Status Update
Following Rob Lambert’s blog earlier this evening, there can be few readers who do not now understand just what a nightmare the Ice Team finds themselves in on this seemingly endless patch of blue ice. I think what he writes about how it would be a breeze on foot says it all: the Cats might be the only chance of crossing the Antarctic in winter, but they have their downsides for sure. Rob wrot…
The Holey Land – by Rob Lambert
Few things in life are more disconcerting than realising you’re in the middle of a minefield. Of course, for thousands of unlucky people around the world that’s a daily reality, but that’s another story. Here we’re comparatively lucky: the ground doesn’t go bang when you step in the wrong place, but it might just give way. Crevasses: the bugbear of icy travellers, and for the last week…
Status update by Brian Newham
Written at 1900 BST yesterday: The area that we are in is a disturbed blue ice feature with extensive ice upheaval. This creates unpredictable crevassing in terms of location and orientation. GPR is producing a confused set of data due to the multitude of fractures lines within the ice. Reconnaissance on foot has taken us 1.8km south and this also has not identified a viable safe route. We hav…
Status Update
Despite high winds this morning the visibility was sufficient to allow us to move south along our flagged route and then push onwards for a total of 2.2km. Poor traction on the ice required us to break down into eight loads however. All cabooses and fuel are now at this new position which is at the transitional section between blue ice and snow (ground conditions are currently a mixture of…
Into the Unknown
Crossing the Mother of All Blue Ice Crevasse Fields – a video by Ian Prickett, featuring Spencer Smirl and Brian Newham. Filmed two days ago, edited yesterday and aired today! &nbs…
Status Update
High winds, very limited visibility and the fact that the Ice Team is in a difficult area have prevented the Ice Train moving…
Status Update
Image by Ian Prickett After two days of painstakingly surveying and preparing a route across an especially difficult crevasse field, the Ice Team was finally able to get on the move again today and overcome the treacherous terrain. The team has spent most of the last two days identifying and filling in large holes in the blue ice with the Cats to enable safe passage and this comes with it a fair…
Pic of the Day
by Brian Newham…
Not Your Normal Service
By Spencer Smirl During our initial 250hr service 200hrs ago we had discovered that Seeker was transferring oil from both final drives into the transmission. This is the result of a failed lip seal where the axle shaft runs between the two gear boxes. This can be a fairly common failure at low temperatures but very unlikely at such low operating hours. The failure of the seal is the result of on…
Status Update
by Brian Newham All eight remaining fuel scoots have been brought up to last night’s camp in pairs by double-head. We then started to move both cabooses further south but very quickly encountered difficult terrain with honeycombed ice. Progress has been very slow and with fading light we called an early stop for the day whilst we formed a strategy for tomorrow. Tomorrow we will recce the rout…
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