Teachers on Ice- Dr Rogers in Antarctica

The last 24 hours have been incredibly tough, possibly the hardest 24 hours of the expedition so far. First there was sleep deprivation from the storm last night and then the haul from hell for the human huskies today. The storm last night really got going in the early hours of the morning. By 6.30am the noise was incredible and it was actually snowing in the tent! This is due to our breath freezing onto the inner of the tent and then being knocked off by the gusts.

So after some sleep deprivation (which was one of the tests during the selection process) we headed out towards the pass with two heavy sledges full of non-essential items. Our plan was to secure the sledges at the top then head back to camp, pack up and get all the remaining sledges up by early evening. After 3 hours of thigh burning, stomach churning, lung expanding work we had got one sledge to the top and the other to half way up. Another hour and a half later and both were at the top. We had climbed 500m from our overnight stop to a height of 1562m (Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the British Isles is about 1300m) and in the last two days we’ve gained 700m in altitude (the height you gain as you walk up Helvellyn in the Lake District). And all of it with heavy, heavy pulks on our back. The whole way up was very, very steep and our route crossed many crevasses, one of which temporarily swallowed my foot and calf!

We decided it was too late to try move the other sledges, so over the next day or so we will move the remaining pulks up to the pass and then decide what to do from there. It is very unlikely that we will be able to undertake the long walk back to Patriot Hills as time is against us.

I thought I’d quickly put up a few photos so you can see more of the landscape.

Today I developed my first injury due to the cold. Painful chilblains on four of my fingers. It’s not all bad though. Today has also been one of the most successful science days we’ve had since we set foot in Antarctica. We started off the day still frustrated from yesterday. We had decided that we would move camp further up the Canyon to see if that would help our data collection. Unfortunately the weather had different plans. The wind was too strong this morning to attempt a move. Rather than sit in our tents again, we decided to go for a walk and amazingly found an area of blue ice that had been uncovered by the high winds. On it were lots of cryoconite holes- exactly what Ruth has been looking for (for days) and only about 300m from camp. There was suddenly a lot of frenzied activity. We went out together and swept the ice of snow to make the holes more visible. Whilst Ruth and Phil were busy sampling we suddenly realised that on the boulder field next to the ice were hundreds of lichen. It’s the most lichen we’ve seen since our first day on the Henderson Glacier. Not only was there loads of it, there were also some types we hadn’t seen before. It may not sound too exciting but we were over the moon! It was so good to finally be collecting some good samples and data. We stayed out till about 6.30pm running a transect and collecting results.
Now we are settled in for the evening with our evening meal. My favourite meal of the day is dinner time as we make a hot meal by pouring water into a bag of dehydrated food. It doesn’t sound nice but after a long day it is great. We recently got asked what our favourite meals were. For dinner I prefer tuna and pasta. Everyone is different though- Ruth likes sweet and sour chicken best. We all agree on the worst. Chile Con Carne. It is grim. On days we pull it out of our food bags we can’t face it and put it back in the sledge. This could mean that we end up eating it for a week straight at the end of the expedition but it is worth the risk. We are carrying six days of extra rations so we are hoping we will get away with it.
It is difficult eating almost the same thing everyday but I think one of the hardest things about being in Antarctica is missing family and friends at home. We are not allowed to have any personal contact with family whilst we are away. This is to protect us from hearing any news that might effect how we are here. Things are quite hard for us and any bad news might be enough to impact on our safety here and the safety of others in the team. This means that I haven’t had any contact with my fiance, parents or sisters since November 3rd. As the days go by I’m finding this harder and harder! So I want to send a little message to my family here to say I miss them very much, I hope all is well and I’m really looking forward to seeing them soon. I also want to wish my fiancé Dave a very happy birthday for the 30th November. I’m looking forward to celebrating it properly when I get home.

We are currently sitting in our tents at the foot of our last steep climb. Tomorrow we will pack up and attempt to pull the sledges up the steepest part of Connell Canyon. The other day as we were climbing the glacier of Connell Canyon we had a very close encounter. Parts of the glacier were so steep that we had to pair up to tow the pulks up to the crest of the glacier. Ian and I left one pulk there using skis to fasten it in the strong winds, unfortunately we did not have a snow stake with us. The wind was so strong that it broke the pulk free and it came hurtling across and down the glacier towards us. We all scattered to avoid it but fortunately it rolled to a halt before it reached us. We can do without that sort of adventure!

