Hollinger in Antarctica

What do you do in Antarctica when you are confined to your tent for yet another day? As the focus of one of my science projects (cryoconite holes) is buried under thigh deep snow I decided to use my day productively and bring together some of the data for my second project – to determine the ecological footprint of the expedition. The ecological footprint is a measure of consumption of resources and quantifies the environmental impact of our transport, food, clothing, equipment, waste and fuel use. I am quantifying it by using data from when we left Heathrow until we return there again, although there will be the impact of training weekends and of getting to Heathrow itself. I have entered data into a spreadsheet and will have the help of Best Foot Forward (an organisation that specialises in ecological footprinting) when I return to the UK to standardise and interpret the data. Probably the biggest impact is on the global environment through CO2 emissions from our air travel in actually getting to Antarctica. We flew from London to Madrid, on to Santiago in Chile then on to Punta Arenas before flying into Antarctica. In Antarctica we took one Twin Otter flight on 16th November and since then we haven’t used any motorised transport. I often ask myself, ‘how much motorised transport would I have used in this time period if I was back in the UK?’ I feel we have had a relatively small impact on the local environment. Water use is minimal; the last time I flushed the toilet and used water to clean my teeth was on 10th November, the last time I had a shower and washed my hair was on 9th November and the last time I used a washing machine to clean my clothes was 29th October. I think of the amount of water I would have used had I been at home. The last time I turned on a light switch was 9th November and I can’t even remember the last time I watched the TV, changed the thermostat on my heating or charged my mobile phone. How much energy do all these activities consume? In contrast, in Antarctica our energy use has been minimal; we have used 68litres of fuel for all our cooking, (heating?) and melting snow for water. Finally, over the last month how much waste have you put into your wheelie bin? We have generated 15kg of food rubbish and 65kg of poo! Now when I flush my loo at home I will give more thought to where it goes.

I haven’t been working on the footprint all day; other activities included watching ‘The Ladykillers’ and planning for the Antarctic Olympics. The events had to be postponed today due to bad weather (something to so with 20cm of snow and 30 knot winds) so watch the update tomorrow for more details! Happy birthday to Lewis 8IA and Aliyah 8RG.

Yesterday evening we set up camp knowing that it would be very brief. The fine weather and continuous daylight giving us the opportunity to reach Patriot Hills before the unpredictable Antarctic weather changed again, perhaps trapping us for yet another day on the Glacier. We ate and drank as much as we could and bedded down for about two and a half hours before striking camp and setting off towards the still-distant line of Patriot Hills at about 11.50 (just before midnight). This time we walked in Mukluks, rather than using the skis on our sore and blistered feet. Of course the weather did deteriorate. A phenomenon of low contrast – sometimes described as being in the inside of a ping-pong ball – causes difficulties seeing any features on the glacier. Heaving heavy pulks over sastrugi that you can’t see until you fall over them is a pain. However, we had the incentive of the end of our journey and pushed on through the night, leading in turn through the murk, until at last we got our first clear view of Patriot Hills camp when we were about 5 km away. Eventually, we all walked into camp at about 5.00 am. We had dragged the laden pulks over 32 km in 17 hours (including our break for food and sleep). We all now have an enormous sense of achievement and relief. In spite of fearing that weather and terrain would not allow us to do it, we did indeed walk all the way back to the base.

After lots of hot drinks, we all caught up on a few hours sleep and then started working away packing up the gear that will need to be flown back to Punta Arenas. We have also been weighed by Phil for his project and we have nearly all lost some weight. We are now trying hard to put it back on as we will spend the next few hours catching up on more sleep and eating! Tonight the staff of A.L.E. at Patriot Hills have asked us to tell them all about our expedition, so preparing that will be our next job. In some ways this marks the end of the main part of our expedition but there is still a huge amount to do – and some time to go before we will make it back to the UK. I will try to carry out some further research on the blue ice near Patriot Hills tomorrow. Our scheduled departure from Patriot Hills back to Chille is tomorrow however the poor weather is unlikely to allow this. Carl has just pointed out that this could be our home for the next ten days as we wait for a weather window to enable the plane to fly in. Right now we are all dreaming of a proper wash and the flight home. Let’s hope that the weather is good to us!

To answer your question Neill – Yes we melt the snow for cooking and all our drinking water. Happy Birthday to Elizabeth 13CO and Robert 11DV.

