Singy Island - Week Nine

8th Feb – The Foca Hut, West Coast of Signy

Iain and I set off at 10:30am to catch the low tide that reveals a causeway in a lagoon in front of the Orwell glacier. This allows us to route to the other side of the island without having to cross the ice cap. Which today was not visible, a sure sign that you don’t want to be up there. The wind is gusting in petulant little bursts, the gaps between them lulling you into a false sense of stability as you teeter across rock pools and stepping stones that are too far apart for your diminished leg length. We may have jumped the gun a bit with the tide, it could have been lower. And I could have ended up drier. Ive been paying with wet boots and socks all day as a result. Over the crossing we stopped at Waterpipe Hut, an in case of fog/high tide hut, changed socks and dropped off some gin supplies before heading up the Limestone Valley: a steep gorge between the mountain mass that is home to the ice cap and the radiating ridge of that gives us the peaks of Jane and Robin. The valley was more dramatic than the view from base suggests and has shielded its entrance with a short but steep snow wall that hides the valley from view as you stand beneath it.

At the top on Jane Col we dropped our bags in a small saddle of rocks and ascended the adjacent Jane Peak. Some great views back to base and around the whole East Coast. This was the highest point of the crossing and it was a steady walk down to the West Coast from here. The Foca Hut is newer and larger than Cummings, more of your typical wooden shed type hut. Its got four beds in a good sized room with separate living/cooking area and Perspex windows looking out to sea on two sides. After a break, new socks and cup of tea, I set out to finish the sampling that I had been doing all the way from the tidal crossing and put out ion-exchange membranes amongst a Giant Petrel colony up on a ridge. Im putting these out around the island to get an idea of the nutrients the different wildlife groups contribute to the terrestrial ecosystem, so that when I get the data back from the contribution of my bug, I have something local to compare it too.

Back to the hut for a freeze-dried pasta dinner, and then we headed out again for a jolly to Amos Lake a few miles away along the coast. With no work to do I got wildly distracted by everything from feathers in streams to capturing my favourite combination of Signy residents: Giant Petrels and Icebergs. The light was great, oranges and golds seeping throught he gaps in the clouds. Now in bed, wrapped in a zipless downfilled sleeping bag with another Buffalo fleece lined sleeping bag opened up to be a blanket on top, I am slowly warming up. And my feet are dry for the first time today. Im writing by candle and Tilley lamp and the wind is just loud enough to make me cosier without alarming me into thinking the roof will leave us. Walking North tomorrow before heading back to Waterpipe hut via a different route.

9th Feb – Waterpipe Hut

Good nights sleep last night. Eventually got warm, then toasty, then cosy as hell. Was a drag to leave my sleeping bag nest this morning. Iain made me tea in bed which helped though…

We got up and packed, a slack three hours after waking up. Thankfully there was no rush, but still. No Alpine starts here. The winds were reasonably high as we set off and the air was full off mizzle and clag. The ice cap was still under cloud, which was now rolling down the mountains towards us. We walked along the coast, following coves so I could sample for a mite called Alaskozetes along the way (it likes to live just up from the shore). By lunch we had got to North Point where I had some more work to do putting out membranes to assess a penguin colonies contribution to the Islands nutrient content, collecting soil cores and some more mites. I set Iain loose to roam about checking out what we could see of the view and birds. I was working in the Adelie colony I had helped count a few weeks ago, but now it was desolate. Just a few fledgling chicks around, everyone else had left. There were quite a lot of dead penguins, and happy Skuas as a result. Im not sure if this is usual, but I couldn’t take many strides before finding another carcass. Im guessing they were the remains of fledglings that couldn’t fend for themselves once their parents left for sea.