Once again we had a ’snow day’ due to the bad weather and it was great to wake up this morning and find the weather had eased enough for us to move on. We are in the middle of changing our location so that we can carry out some more science in a different area. It’s not just a question of walking down the street. Changing sites is a serious mission. Tents down, everything packed in sledges and then hauling everything up a slippery slope with skies on. It was a difficult morning of pulling and we seemed to slide backwards more than forwards. We also had to negotiate a treacherous crevasse field where one foot wrong would have seen us plummeting down an icy crack in the ground. Some of the crevasses were so deep you couldn’t see the bottom and all of them were covered with a fine layer of snow, so it was difficult to see them. We finally got safely to the top of the hill where we had laid a depot two days before. Then we had to start the mammoth task of lowering the sledges down the other side of the steep hill. Six pulks all roped together with a pulley system and four teachers roped to the pulks to try and control the sledges on the descent. It was like walking six disobedient dogs. Those sledges had a mind of their own. We got half way down and the weather closed in. Snow and such poor contrast you couldn’t tell the ground from the sky. It became too dangerous to travel because we had no way of seeing any crevasses. So we have put the tents up half way down the hill and are hoping we can carry on the descent tomorrow. Our aim is to get into the valley of the Connell Canyon where we will spend a few days collecting some more science data. It’s really exciting to be on our way to a new area and a little frustrating that we couldn’t get there today. Everything in Antarctica takes so much longer than you ever think! You definitely need to have a lot of patience. Hopefully when we get to our new study site we’ll be able to send back some news of more science. I’m looking forward to getting the chance to look for my lichens.
I’d like to say a special well done to scientists in Years 10 and 11 at Higham Lane School for completing your GCSE modules. It’s been great to hear that some of you think that your exams have gone ok I really appreciate getting your messages! I’d also like to wish Mr Masters from Higham Lane a belated happy 50th birthday. I was thinking of you on the day Mr Masters and hope that you aren’t feeling as old as you look Thanks for all the questions and comments. Great to hear from so many of you. Better get back to scraping ice from my boots!

After a couple of days of enforced lay up it’s been great to be able to get back to the science today. Despite it sounding like a herd of sumo wrestlers were charging our tent for most of the night we woke to much calmer conditions. We were able to get back out to collect some more lichens and to look for more cryoconite holes. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be many cryoconite holes here but the lichen studies get more exciting every day. We managed to find a species that we hadn’t found before- it’s been really exciting to see so many lichen in an area where they haven’t been officially recorded. I’ve been running some transects to collect samples to test for background nitrogen-15 when I get back to the UK. The lichens we have sampled are unusual in that they are in a pristine environment with no outside influence from other organisms. They provide a really unique opportunity to provide background data for other studies that are done close to other animal and plant colonies. As the weather has been so good this afternoon, the boys are taking it in turns to use a small square of mat to go out and give themselves their first wash of the trip. They even have a small bar of soap that they have bargained off Carolyn. It’s still -8 degrees outside and the girls are safely tucked inside their tents away from the sight. I think we will be content to use our wet wipes for the time being. I did do a clothes wash yesterday though. Drying clothes in Antarctica is quite an experience. Within seconds of being outside wet clothes freezes into a stiff board. I’ve tied the stiff shapes to various guy ropes and my clothes are festooned around the campsite like rigid flags.

The last few days have had ups and downs. We’ve managed to get out and sample many more lichens, but our travels have taken us around all parts of the mountains, and our guide thought it was best to rope up. It was a good thing too as soon after he almost fell down a hole. I decided to try it on for size! Also in the last few days the weather has really closed in and we’ve had to experience the terrible weather we were expecting would one day hit. We’ve had 30mph winds and so have been forced to have a couple of lazy days in. I’ve caught up on a lot of sleep, read books, and mastered sudoku. We also had a bit of fun with one of the sledges and a shelter which acted like a parachute.It’s getting a bit tedious though. We are all looking forward to more science when the weather gets better.

One week into our time in Antarctica and after travelling thousands of kilometres to look for lichen what a fantastic moment to finally see some. Not just one or two either. We seem to be camped right next to ‘Lichen City’. We found at least three different species out today and there are lots of them too. Tomorrow we will be able to start sampling in earnest. I didn’t think I would be quite so excited about finding them as I was! Now that we are here I find it even more amazing that lichen are able to survive here. It’s so extreme and we haven’t seen anything alive here except for a few humans. It was fantastic to see something else alive and I have a new found respect for these little organisms. They may not be that pretty but they are certainly very, very tough.
The fact that we have found lichens is also exciting because nobody has ever officially collected them here at the Henderson Glacier before. This is the first time that these particular lichen populations will be studied. Nobody even knew that they would definitely be here. It’s so exciting to be working on something that is so little known. What might we find out over the next few weeks?!
We’ve had a really great day exploring today. We’ve been working out where and how we are going to carry out our sampling. We climbed a summit overlooking our campsite with fantastic views over our little valley and the vast ice shelf beyond. The weather has been fantastic. Only about -12 degrees C today and brilliant sunshine. It was great to get a little bit of a look at the area that we will be working in for the next few weeks.
It’s not all fun and games though. Just in case you think that we are having too good a time over here, there are a few things that start to get pretty hard after a week of being here, once the novelty has started to wear off a bit…. So here are five of my own pet hates.
1)Frozen toothpaste- everyday I forget to warm my toothpaste so I can never squeeze it out of the tube.
2)Peeing in a bottle does not get any more fun with time.
3)Not washing gets pretty unpleasant after a while.
4)Pooing in a bag is also a little bit unpleasant-even though the view from the ‘ig-loo’ is quite spectacular.
5)Scraping ice out of the inside of my boots is another job I don’t enjoy.
So it’s not all a laugh a minute but just being here more than makes up for the hardships.
The final piece of excitement today was when our guide called the UK for a scheduled contact checkup. He got to have a quick word with the great polar explorer Ran Fiennes!

