Browning Peninsular
Then it was off to Browning for 3 days. Chris, Petie and I drove the Hagg and John took the Challenger dozer and pulled a metal beam in the hopes of making a track highway. On the way down to The Browning Peninsula we worked laying the cane line track. Navigation down here is via GPS. Mostly the landscape looks the same and it is very easy to get lost or disorientated so GPS is a must. As well as GPS we lay down a cane line along all GPS routes to all field hut locations and anywhere else a route is neede to be marked. These cane lines a re literally that. A hole is drilled into the ice and a tall bamboo cane is inserted and the hole is packed back with ice/snow to hold that cane in place. This is bloody hard work. The drill is heavy, the ice is hard, especially the blue ice. I am still sore four days later from all the work.
We left Casey station at 8am. The first cane was a nightmare. The drill wouldn't start, and then kept stopping because of the cold. This drill is 6 feet tall, so I could barely reach the motor to get it started and it was bitterly cold. We were out in the wind and the cold for about 15 minutes. Once the cane was finally in place all three of us had to sit in front of the Hagg with the air vents on full heat for 10 mins just to thaw out our hands. The pain while our hands were warming back up was horrendous! We were all nearly in tears from it. The cold down here is like nothing I have ever experienced. If you let stay out too long you know all about it and it is not a pleasant experience at all. We were all thinking it was going to be a very long, very hard day and weren’t at all looking forward to it. As the canes went along - one every 400 metres, we got the hang of it. After about 8 canes the ground became easier to work and we switched over to the little jiffy drill which runs off the generator. The jiffy is smaller and lighter and a lot easier to use than the diesel one. In not too long the three of us were working as a team, like a well oiled machine and it was taking about 5 mins to drive to the next cane spot and drill one in. We canned until just after 5pm and that took us to the edge of Browning. We had about 5 more to do but it was late and we were stuffed so we went over to the hut instead and cooked up some dinner. The weather had been very kind to us. It was bitterly cold day but the wind dropped off, which made it a hell of a lot easier. Plus it was hard work so we were pretty warm with that. All of our clothing is purpose built for this place as well and you never leave station without all the right clothing. Hands are the biggest issue because no amount of layering can keep them warm.
Browning is the most beautiful place. The Vander ford Glacier is right there at Browning and it stretches out as far as the eye can see. It is magnificent. The area is quite mountainous and with all the bad weather we have been having most of the snow is gone and has been replaced with nothing but blue ice. It is quite treacherous to walk anywhere.
On Saturday, after a few bottles of red the night before with dinner, we got up, had brekkie and were out searching for snow caves at about 9am. We found one over in the front of the hut on the Vander Ford side after climbing down a huge rock face. The cave was full of snow so we dug a way in and it opened out. We walked, slid on stomachs and waded waist deep through all the snow till we could go no further. Then I found another part of the same system – I fell through the roof into it! Ha ha. John pulled me out thank goodness. We lowered ourselves down into the next part of the cave. It was about 2.5 metres I guess to get down into it through the hole in the roof. All good fun.
The four of us spent the whole day exploring around Browning. We walked for hours and hours and covered a huge amount of ground. It was just wonderful. We climbed over so many hills and found more ice caves and then a sunken in cavern that looked like it had, not so long ago, had a river running under it. It was a brilliant day filled with fun, laughter and many beautiful sights. There was so much blue ice around that we had no choice other than to slide down ice cliffs on our butts to get to some places. Mind you climbing back up was pretty iffy I have to say.
I almost slid all the way back down again at the top of one cliff, which would NOT have been any fun!
We had decided that we would pack up and leave Saturday, be back for Saturday night dinner and have a rest on Sunday back at Casey. A big Blizz blew in Saturday afternoon so we had to stay put. Bloody hell it was pretty scary being in the hut I have to say. I reckon the winds toped out at 110+knots. The whole cabin shook like we were inside a jet engine and the noise was horrendous. I certainly don’t want another experience like that in a hurry I have to say. But this hut has seen 20+ years of weather far worse than our little blizzard and has survived so it wasn’t too bad if I remembered that.
We left Browning at about 9:30 Sunday morning. We had moved no more than 30mins down the track, happy that all our canes had survived the Blizz, when the Hagg just stopped dead. The fuel gauge had changed over but not the actually fuel tanks themselves – you do that manually and air had sucked through the system. It took John, our head diesel mechanic nearly an hour to get us going. We had been on the track another 20 minutes when the Blizz blew back up and took visibility to zero. Total white out. You could not even see the ground when you opened the door! Nothing but GPS all the way home. I was driving, having said before we left that I had never used the GPS before and wouldn’t mind giving it a go. That was at the hut when we had about 50 Km of visibility! I didn’t expect to be using GPS in a white out mins you. It took us nearly 8 hours to get home and Browning is only about 45km from Casey! Just shows you how things are down here. The terrain is hard to navigate and if conditions deteriorate the going gets tough pretty quickly. I arrived home exhausted but happy that I finally got to see the Browning Peninsular. It was a great few days and well worth all the effort.
