Bonney

The sun is shining brightly through the window of the jamesway at Lake Bonney Camp. Cliff, Karen and I hiked here two days ago from Lake Hoare, a distance of about six miles along the valley floor. Tony gave us a lift in the ATV to the end of Lake Hoare, after which we walked across part of Lake Chad, with crystal clear ice and a deep, beautifully-delayed echo of our yells to the rock face above us. We passed through The Defile, a picturesque narrow passage between the glass-smooth front of the Suess Glacier and a steep talus slope which ascends about one thousand meters. The Suess pitches into the valley at a very high angle, showing the steepness of the valley walls. Halfway through The Defile you can see far up Taylor Valley, with low-angle sunlight hitting the higher parts of the mountains.

The terrain is rock and frozen dirt. We passed so many mummified seals that I lost count, and pretty much lost interest–other than the fact that these seals had traveled that much further up valley than the ones near Fryxell and Hoare, an incredible journey for such an animal, and one without an explainable purpose. Even stranger, we passed two dead penguins, each not more than 18 inches in height if stood upright, with their black and white feathers still intact. Ironically a testament to Antarctica’s claim as “the harshest continent,” and just a memorably dark and poignant image in general, one of these birds was missing its head.

Compared to Fryxell and Hoare, Bonney is a whole different animal. The internet and phone service is unreliable, so I am unable to upload any photos or video from here. The camp is home to microbiology research similar to Hoare and Fryxell but the atmosphere feels more relaxed, the jamesway a little more crowded and disheveled. They do limno runs here just like the other camps, but have a few other projects going as well, which I hope to learn about in the next few days.

Bonney is far and away the most scenic. The valley walls shoot straight up out of the lake, and the camp is fast to the shore. Glaciers hang into the valley at weird angles, spilling out like elephant feet. Huge boulders, scattered by ancient glacial activity, cover the highlands above camp by the thousands. Weathered by windblown ice and dust particles for millions of years, and ranging from football-sized to house-sized, these rocks are in every imaginable shape and curvature, appearing wrenched, twisted, dripped, poured, split, and sanded. Some have holes you can walk into. They are called ventifacts, as they are artifacts of the wind and what it carries. As if the forever-steep slopes, odd clouds, and weird patterns of ice in this valley are not wonderful enough, finding yourself in a never-ending field of ventifacts is truly one of the highlights of walking on Earth.

Being in such a remote place, living in a simple community like this, has triggered emotions in ways I would not expect. Despite the scenery I find myself missing the energy and companionship of the Fryxell-Hoare limno team who I first arrived with. This place has changed with the company. Do the quality of those connections matter? Does the emotion between others always trump what the landscape triggers within you? Here, I believe it does, despite the extreme landscape around us. The same could be said of New York possibly–from afar, it is a huge, noisy, energetic city. As a resident, its your personal connections that come to the fore.

The wind has ceased blowing outside, but McMurdo is in Condition One right now. Tomorrow I’m booked on a helo with the field communications team. The three Taylor Valley field camps receive internet and phone connectivity via repeaters on the top of three mountains. Every week or so the coms guys fly up to check on these repeaters and the level of the batteries. I’ll be on board to see these spectacular vantages of the dry valleys from over 1,800 meters, as we will practically land on the tops of these mountains. Then again, if this blowy weather continues, this flight will be delayed by a few days or put off until next week.