Vernadsky Station – 65° 14’ S, 64° 15’ w

The wind and low cloud hung around most of the day on the 16th providing a chance to relax, catch up on diaries and cook meals for the return across the Drake.  By mid-afternoon the wind had eased sufficiently to head up onto Harbour Glacier for a camping night.  A small bit of confusion in Ushuaia meant that two tents had been left behind, so we decided to use the opportunity to practice survival skills.
The route up onto the glacier followed a narrow ridge and we roped up for glacier travel at the shoreline.  There was a cool breeze blowing and the light was often very flat. Ross knew from the previous trip that this gentle tongue of the glacier was inclined to be crevassed and we watched carefully for slight depressions and small holes indicating bridged crevasses, probing carefully with a ski pole when in doubt.
Although there had been a lot of talk of crevasses and preventions taken against them, until now they had been a threat only in our minds. We had seen evidence of crevasses on previous trips ashore but we hadn’t encountered any face to face. That changed on our short jaunt up Harbour Glacier as a few of us found ourselves taking deep steps into unseen holes, despite keeping a close eye on the terrain. Then Ross at the head of the group went into one up to his waist! Jeanne did a great job anchoring him and Ross was glad to have the rope on. Eventually he managed to extricate himself from the crevasse, but we decided this was the end of our walk as the light was flat and dull with the wind still keen.
With one three-person tent between six, we needed to get some shelter established for our overnight stay. The tools at our disposal were five snow shovels, the gear we had carried up, and a large supply of snow. The first step was digging a trench into the snow (and piling up what we dug onto the windward side to set up a wall). Next we dug out a camping pad for the tent in an alcove next to the trench and got the tent set up. To establish the rest of our ‘base’ we extended our ski poles across the trench and laid tarpaulins, pack liners, and whatever else we could find over the top. It was remarkable how calm it was in the snow trench given the winds blowing over the top.
After we had some semblance of a camp set up, we got some water boiling from water we had brought up supplemented with snow. After picking out our preferred dehydrated meals, we got them ‘cooking’ and had a gourmet feast! We let Darrel know our GPS coordinates in case anything went wrong and settled in for the night.
Two skiers came past our camp on their way to support an overdue climbing party (that we spotted in the distance}.  We advised them of the crevasses, and while the leader had a rope and harness the second climber didn’t, so he borrowed Mike’s and under instructions from the leader, roped up immediately.  It was just as well as he fell into a crevasse 20 minutes later. Mike has named his harness “Bing” (the skier’s name) in honour of the event. We saw the climbers’ tracks leading down into Port Lockroy and their yacht was gone in the morning.
We all claimed to have slept well when Mike woke us at 7:30am to say the tarp was leaking onto his sleeping bag.  The overnight snow was melting on the roof.   In windless conditions we walked back down the ridge, admiring the monochrome scenery of black sea and rocks against contrasting white snow.
Back on Spirit by 10am we motored in the calm, overcast conditions down the Peltier Channel beside the Fief mountains with their freshly snow plastered peaks.  The Lemaire Channel contained numerous icebergs of all shapes and sizes and large patches of brash ice, so we zigzagged slowly, stopping to observe humpback whales and later crabeater seals resting on iceflows. The scenery was truly spectacular despite the overcast conditions, and we all spent most of our time up on deck.
Our destination was Vernadsky Research station in the Argentine islands, but that story will need to wait for the next blog.

Ross/Liam