Yesterday evening we were standing in glorious sunshine eating specially saved biscuits and drinking a small bottle of red wine that we had secretly brought with us from Chile as a special treat. The sun lit up the mountains and the spectacular expanse of the Union Glacier below us and there was hardly a breath of wind. The weather was so wonderful that, even at minus 12 degrees all the men had a big wash out on the glacier in turn! We woke this morning to a slightly different scene as the wind had increased. It still seemed relatively mild and so we decided to strike camp around lunchtime and set off pulling our pulks laden with all our gear, fuel and food up the glacier of Connell canyon. At this point the wind kicked up bigtime and the ice was treacherous forcing us to stop and fit high altitude boots and crampons to continue. Parts of the glacier were so steep that we had to pair up to tow the pulks up to the crest of the glacier. The haul along the top was very cold and windy and tiring but finally, after about three and a half hours of gruelling work, we were able to pitch our tents on this windy spot half way up Connell Canyon. Soon we will have to haul our pulks up a stretch of the glacier that is even steeper than the bit we did today. I can’t say that I am looking forward to it, but once we pass the top of the col leaving the Canyon, our long walk to Patriot Hills begins. Fortunately this will be almost entirely down hill.

Many of you have been asking about the weather so I have put some of the data we have collected on the wether comparison page (see the link on the right). The coldest day we have experienced was actually not long after we arrived in Antarctica when the temperature was -20⁰C and we had gusts of wind up to 68.2mph making it actually a lot colder! Lots of you have also asked about the food we have been eating. Essentially itthe main meals are essentially melted snow, eated up in a pan and poured into a bag of dyhydrated food (my favourite is sweet and sour chicken). It may not sound very appertising but after a day hauling the pulks uphill in the cold it is one of the things we look forward to. We all agree on the worst - Chile Con Carne,  it is grim. On days we pull it out of our food bags we can’t face it and put it back in the sledge. This could mean that we end up eating it for a week straight at the end of the expedition but it is worth the risk. We are carrying six day of extra rations so we are hoping we will get away with it.

Thanks to Rachel Coiley at Ballyclare High School for her question ‘why did I want to come on the expedition?’  after all who in their right mind would want to wear the same clothes, eat the same food, live in a tent and not wash (hair or body) for over a month.  As most of you know I am Geography teacher at Tapton School in Sheffield, but I am a former pupil of Ballyclare High School in Northern Ireland. Geography is all about people and places and what better way to learn about these things than go and see and experience them for yourself. In addition to these experiences I am also getting the opportunity to conduct research. When I was at Ballyclare High Scool I was taught by Mr Dougan and Mr Whincup for A level Geography! I did my A Level project on the wind farm just outside Ballyclare, on the Collin, and I found this small piece of research was a great way to find out about an issue that was important to me and to other people in the area. By having the opportunity to carry out research in Antarctica I’m hoping to gain a better understanding of some of the important issues that are related to climate change. I have got a lot better at putting up my tent as I get very cold very quickly! It takes about 10 minutes to put the tent up and then about another 20 minutes to ‘dig in’. Due to the strong winds in Antarctica we have to weigh the tent down around the edges with lots of snow and inevitably that involves a lot of digging with snow shovels. It is tiring work but worth it when you hear the wind whistling past your tent in the middle of the night!   

Thanks to Franziska for your question. We are currently in the Connel Canyon. Our exact position (measured with a GPS) is South 79⁰ 49′ West 83⁰ 20′ at an altitude of 866m above sea level. The local time is 5 hours 20 minutes behind the UK time. However as there are 24 hours of daylight we are actually using the same time as Chile which is only 3 hours behind the UK time. This is easier for us as we set off from Chile and the sun never setting means that there is no real need for us to adjust to a different time zone. Happy birthday today to James 13SP, Alicia 13CM, Stephanie 13BW, Josh 10JH and Petrina 8NM. Hope is all well with you all back in the UK.

