Typical Saturday night

Since all of us who are down at McMurdo until our contract ends, Raytheon/McMurdo Recreation often come up with fun trips for people to sign up and take, to get them off of the base. One of which said trips, is to Cape Evens/The Ice caves. Usually the line is often 20-25 ft long, and people line up as early as a half an hour before the trip sign-up is posted. I however, didn't wait in line. By the time time word got around that the trip sign up was coming out, the line was very long. The max. amount of people allowed on these trips is only 16 or so. But by a stroke of luck, when I was walking by the list, after the line had departed and I was able to sign up. Of course I would be leaving for a good portion of my Saturday night, the first one I've had off since I have gotten here. But, I couldn't pass up this opportunity.
The way that the trip/groups go off of McMurdo, over the sea ice/ice shelf is via a truck/transport called a "Delta". Picture is of course right here. That is the legendary volcano right behind it. The Delta is a left over transport from the days that the Navy ran McMurdo, I guess they didn't want to take it back with them. And after riding in it, I could understand why. So our driver and our group leaders had all us file into the back of it and begin our trip. Its better to ride in the front of these "delta's" because the back windows fog up due to most of the people inside. The Delta can only seat 3 in the front, including the driver. Our group itinerary was to go to the Ice Caves, then to Cape Evens. Cape Evens is the legendary spot where "Scott's Hut" is located. More about Robert Falcon Scott here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Falcon_Scott) Thanks Wikipedia! The following will be very picture heavy so I hope you are ready!
On our way to the Ice Caves we spotted some penguins. YES! I don't mean to brag or anything, but me and the penguins...we know each other. We found ourselves two Adelie penguins.

Sorry that they are so small. But they are laying on their bellies. Which is the best way to travel, FYI. But due to the Antarctica Treaty, we can't get closer than 30 ft, (read we can't approach them closer than 30 ft, but if they get closer...) Unfortunately, we were on a tight time schedule...McMurdo is very serious about people and their trips. If you are late even by 5 minutes, they activate the Search and Rescue squad here...its pretty serious. I mean Antarctica...its a harsh continent. So after we took our photo's we passed by some seals as well. I'm only a CJ minor, but I would suggest that the seals were following the penguins trail.
Please excuse the poor picture quality, it was taken inside the Delta. There was a group vote and mostly everyone wanted to spend more time at the Caves and Evens than to see these "land slugs". No worries, I'm sure I'll see some of these guys later.
So the really wicked cool thing about the ice caves, is first how they are formed. Basically we are traveling on sea ice, typically 20 ft, deep. The Ice Cave is formed when a wave and the a glacier meet creating this small cave. The Ice caves aren't a annual accurance, the last one was recorded on 2001. So this is a rare find. When we show up to the ice cave entrance, It looks like this (see bellow). Picture Indiana Jones: Raiders of the lost Ark. I know most of you will know the scene I'm talking about, in the Egyptian Desert.
The cave, isn't the biggest I've been in. Yea, I'm a spelunker, ask Greggy Smalls, he was there (BSA, Kentucky 1997?). But, the cave is truely amazing. The blues that are captured here are created by the sea ice, under extreme pressure.
In order to gain access to the cave, you have to climb up that little hill and slide down into it. Pretty Extreme, no? They only allow 6 people in at once, due to the size of the cave. And for safety reasons no doubt. The guy sliding down in this shot is Christian, another firefighter down here.
I mean, look at these blues! Yea, I'll share more photo's when I come home, or maybe I'll email a couple...keep y'all on your toes. I don't want to waste my bandwidth allowance on all the Cave photo's I took. I will try to upload a video I took down there, but like I said the bandwidth allowance here is strict. So after I'd guess an hour or so, we all hoped back to the Delta and began our trek to Cape Evens. The ride wasn't too bad, though it was a bit long, roughly an hour or so. The Kiwi's have a small detachment of personnel working on the Scott hut. They basically live and work out there, and I thought McMurdo was remote.
The historical significance of this small hut is truely amazing. And thanks to the Kiwi's and the US gov't it is being very well preserved. Scott's hut, for those of you who don't like reading the wiki-article linked earlier, was the base of operations for many Antarctic explorers, Scott and Shackleton specifically. It was in the Ross sound, which allowed ships to come in and drop off supplies. Scott's Hut has most of the supplies from its era still in it. I'll take you on a little photographic journey though the hut. The photo at the beginning of this post is me, in front of the door to the cabin. I entered the hut through the "stable" entrance, with the rest of the group.
Scott for some crazy reason, loved horses more than dogs. In fact, many say that this love is what most likely doomed his exploration to the pole. There are dog and pony skeletons around the base, half in snow. Its quite freaky. But the stables are connected to the hut, that housed 25 men. Here are some shots of the whole deal.
Stable:

Supplies:

Dead Penguin, I tried CPR...he's been dead for like 80 years.



Seal Fat? Yummmmm, it smells great.
Cross to Shackleton and Scott's men who died.

Shackelton's Anchor, when he landed
Of course the classic "Facebook" Photo, I'll upload it there soon.
And the lonely penguin shot. Please play the sad hulk theme song.

We'll That's all the photo's for now. I hope you enjoyed this very photo heavy blog. See you all later.