Images of

ANTARCTICA

Castle Rock

Photos © 2002 Seth White

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So January rolled around, and I still hadn't hiked the Castle Rock loop. As I was dozing in my bed early one Sunday afternoon, I got a call from Kevin. After some arm twisting, he convinced me to come along with him and Robbie for the hike. We brought sleds for the downhill part. It's about 7 miles to hike north on the peninsula to Castle Rock, and then return to McMurdo via the Scott Base side of the peninsula.

This is the flagged trail to Castle Rock.
A ways along the trail, there sits an apple hut in which people can rest or escape the weather.
Another picture of the flags and apple hut.
The hut itself.
We stopped in at the apple hut for a minute. Here are Kevin and Robbie taking five.
The trail crests a ridge and then continues on to Castle Rock. This particular day was not especially windy or cold, just overcast. So, unfortunately, we didn't get the great veiw of Mt. Erebus from Castle Rock. But the gradual transitions and soft shades were nice.
Closer to Castle Rock, there is another apple hut....this time a stretch version.
Inside this hut there is an optaphone system, some gear, and a little food.
Along the way we ran into Lisa Ferber, who works in Crary with us. She is an outstanding athelete and does pretty well in the races they hold on station each year. Today, she had skied back and forth to Williams Field twice, and was now doing Castle Rock. Whew.
Castle Rock. Geologists will tell you that this is actually an interesting and unique formation. But I'm not a geologist, so I won't.
The rock again, looking out over McMurdo Sound.
Robbie and Kevin, getting set to head down the sleddin' slope. A nice slope, indeed.
This is Kevin taking off.....
....followed shortly by Kevin wiping out.
The trail leveled off a little bit after the initial steep part. But, it picked up again farther along. To the right, there are numerous crevasses. The trail does not take a direct route back to Scott Base in order to avoid these. A couple years ago, some people decided to take a shortcut, and two of them died in a crevasse.
Here is Robbie wiping out along. Naturally, there are no pictures of me eating snow here.....
Although the day was overcast, the landscape still caught my eye in a number of spots. I liked this scene particularly, so here are a couple pics. Very soft lines and shades.
Same thing.
An .avi file of Kevin ripping past me on the final slope. In spots, one can get up some good speed on this trail.
Looking back at the slope from the bottom. The line of black flags is a crevasse, which has been covered at the trail crossing. This is also the place of maximum speed on a sled. It's a pretty big crossing, so we each shot the opening at full speed.
Another view from the end of the slope.
The NZ'ers have set this old truck up with a tow rope which pulls skiers up the hill a ways. The "Kiwi Ski Slope" is off to the side of the Castle Rock trail.
The tow rope system.
After the long downhill from Castle Rock comes the boring part of the hike. You have to walk along the (flat) ice shelf back to Scott Base. There are some nice ice ridges along the way, but it was pretty boring. Especially wearing bunny boots (which are the only boots I have). Not bringing a pair of boots with me was, in retrospect, my biggest omission in coming here. I assumed that whatever gear I needed would be provided. Which, technically, is true. You don't NEED anything other than bunny boots. They are warm, waterproof, and rugged. But they are heavy, cumbersome, and your feet sweat like hell in them. And it's fatiguing to hike in them to say the least. Oh well...
View of the flags and White Island from the trail back to Scott Base. We decided to skip out on the glorious hike back to McMurdo, so as soon as this trail hit the Williams Field road, we hitched a ride on a shuttle van (these run every 45 minutes when Willy is open) for the remainder of the hike.
Here are a few pics from a fall trip to Castle Rock. It was an official recreation trip. I ended up being one of the Pisten Bully drivers, which was pretty nice as we drove all the way around the Castle Rock loop. Along the way were some off-camber sections that were fun to drive, and we also stopped at the "Silver City" hut along the way. This is a little recreation hut on the ice shelf, just off the Castle Rock loop trail. You can reserve this hut for a night through the recreation department. Hadn't been inside that hut before, so that was nice. We also climbed Castle Rock...another first for me. Anyhoo, this is Mt. Erebus, Castle Rock, and Mt. Terror at twilight. Nice!
A weird picture of Mt. Terror, much underexposed. A cool effect.
After hiking up the not-so-sell-groomed trail to the top of Castle Rock, here is our group. The top of the rock was enveloped in fog, and you could not see very far past the edges of the rock. So the view wasn't that great, but definitely unique!
After hiking down, three girls decided to do the Charlies Angels pose in front of the snowmobile lights.