Till next week everyone.
Trace ;o]
We left Casey station at 8am. The first cane was a nightmare. The drill wouldn't start, and then kept stopping because of the cold. This drill is 6 feet tall, so I could barely reach the motor to get it started and it was bitterly cold. We were out in the wind and the cold for about 15 minutes. Once the cane was finally in place all three of us had to sit in front of the Hagg with the air vents on full heat for 10 mins just to thaw out our hands. The pain while our hands were warming back up was horrendous! We were all nearly in tears from it. The cold down here is like nothing I have ever experienced. If you let stay out too long you know all about it and it is not a pleasant experience at all. We were all thinking it was going to be a very long, very hard day and weren’t at all looking forward to it. As the canes went along - one every 400 metres, we got the hang of it. After about 8 canes the ground became easier to work and we switched over to the little jiffy drill which runs off the generator. The jiffy is smaller and lighter and a lot easier to use than the diesel one. In not too long the three of us were working as a team, like a well oiled machine and it was taking about 5 mins to drive to the next cane spot and drill one in. We canned until just after 5pm and that took us to the edge of Browning. We had about 5 more to do but it was late and we were stuffed so we went over to the hut instead and cooked up some dinner. The weather had been very kind to us. It was bitterly cold day but the wind dropped off, which made it a hell of a lot easier. Plus it was hard work so we were pretty warm with that. All of our clothing is purpose built for this place as well and you never leave station without all the right clothing. Hands are the biggest issue because no amount of layering can keep them warm.
Browning is the most beautiful place. The Vander ford Glacier is right there at Browning and it stretches out as far as the eye can see. It is magnificent. The area is quite mountainous and with all the bad weather we have been having most of the snow is gone and has been replaced with nothing but blue ice. It is quite treacherous to walk anywhere.
On Saturday, after a few bottles of red the night before with dinner, we got up, had brekkie and were out searching for snow caves at about 9am. We found one over in the front of the hut on the Vander Ford side after climbing down a huge rock face. The cave was full of snow so we dug a way in and it opened out. We walked, slid on stomachs and waded waist deep through all the snow till we could go no further. Then I found another part of the same system – I fell through the roof into it! Ha ha. John pulled me out thank goodness. We lowered ourselves down into the next part of the cave. It was about 2.5 metres I guess to get down into it through the hole in the roof. All good fun.
The four of us spent the whole day exploring around Browning. We walked for hours and hours and covered a huge amount of ground. It was just wonderful. We climbed over so many hills and found more ice caves and then a sunken in cavern that looked like it had, not so long ago, had a river running under it. It was a brilliant day filled with fun, laughter and many beautiful sights. There was so much blue ice around that we had no choice other than to slide down ice cliffs on our butts to get to some places. Mind you climbing back up was pretty iffy I have to say.
I almost slid all the way back down again at the top of one cliff, which would NOT have been any fun!
We had decided that we would pack up and leave Saturday, be back for Saturday night dinner and have a rest on Sunday back at Casey. A big Blizz blew in Saturday afternoon so we had to stay put. Bloody hell it was pretty scary being in the hut I have to say. I reckon the winds toped out at 110+knots. The whole cabin shook like we were inside a jet engine and the noise was horrendous. I certainly don’t want another experience like that in a hurry I have to say. But this hut has seen 20+ years of weather far worse than our little blizzard and has survived so it wasn’t too bad if I remembered that.
We left Browning at about 9:30 Sunday morning. We had moved no more than 30mins down the track, happy that all our canes had survived the Blizz, when the Hagg just stopped dead. The fuel gauge had changed over but not the actually fuel tanks themselves – you do that manually and air had sucked through the system. It took John, our head diesel mechanic nearly an hour to get us going. We had been on the track another 20 minutes when the Blizz blew back up and took visibility to zero. Total white out. You could not even see the ground when you opened the door! Nothing but GPS all the way home. I was driving, having said before we left that I had never used the GPS before and wouldn’t mind giving it a go. That was at the hut when we had about 50 Km of visibility! I didn’t expect to be using GPS in a white out mins you. It took us nearly 8 hours to get home and Browning is only about 45km from Casey! Just shows you how things are down here. The terrain is hard to navigate and if conditions deteriorate the going gets tough pretty quickly. I arrived home exhausted but happy that I finally got to see the Browning Peninsular. It was a great few days and well worth all the effort.
Till next week everyone.
Trace ;o]
posted by Tracey in Casey - Antarctica at 5:38 pm
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