After several frustrating science days where I have struggled to find any cryoconite holes today has also been one of the most successful science days we have had since we set foot in Antarctica 19 days ago. We are now into the second half of the expedition and so it is somewhat of a relief to have finally found some cryoconite holes and to be able to start measuring and sampling them. Last night we had decided that today we would move camp further up the Canyon to see if that would help in our search for cryoconite holes and lichen. Unfortunately the weather had different plans and the wind was too strong this morning to attempt a move. Rather than sit in our tents again, we decided to go for a walk and amazingly found an area of blue ice that had been uncovered by the high winds. On it were lots of cryoconite holes- exactly what I have been looking for (for days) and only about 300m from camp. There was suddenly a lot of frenzied activity and everybody joined in together helping to sweep the snow off the ice to make the holes more visible to enable the sampling to take place. So what exactly am I researching (thanks to Rebecca in Y10 for doing th Tapton update this week and asking the question about my research). I am looking at two things; firstly what is the ecological footprint of the expedition, in other words what is our environmental impact of coming here? Secondly I am looking for (and have now found!) cryoconite holes which are dark patches on or near the surface of the glacier. It is a bit like if you go outside on a hot day with a black t-shirt on – you will feel much warmer than if you have a light coloured t-shirt on. The dark rock attracts extra solar radiation and causes the ice around the rock to melt much more quickly than the white surfaces. The theory is that as more rock becomes exposed, then there are more dark surfaces which causes the ice to melt much more quickly and the glaciers may disappear faster. Click on the link to the right of this blog entry entitled ‘Ruth’s Project’ for more detail and have a look (on previous pages) at a blog entry posted at the end of August following a training expedition in Norway where I measured and sampled several cryoconite holes. Happy birthday today to Chris 12WN, Kassim 10RH and Liam 9AB.

Today has been a frustrating day. Phil and I spent several hours skiing over slippery, slidey, rock hard blue ice in search of the elusive cryoconite holes. Normally you wouldn’t ski over such a surface, you would put your crampons on, but we were faced with crevasses every metre or so, in fact we have crossed hundreds today. Luckily the crevasses were big enough to swallow a foot, but not a ski, therefore we were much safer with planks on our feet. Yesterday I posted a photo of Phil sweeping the snow off the ice – well today here (top right) is a photo of me doing my share of the sweeping! Amy and Ian hunting for lichens had much more success, after a long search of a nearby valley they were rewarded with some samples and a lichen not previously encountered – it was green and rubbery apparently!.

Lots of birthdays today so happy birthday to Alex 13BB, Sadaf 11JI, Nicola 9WO, Joe 8RG, Charlotte 8NM, Erica 8JM and Oliver 7CC. I hope the exams are going well for all the Y11’s at Tapton. I am looking forward to next week when I will be speaking to a Tapton class during a live video link up. In the meantime, over the next couple of days, I am hoping to get some of the weather data we have been recording onto the blog so make sure you keep logging on and compare it to the weather you have had back home.

This was the view I woke up to this morning! A view from Connell Canyon looking out towards the vast expanse of Union Glacier and the mountains beyond, over 15kms away. We moved camp last night at 9pm as conditions were perfect to see where we were going! The contrast had been exceptionally poor throughout the day and I found it difficult to distinguish much more than my arm from my elbow. The crevasse risk was high – slots hidden by newly fallen snow, so we moved with care. I have spent today on the hunt for cryoconite holes, a difficult activity when what you are looking for is hidden under five centimetres of snow. While Ian and Amy went to hunt out more lichens, Phil and I, armed with a brush each, set off down the glacier to do a bit of sweeping. We swept the ice off the surface of the blue ice to see if any cryoconite holes revealed themselves (the photo opposite is Phil sweeping away the snow). It was quite frustrating as almost every sweep revealed nothing more than blue ice and more blue ice. However, our science days are growing fewer as time seems to be marching on so we have to make use of every available opportunity and I suppose uncovering nothing is a result in itself. Still, the high temperatures made a pleasant change and we were able to do research in nothing more than our thermals. We returned to camp to find the lichen hunters had uncovered more lichens. They were really chuffed with their findings as it was their first lichen find in Connell Canyon! They had also completed a reconnaissance mission to find out more about the route out of the canyon and reported it to be ‘steep’!

Happy birthday to Ruth 13EW, Bella 12BF, Natasha 11LB, Ellie 10PJ and Nathaniel 8JM. I hope you are all well back in the UK. As you will have noticed I have not managed to answer as many questions and things have been a bit quieter on the emailing front. This is due to battery life and a huge sat phone bill so now all messages are going through a UK contact for filtering. Quite a few of you have asked about the things that I am missing from home. At the moment I am missing my family, friends, a decent wash…..oh and of course my form class 10RH! – I hope you are behaving for Ms Henderson and Mr Spick. As far as washing is concerned it is simply non existent! It sounds a bit disgusting but I have been in the same clothes now for 18 days and I think one of the things that this trip has taught me is about appreciating simple things. The food has been ok but it is turning a little monotonous and, despite what you might think, there are only so many Mars bars and Haribo that you can eat each day. I am really looking forward to some good home cooked food back in Northern Ireland at Christmas (thanks mum!). Thanks to Simon for his question – the Ordnance Survey don’t do Landranger Maps for Antarctica but maybe you could suggest that you could be a cartographer and make maps for them on the understanding that they send you here and pay for you to make the maps! Thanks to Rebecca Butler for updating the Tapton School website this week. Finally, congratulations to the Green Team who raised around £27 from Saturday’s ‘Where’s Miss Hollinger’ competition.