From North Point we waded, literally, across Moss Braes, sampling as we went. Moss Braes is the most intact green bit of the island, a sweep of mire enriched with peat and moss that can be meters deep. After a mile or so of filtering swamp through my socks, we started uphill to a thankfully dry and stony fellfield ramp that leads up to today’s highpoint, Spindrift Col. Once here I was back in new territory having never been down into the Paternoster and Three Lakes Valleys that take up this portion of the Island. We found debris from an old scientific or engineering installation near a lake up in a hanging valley. No idea what it was for, maybe pumping freshwater down to the hut as this was done in the area in the past, although from a different lake I thought?

Arriving at Waterpipe Hut later that afternoon, I was pleased to see that it had a proper stove for actual heat, meaning I could be warm through means other than my own metabolism for the first time in 24 hours. And could dry my socks and rather sorry looking boots. I brought my old hiking boots along to Antarctica for two reasons: 1) they’ve been my loved and comfy companions over many thousands of miles and several field seasons. They’ve been around the world and I didn’t want to leave them out of this adventure. 2) Whilst BAS provide you with perfectly good Meindl boots, these are brand new and I didn’t pick them, so didn’t want to rely on them in case they didn’t fit nicely. Which they don’t. They wilfully try to remove circulation to the majority of the parts of my feet that are most useful. Last time I wore them they did a good job of turning my toes from pink to red and then onto a lasting shade of off-white, regardless of how they were laced, or how much I shouted at them to stop it. So my trusty back up Scarpa boots have been in use more than intended. As I look at them hanging by their feathered shoelaces from the beam above the fire, splitting at several seams, no longer waterproof, oozing with patches of glue from repairs gone by, I am giving in to the fact that they need to be put into full time retirement. And maybe even sent off to the hiking trails in the sky. Or the incinerator on the Shackleton. End of an era. Now I have to battle it out with the, urgh, Meindls *spits to the side in disgust*.

We took advantage of a brightening evening and headed out to collect a few more samples from a local cove and take in the panorama of the East Coast and Coronation Island that a few small hills and knolls allowed us. This part of the Island is strewn with whale bones. Not insignificant ones either. Blue whales. Vertebrae the size of small cars, and rib bones the length of roof beams. Before science came to Signy, this was an old Norwegian whaling station, the large tidal beaches made for good places to butcher a whale it seems. Even the beach outside base has a suspicious amount of white pebbles, which on closer inspection you realise are eroded and rounded bones of whales no longer destined to roam the Southern Oceans. It’s a reminder that most of the knowledge we have of Antarctica has been built over time upon the shoulders of fisherman and whalers who knew this place long before the likes of Amundsen and Scott. Like it or not, the evidence is here in front of me. And its not pretty. Im just thankful that its science that prevails in Antarctica now, and not resource hunting.

10th Feb - Waterpipe Hut

Two big thumps this morning made me look out of the hut window suspiciously. Nope, nothing but a serene view over sea and snow-capped mountains. A larger rumble and crash 30 minutes later sent Iain out the door to investigate. The front of the Orwell glacier was collapsing in on itself. After we packed up and got back to the tidal crossing, we saw that the glacier had lost 30-40m of itself to the increasingly warm winds and sea waters that have been knocking it back year after year. This latest collapse saw the majority of the cave at the front of the glacier, disappear. Now there was new blue ice scarring the outline of what was formerly a deep river tunnel. The Orwell is an interesting glacier in that it spill over the edge of a steep cliff face in a suspended waterfall. At its steepest it is near vertical. The crevasses that form here give the impression that this wall is held on by threads of ice and would collapse at any moment, but in reality even with this level of retreat those vertical walls may take years to peel away from the cliff underneath. Ice really does move very very slowly. What a noise that would make though when it finally does go. A lot of ice to fall a long way down.

After another drenching tidal crossing, we got back to base around lunch, and I promptly took the rest of the day off, enjoying a long shower, central heating, and hanging up my boots from what may well have been their last trip out. At least it was a multi-day hike in Antarctica. Not a bad way to go! I spent the rest of the day spending too much time on photos, and as a result may well have over-edited them all. I’ll let you be the judge of that though!