LDB, Arrival Heights, Ob. Tube, and Discovery Hut

I had a very busy day and a half off this week. On my day off, I went out to the long duration balloon facility, or LDB for short. It is about 6 miles from the base out on the ice, and from there you have a beautiful view of the whole island, and can see Erebus, the volcano, with smoke coming out of the top.

The facility is still starting up since its early on in the season, and scientists who are doing atmospheric research with balloons are starting to come. That night I went on a tour of Arrival Heights and the Cosray building, which are two scientific centers studying particles. The Cosray research has been going on since 1960, and is the longest running thing here.

The next morning, I went out to the Observation tube. Past Hut Point out on the sea ice, there was a tube put in that goes under the sea ice and has a little glass room at the bottom so you can crawl down and see what everything looks like under the ice. It’s really neat to see what the ice shelf looks like from the bottom- its covered in crystals. Plus, climbing down the tube gives you a really good visual of how thick the ice really is, about 15-20 feet.

Waiting to go down was really a morning at the Antarctic beach…the sun was shining, we were walking on the frozen ice waves, and we could hear the skuas in the background (which sound like seagulls).

We had to wait awhile to go down the tube, and got to meet a group of people heading to the pole. They were delayed here for a few days, and wanted to see as much as possible during their stay. I ended up giving them a tour of Discovery Hut, the hut at Hut Point, since I am a historical hut guide. This was my first tour, so it was very exciting. Actually, it was my first time inside this hut, so that was exciting as well. It is still full of stuff leftover from the explorers.

This was the first hut built in Antarctica, by Scott in 1901. Although it doesn’t have as many artifacts as Cape Evans, it holds many different pieces of history, as many different explorers used it over the years. It also holds a lot of seal blubber. The hut was primarily used for storage, meat butchering, and as a theater. It was fascinating to see, and really nice to realize how the hut that used to be the portal to the Antarctic (most explorers at least used this particular hut in one way or another) is just a stroll away from where the largest Antarctic community is now, and still serving as the gateway to the Antarctic, as most people come through here to get anywhere on the ice. All in all, another set of wonderful adventures in Antarctica.