Following a frustrtating day lying in our tents listening to the wind, it was fantastic to wake up and find that the wind had eased and the weather improved enough for us to move on. Even with improved weather we are still wrapped up in lots of layers as this photo of Amy today shows! We are in the middle of relocating ourselves from the Henderson Glacier over to Connell Canyon so that we can carry out some more science work (and hopfully find more cryoconite holes) in a different area. Moving sites is a serious mission involving the dismantling of tents, packing everything into the pulks (sledges) and then hauling it all up a slippery slope with skies on. Having already hauled two sledges up here two days ago we knew what to expect but it was still a difficult morning dragging the pulks upwards when with every step forwards we seemed to slide further backwards! The crevasse field had become even more trecherous as the fresh snowfall had covered many of the crevasses making them difficult to spot. Some of the crevasses are so deep that you can’t see the bottom and one wrong foot could result in someone crashing through into an icy crack in the ground. 

We finaly made it safely to the col and dug out the other two pulks of food, clothing and poo that we had stashed two days ago. After thinking all the hard work was done in getting to the top we soon realised the difficulties involved with lowering the pulks down the steep slope on the otherside of the col. We roped all six pulks together with a pully system and then Ian, Phil, Amy and I, all roped to the pulks, attempted to control the them on their decent. The pulks had a mind of their own – similar to walking six disobedient dogs! Halfway down the weather closed in again and the poor light conditions and snow make it extremely difficult to distinguish between the sky and the ground. With the ever present danger of crevasses it was too dangerous to continue so we have put the tents up and are now camped half way down towards the valley of Connell Canyon. We hope to continue the decent and reach the valley tomorrow and then spend a few days in Connell Canyon collecting more science data. It is really exciting to be moving to a new location and seeing more of Antarctica. It was frustrating having to spend yesterday in the tent but everything in Antarctica takes so much longer than you expect. 

Happy birthday today to Alex 12KB, Luke 12WN, Jane 11JA, Ella 9AB and Wagdi 8RG. 

The weather has taken a turn for the worse again today with gusty winds and snowfall. After hauling two of our pulks loaded with kit up to the col yesterday today is a bit frustrating as we were hoping to be over the col today. Still the break from being a human husky will give me the opportunity to reply to some more of your questions. The number of days since I last……

Watched TV   – 29

Switched on a light   – 14

Switched off a light   – 14

Washed my hair   – 15

Heard the sound of traffic   – 14

Ate Haribo   – 0

Used my mobile phone   – 21

Thanks to Karen for her email and I am glad to hear that the lower school arts project went well and that you were able to incorporate some information from the blog. Thanks to Simon for his question and thanks for writing the update for Tapton School. There are no fires allowed in Antarctica because of a thing called the Antarctica Treaty – it is a bit like a set of laws that govern the use of Antarctica. For navigation we use a map but have a couple of GPS’ so we can record where we are and also when we find lichens and cryoconite holes it is good to mark that acurately too. Each day we have to report in to Patriot Hills to let them know we are safe and we use the GPS to give our coordinates. Bob – the winds seem to be coming from different directions. We are in a glaciated valley – the Henderson Glacier, so the wind tends to be funnelled down the valley. I think we can count ourselves lucky here as at Patriot Hills, some 60kms away, they experienced a gust of almost 80 miles per hour yesterday. I hope you enjoyed the ice! Thanks to Debbie for her message too. All the Totley training was of great use in helping me to be fit for the expedition. Good luck to those in Totley taking part in the Wingerworth Wobble or Clowne 10km today. I would be more than happy to come and talk to your students at Ecclesall Infant School when I get back. It has been good to hear the news from NI and I am looking forward to getting some more messages and questions from the students at Ballyclare High School as they start the topic of Antarctica! Good luck to all the Y11’s at Tapton for their forthcoming exams! Happy birthday today to Tom 13AS and George 9AB.

