass, the blowing sand and rock will eventually break away the body until only a few bleached bones remain.

It’s a harsh continent.

Cold day in the sun

Only the eyes

Zoom in to see the bone structure of the arm

It’s why this place exists. Every job, every building, every person is down here to support science directly or indirectly. Nearly everyone is interested in it – the helicopter pilots chat up scientists about the details of their research as they fly around, the carpenters who build the field camps are well versed in climate variations, and science lectures are packed with everyone on base – defying the norm back in the real world.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) oversees the US Antarctic Program that encompasses all US research stations in Downunderest. McMurdo (under New Zealand), Palmer (under South America), and the South Pole (under the world) act as staging and support centers for scientists. Carpenters, engineers, cooks, janitors, mechanics, electricians, and a medical doctor are all here for the purpose of supporting science. It’s an amazing array of skills and people who come together for a common goal. And everyone is interested in it.

I’ve talked about logistics a lot, but have completely neglected to say why I’m down here in the first place. Science. I’m working as a research assistant with the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (UColorado – Boulder) to come down to Antarctica and help run research on the streams and rivers of the Dry Valleys. We’re part of a bigger research group called the Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) project. The LTER is a network of research stations across the world that are in place to monitor and collect long-term data of the environment. The Dry Valley LTER consists of five main teams – Glaciers, Streams, Lakes, Soils, and Meteorology. I like to think of this as following the chain of water in the Valleys – the glaciers melt and run off into streams, and the streams flow into lakes.

Yep, rivers in Antarctica. Still blows my mind.

I work for the Stream Team. We’re not here testing any hypotheses. What we do is open up these fancy stream gauges in the beginning of the season that monitor temperature and flow rate. These systems operate on ultra-modern technology designed around 1991. Once we’ve fed the hamsters that power the computers, we “shoot levels” of the streams and gauges. Ever see those two guys standing on the street, one’s looking through a telescope on a tripod and the other’s standing far away and holding a giant ruler? That’s us. It takes us 2 hours to survey each site to see if the elevation of the stream gauges have changed. And we have to get it correct to within 6 thousands of an inch. Or we start over. And over. If you bump the surveying instrument, slip, breath too heavily… even just think negative thoughts, you could misalign the instrument and have wasted half a day. Standing in place for hours gets pretty cold.

Now as powerful as Atari!

Steady...

And lastly, we look at the flow rate and chemistry of the streams. Flow rate is measured by standing in the freezing water, holding a big stick with spinning cups (circa 1903), and counting clicks. Chemistry is done by bottling water samples and bringing them back to our shack for analysis. We process for anions, cations, dissolved oxygen, nutrients, alkalinity, and other tests with imaginary names.

Just a little water

On any given day our three person team stumbles into our shack around 8am, we have a leisurely breakfast, and then jump on our ATV and drive across the frozen lake in front of us to get to our stream sites. Since we can’t drive the ATV on land (environmental restrictions) we end up hiking short distances inland to the streams. When summer actually comes, the edges of the lake will melt and we’ll have to hike the full distance. Once we’re at the stream we collect samples, feed the hamsters, and stand in freezing water. Hike back to ATV. Repeat.

We also have to monitor streams in other Valleys, which means helicopter rides. A lot of them. At least one day a week we fly over to the Wright Valley (“North” of us) and are dropped off for two hours at each site. On another day every week, we get flown up Taylor Valley to our more distant sites. At least 10 times a week we’re flying over mountain ranges, through valleys, and over massive glaciers. All for science.

Life is good.

Just a small post about where we are in the world. It’s been a busy week, longer post to come soon.

In the big picture:

A an upclose view of Taylor Valley and Canada Glacier with one of our field camps:

And finally: the enormously, ridiculously, painfully long flight path:

So. long.

Maps generated by the Great Circle Mapper – copyright © Karl L. Swartz.

I just earned a lot of frequent flier miles.

We spent our first 4 days in Taylor Valley at a site called Lake Hoare, the control center for the Dry Valley field camps. Run on an incredibly efficient schedule, Lake Hoare can comfortably house around 15 people. There’s a central building that has a few emergency bunks and a kitchen, surrounded by a dozen tent sites and a few small shacks for lab work. I’ll explain more about the setup in a later post when I have pictures of it. I would have taken some, but weather happened to us.

