New Year update

We can see mountains on the horizon! Or are they just mountain-shaped clouds? After many weeks on the ice plains of Pine Island Glacier, our eyes sometimes deceive. However, whilst driving one of many radar lines away from camp, Damon pointed his camera north yesterday, and took a picture of dark silhouettes rising from the flat surface, with clouds draping the peaks – they must be the Hudson Mountains!

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The team is complete

With the arrival of the iSTAR C team at Pine Island Glacier the traverse is now at full capacity. Our journey to the field camp site at iSTAR 06 was simply stunning. Our Twin Otter stopped to refuel at Fossil Bluff and Sky Blu field stations passing over nunataks piercing through crevasse scarred ice. As we closed in on the iSTAR camp the footprint of the previous day’s campsite appeared below with tracks of Polar 1 and 2, the traverse snow tractors providing us with a road leading us to their current location.

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iStar C preparations update

The iSTAR-C team have completed preparations at Rothera and are ready to join the traverse. Poor weather over Rothera delayed our flight from Punta Arenas by one day, so that we arrived on Sunday 24th November ready for a week of hurrying to catch up with the tractor train as it drove along Pine Island Glacier.

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The traverse begins

After one day of bad weather layup in British Antarctic Survey’s Rothera Research Station and four consecutive days of howling wind out in the field, the forecast finally gave a 50:50 chance for a successful flight onto the traverse. This season a 50:50 chance is good enough so we took to the sky.

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Last traverse staff depart

All but two of the scientists going on the tractor train this season are now either in Antarctica or on their way south, with the last two leaving tomorrow. For most of the traverse personnel, the journey south starts either at Heathrow (if they are travelling through Chile) or at RAF Brize Norton (if going… Read more »

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