Today we woke just before 8am (Chilean Time) and beagn the elaborate process of packing up the camp. Despite the team finding some fantastic new lichens, I have found very few Cryoconite holes so we have decided to move on. Our brilliant large communal tent (the Cosmos), that does so much to make our lives comfortable here and to provide a sociable base for the whole group, nethertheless required a good bit of effort in taking down as it had become well and truely sunk into the glacier. Several poles needed the warmth of our hands to melt the ice and free them so that they could be packed away. It took us just over two and a half hours from begining our breakfast to complete the dismantling of the camp and load up our pulks with everything we have. We then set off, strung out in a long line, to climb the Henderson Glacier towards the col that will allow us to reach Connell Canyon.

Distances are incredibly hard to judge in the clear air here and although the pass looked quite close, it was only after about four hours of determined hauling that we reached the more steeply rising ground that leads up the col. Here we had to pair up to haul the pulks higher up the pass. After some really hard pulling we stopped below the top of the pass and dug in our three smaller tents for the evening. The wind tugs, pushes and whistles around us but we are begining to feel quite snug and (almost) looking forward to our “instant” expedition hot evening meal! Tomorrow (if the weather allows us) we will go over the top of the pass and see what waits for us in Connel Canyon. We have had reports that it is a spectactular and beautiful place, but that seems to be true of everywhere we’ve been. The twisted strata of the rock faces above us here are incredibly dramatic and a veritable geologists (Angus) paradise.

Happy birthday today to Thomas 13BW, Rebecca 12CL, Bradley 10AK and Fae 7TP.  Alice Dodd and Ian/Anna – Thanks for your messages.

To answer some more of your questions: Mina – Thanks for your questions, it is always great to hear about life back in the UK. Things are going well in Antarctica, if a little cold it has been a bit warmer today (only -10 degrees!) compared to the -20 degrees we experienced a few days ago. The cold is very cold and with wind chill the coldest we have experienced so far is -60 degrees. If you ask Mr Jukes in the science dept, I am sending back some weather data so that you can compare weather in the UK with the weather here in Antarctica. Yes the food I talked about a few days ago in the blog was exciting to start with but it is all getting a bit ’samey’ now. It equates to about 4,000 calories per day which is about double what you need to eat in the UK. I am really glad that I have been able to visit such an amazing place. Although at times it is difficult because it is SO COLD, I am managing! It is much colder than I expected. We have been having lots of chocolate and Haribo which sounds great but we have had so much that I am getting sick of it already and I would kill for some fresh fruit and vegetables. I hope all is well at Tapton School, Good luck to all those taking part in the Autumn Fayre this weekend. Keep encouraging everybody to email me at stevebull@bullexpeditions.com (note the slight change in the email address).

Following two days of strong winds forcing us to temperarily abandon the science work during the day and cross our fingers that our tents will stay up during the night it is good to get back to work. The wind subsided today and so we split into our two teams again to search out lichens and cryoconite holes.  Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be many cryoconite holes here, although I am hoping to find lots more as we move further along the glacier over the next few days. The ones that I have found are relitively small being approximately 20cm in diameter (Thanks to Alice, Emma, Matt and Chris for that question).  The lichen studies get more exciting every day as Amy, Ian and Steve have managed to find a species that we hadn’t found before.

As the weather has been so good this afternoon, the boys are taking it in turns to use a small square of mat to go out and give themselves their first wash of the trip. They even have a small bar of soap that they have bargained off Carolyn. It’s still -8 degrees outside and the girls are safely tucked inside their tents away from the sight. I think we will be content to use our wet wipes for the time being. Amy tried a clothes wash yesterday but drying clothes in Antarctica is quite tricky as within seconds of being outside the wet clothes freeze!

Lots of birthdays today! So happy birthday to Charlotte 13BB, Xin 13CO, Ryan 13CM, Faysal 11VB, Nathaniel 11LB, Jessica 8DY and Charlotte 7PL. 

As always thanks for all your excellent questions and I will now try to answer some sent in by Silvan, Alice, Emma, Matt and Chris: At noon the sun is directly to the north of us (the opposite to you in Sheffield as I am in the southern hemisphere). Although it does not get dark we can actually see the moon throughout the day which is a bit wierd. We are currently 5 hours 20 minutes behind UK time but for practical reasons we are working on the time in Chile which is 3 hours behind UK time.   Every evening we have to phone in to Patriot Hills – the place we flew into when we arrived in Antarctica – and we keep the same time as them.  They use the same time as Chile because that is where the plane takes off from. The highest peak in Antarctica is Mt Vinson which is 4,996m high. The peak is about 100 miles from where we are camped at the moment. Thanks to Adrian Boyes for his message about the Rab gear which is helping to keep me warm – as you say the early polar explorers only had wollen cardigans whcih is pretty awe inspiring!