Weather here doesn’t have a background existence, it controls absolutely everything you do. During our first two days there we had something called a Katabatic wind. What happens is that cool, dense air from a high elevation is brought down by gravity and the increased pressure causes the air to “warm” and RUSH through the valley. Katabatics easily reach and exceed hurricane speeds – the fastest one recorded in the valleys was around 200 knots (230mph). These winds are near impossible to predict; ours averaged around 30 knots for the two days and peaked around 40 knots. It’s tough to sleep with a tent vibrating around you.

Once the winds died we were hit with a freak snowstorm of about 8 inches. Doesn’t sound like much, but the Dry Valleys are known for being free of snow and ice. I’m beginning to think this whole ‘desert’ business is a lie. While it’s a pain in the ass to walk around on loose rocks buried in snow, I am getting a unique perspective on the valley.

Snow Day

Winter Wonderland

After running out of snow-day excuses, it was time for us to make the ‘epic’ 2 hour hike over to our base camp. Walking around the edge of Canada Glacier, the cloud cover cleared to show the Asgard mountain range looming in the distance.

Big

Perspective is a funny thing in the valleys: what looks close is more like 5 or 10 miles away because there’s no frame of reference – no trees, buildings, anything. The view in front of me as I write this is of a mountain that looks only a mile away, but is actually 12.

Cold walk in the park

After our skirt around Canada Glacier we hiked onto the edge of Lake Fryxell towards our new home, F6. After a few miles of lake ice we arrived and finally threw down our bags in their permanent location. F6 is quite small, it’s a shack that’s divided half for cooking and half for science, comfortable enough for three people to work in. This is our “home” base; my permanent tent is pitched outside with a wonderful lake-front view.

A frozen Lake Fryxell and Canada Glacier

At the end of my first week here I’m struck with how blindingly gorgeous the place is. The Dry Valleys are the largest ice-free area of the continent (0.03%, or a little smaller than Delaware) and few people who come to Antarctica ever get to step foot on the continent itself with its soils, lakes, and rivers. Looking around, it’s easy to forget where I am and think I’m somewhere in frigid Canada. Where’s Tim Horton’s when you need it?

After two and a half weeks of fattening up for the cold, we’ve finally left for the Dry Valleys. There are a lot of inane steps that occurred prior to us leaving, but if I ever get bored enough to write a blog post specifically to bore you, I’ll be sure to include those details. Briefly, we had to get science equipment, field equipment, food and medical supplies all together ready for being helicoptered out. It was an incredible grocery list of junk, totaling around 3800 pounds. The science equipment included 1200 hand washed bottles, which took about a week of my time. It did allow me the time to listen to my Spanish language tapes. Needless to say I scared onlookers by repeating “Hola señorita, soy el señor Sancho” to bottles for hours on end.

The food-pull was fun. Imagine a small grocery store, with the warm lighting of a damp third-world market, boxes piled in a vague semblance of order. Only here, everything was free. Steak, cereal, jams, teas, coffee, chocolate bars (over 12 types of Cadbury), everything. Since the field teams endure “harsh” conditions, we’re given a better assortment of things to choose from than those who stay in McMurdo. A limitless, endless supply of chocolate.

Medical supplies. Not much to say about it. Other than there’s more Vicodin, Percocet, and antibiotics than any human would need.

And field equipment: -40 degree sleeping bags, ice axes, crampons, pee bottles.. all the fun stuff.

After the weigh-in, our cargo was loaded onto a helicopter and we were set to leave. I could see the blades on the helo start to spin. I double-checked to make sure my seatbelt was on and my helmet strapped (it wasn’t). We started to lift off and I wished I had stayed awake for the helicopter safety video – too many buttons were within arm’s reach. After some strange screaming noise, the engine revved and we took off.

One of the teammates

The view leaving McMurdo was incredible. As we crossed the sound separating Ross Island from the continent, Mt Erebus was still smoking in the distance. We could see the sea ice edge where the summer’s melt was breaking apart.

Mt. Erebus. There are worse views in the world

As we approached the continent, the first mountain range loomed in front of us. We flew through a pass between two peaks and the only word to describe the valleys is enormous. Terrain passed: mountain, glacier, mountain, glacier, mountain, glacier. It’s a cold place.  We slowed as we approached Lake Hoare in Taylor Valley. Struck dumb by the scenery, I vaguely remember getting out of the helicopter, but absolutely recall the glacier that loomed over the Lake Hoare camp. I’d be sleeping right in front of it that night.

Apartment with a view

More to come on the Valleys soon, the last few days have been quite long. More pictures next time!