We headed back to Patriot Hills after our mini expedition in the Heritage Range. The idea was that this will have helped to prepare us for our time on Union Glacier. We hauled our kit, two meals lighter, back to Patriot and repacked 29 days of food – enough for the rest of the expedition. We packed all our kit onto the Twin Otter plane and flew through the mountains to Union Glacier. We have now pitched camp on the other side of the hills in the much more sheltered and less windy Henderson Glacier. We have even built ourselves an ice dining table and a toilet called an “ig-loo”. While the flight took only 15 minutes it will actually take us 7 days to hike back, which we will be doing in 2 weeks time. Now we will get started on our science projects, and I will be hoping to study some lichen. It’s looking good as our guides have spotted 3 different species already.

Today we were introduced to man-hauling- pulling a sledge (or pulk) loaded full of kit. We’ve left Patriot Hills and at the moment are sat in tents in the Heritage Range on the other side of the mountain range to Patriot Hills. We hauled enough kit for 5 days in case the weather changes but we are going to head back to Patriot tomorrow or the day after. Before today I had never done anything like this so I was apprehensive that I would be able to cope with pulling large weights in such extreme conditions. I loaded my pulk with my personal kit, science equipment, enough food for five days and my share of the tent and cooking equipment, as well as safety equipment including a helmet and ice axe. It probably weighed 30-40 kilos. When I first began to pull the sledge it moved with ease and I would almost go so far as to say that it ‘glided’ across the ice and snow. For the first hour it was straightforward and simply felt like walking along with a small amount of resistance. However then we encountered ‘Windy Gap’ a small pass that we would have to cross to get to our evening camp. Pulling a sledge uphill in the snow is no fun. Sliding down the hill on your sledge on the other side is! One of the hardest things today was getting the temperature of myself right. I went from boiling to freezing so quickly. I need to work on my layers. A few new experiences again today. My hair froze into a line of icicles at the front. I had to stick it over the stove to defrost it. I’ve just spent the last half hour trying to scrape ice out of the bottom of my boots. It took a while to pitch the tents and dig them in (surround them with a snow wall). But our camp looks great now. The pulks are tied down outside and our guides have built a toilet igloo for us. It’s beautiful with a nice view. Last night was the coldest yet. We measured our tent as -20°C when we got in it and -13 °C during the night. I woke up with a layer of ice crystals across my eye mask. It’s much warmer tonight. Our tent is a balmy 5°C. Ruth and are are getting a little too hot in our sleeping bags. It’s been great to build up our confidence of moving round on the ice and I’m looking forward to some more science tomorrow. We found out that one of the other expedition teams left yesterday because of the conditions. It’s made us feel pretty proud of ourselves and pleased that our equipment and kit have been up to the job!

On Saturday we were once again on call for the weather report in Antarctica, and finally they told us to get to the airport quick – we were going to fly in to Antarctica! We boarded the Ilyushin cargo plane, where we were strapped into a giant hull on hard seats and four and a half hours later we were landing on the ice at the Patriot Hills Base Camp. Our first steps on Antarctic snow were truly amazing! I had no idea it would be so beautiful. We were greeted with a hot meal and friendly smiles from the base camp staff who had arrived the day before. We had no idea what time it was as during the summer here it never gets dark. We set up our tents and soon the winds picked up. The next day Phil took some measurements and found it to be -20 degrees celsius, with winds up to 52 mph. It was so windy that another team had their tent blown away. Breakfast on Antarctica consists of cereal in hot water, a very frozen chocolate bar and a mug of hot chocolate. We were soon down to work, reinforcing the tents by packing snow onto the flaps to hold it firmly in place, and building up a wall to act as a windbreak. It’s very cold just sitting around, so we were happy to keep active. So far we’ve been getting used to the extreme conditions, with simple tasks like getting dressed taking half an hour, and going to the toilet proving to be very difficult and tedious.