Living next to Canada Glacier

I went to Lake Hoare again this week with my team members. We went on Tuesday afternoon. Monday had been a "no fly day" due to bad weather, so we didn't think we would be able to get out to the field on Tuesday as we had planned. The weather was fine on Tuesday and the helicopter coordinator was able to get us on the helicopter schedule, even though most of our gear came out on later flights. We had a strong tailwind, which made it a quick flight across McMurdo Sound. We arrived at Lake Hoare with our personal bags, tents, and sleep kits, but the science gear arrived later that night. One thing I have noticed about aqueous geochemists is that they often have bulky cargo for all of their empty sample containers. The field labs have limited storage and anything stored outside needs to be strapped down so that things don't get blown away by the katabatic winds. We set up a 50 cubic foot triple-walled cardboard box (50 cube triwall) and used a cargo strap to lash it onto the back on the chemistry lab. We filled that triwall with boxes of bottles and plastic containers, but we probably could have used a second 50 cube triwall because many of the bigger containers didn't fit. Let's say that our team is now known as "Max Cube". I think we have about 100 cubic feet of bottles, jars and carboys for our snow and water samples. Becki and Joel were very busy cleaning all of these bottles last week. They will be very busy with all of the sampling. I'll be busy soon analyzing all these samples.

One of the great things about being in the field is living with glaciers. Lake Hoare camp is next to the Canada Glacier. It provides a lovely backdrop to camp, it shelters us from some of the winds and it provides "glacier berries" that calve off of the face of the glacier. We collect these glacier ice chunks and melt them for our drinking water. The glacier ice is very clean and makes great tasting water. The glacier starts off high in the Asgard Range and flows to the south down to the valley floor. The cliff faces are about 50 feet high near the camp. They have some interesting features such as these "owls nests", cracks and some debris bands. It can be awe inspiring to stand this close to a glacier.
I slept in a Scott tent this time. Becki and I shared this tent because we had many people in camp and all of the other tent sites were being used. The Scott tent is very sturdy and easy to set up in strong winds. It is made of fabric, cotton I think, with thick metal poles. Here is a picture of our tent. It is very faded, but it works fine. It started its life as a sunflower yellow color and now it is more like vanilla pudding. The fabric is soft, so the inside of the tent is cosy and it doesn't sounds as crinkly and cold as the mountain tents. It is also tall enough to stand up inside, which does make it easier to put on pants.
Here is a picture of Lake Hoare, looking west to the Suess Glacier. Over these last few weeks since I was last there, the sun angle has changed significanly. The sun only sets behind the Asgard Range for a few hours every afternoon. The lake ice is becoming warmer. It is harder to get around on the ice because melt pools are forming. We had air temperatures a few degrees above freezing recently. Now that it is getting warmer here, things will start to change quickly, as ice changes to water.