The Road to Double Curtain Glacier

Antarctica sea ice
Sea ice pressure ridges looking toward the Ferrar Glacier.
Pair of skuas in Antarctica
What does the skua say?: Haw! Haw! Haw! Haw! Haw!

I’m back from Sam Bowser’s camp — helicopter picked me up at 5 p.m. yesterday. Sam, his wife Laura and the rest of the team were really welcoming and fun to be with, and took me to a couple of fantastic places. I’ve already posted the trip Laura and I made in the previous blog entry.

The next day Sam, Laura and I went by snowmobile to a fascinating scenic spot that doesn’t really have an official name, but unofficially they call it “the road to Double Curtain Glacier.” Comic relief near the beginning of our trip was provided by a pair of nesting skuas standing on a rock. We stopped the snowmobiles and I got out the telephoto lens. They looked at us, and we looked at them, and then another skua flew a few feet above them, to which they responded by cawing loudly, “Haw! Haw! Haw! Haw!” as if to say, “Don’t even THINK about landing here while we’re on this rock.” Then they calmed down, then they started up again. It sounds like someone laughing sarcastically.

Pair of skuas in Antarctica
We must protect this house!
Pressure ridge near Double Curtain Glacier
The “Road” to Double Curtain Glacier has a lengthy section that looks like this, with very high pressure ridges where the sea ice has been pushed up against the coastline.

What we traveled on was not really a road, of course, it’s a flat area of coastline around New Harbor that this time of year is covered with snow and ice, and it looks like someone plowed a flat area of snow for vehicles and left the piles of snow and ice in a very even line on the sea ice side of the lane. What those piles really are is a pressure ridge, which is a ridge of ice pushed up by the movement of the sea ice. I saw such ridges on the McMurdo Sound sea ice when I was doing my training, but they were only a few inches high. I saw them by the New Harbor camp but they were a few feet high. But as we got closer to the Double Curtain Glacier, the lane got narrower and the wall got higher, forming a crazy Baroque facade that I’m guessing was 20 feet high in places! At some point, the road became so narrowed and slanted we parked the snowmobiles and continued on foot.

Scallop shells
Sam was interested in the large numbers of scallop shells that had been carried to the shoreline by the ice.

The ice has begun to melt and form weird shapes of unending variety. You don’t want to walk too close to one of those towers in case it becomes unstable and collapses. The pressure ridges have carried along numerous scallop shells which are scattered in the ice.

Blue wave of ice
One of the odder sights was this blue curving wave of ice. I wanted to get a closer look, but it was hard to tell if the ice was stable enough to walk on, so I dared go no further.
Fang, the ice formation
I named this formation “Fang,” because it looks like a cartoon wolf in profile.

We eventually came to a place totally blocked off with ice. We climbed a little ways up the hill under the Double Curtain Glacier, and saw a mummified seal skeleton and some moss — the first plant life I’ve seen here. 

Ferrar Glacier, seal skeleton and pressure ridge
Mummified seal skeleton on the hillside above the pressure ridge. The Ferrar Glacier is in the distance.
Mummified seal skeleton
Close-up of the seal skeleton. The flipper anatomy is very clear on the right. There is some dried, mummified skin still attached. No telling how long it’s been here; could have been many years.
Double Curtain Glacier
The Double Curtain Glacier emerges from the fog above the seal skeleton. You can see how it has two different leading edges, hence the name “Double Curtain.”
Moss in Antarctica
There was no plant life in evidence except a patch of moss with white salt crystals on top, not far from the seal skeleton. This is a close-up. We took care not to walk on it because it’s very delicate.
Herbertson Glacier
From this elevated spot you get a good look at the Herbertson Glacier beyond the pressure ridge and across the sea ice from the Double Curtain Glacier.

Many of the photos shown here were from that slightly elevated vantage point on the side of the hill. It was a clear day and we could see the Herbertson Glacier (which was directly across the sea ice) and the Ferrar Glacier (to our right from that spot). As we were leaving, we also drove onto the sea ice about halfway between the Herbertson and the Double Curtain and I got another nice photo of the Ferrar.

Ferrar Glacier
The Ferrar Glacier in the distance, as viewed from the sea ice.

I am incredibly fortunate to have been able to visit this place, which one of Sam’s team told me very few people have gotten to see. Unless you are staying at the New Harbor camp, it is relatively inaccessible. I am working right now on processing some of the 3D captures I made there so I can bring back a little bit of the place for others to see. Once I clean up these files I’ll be able to fabricate them as sculptures with a 3D printer or router. I’ve got one capture processed already. Here are a couple of screenshots of it from the 3D file creation program:

3D file of pressure ridge
3D file of part of the pressure ridge, shown with the “texture layer” (the coloration).
3D file, untextured
3D file shown without the texture layer.