Beaver Lake, Thursday, 27th December 2001
The magnificent weather continued to the morning, but the ionospheric disturbances still negated HF comms with Davis. Luckily, we had recourse to the satphone at the GPS site, giving Davis our weather obs. An hour and half later relief was at last at hand with Dave and Leigh, flying in ready to take Anya and myself down to Beaver Lake with the GPS kit and survival gear. AMISOR were still clouded in to the NW and ops were still not possible there enabling our flight to the Prince Charles Mountains (PCMs). Daryl and Peter (Heli engineer) from Davis arrived to help out, bringing a good supply of Davis brew and other goodies. It was very good to see them again ! Twenty minutes later we were airborne, flying around Landing Bluff to get some last shots of the site, before striking south-west across the wind-swept desolation of the Amery Ice Shelf, 240km to Beaver Lake. Flying at an elevation of 500 metres, the horizon of white nothingness was quite daunting, broken only by a few nunataks and dry hills to the east and lines of sastrugi (linear snow drifts) on the shelf itself. For twenty minutes no bare land could be seen, only ice and snow with the occasional hole on the ice-shelf, a collapsed snow bridge over an invisible crevasse. Heavy crevassing to the south indicated the transition between the Lambert Galcier and the Amery Ice Shelf. Here the ice shelf is several hundred metres thick, with liquid sea-water underneath at enormous pressures. Soon the Prince Charles Mountains came into sight, completely snow covered save a few steep bluffs at the northern end of the Loewe Massif. It is the heaviest snow cover ever seen on the PCMs, and a big impediment to the geology programs planned this summer. The ANU GPS site is supposedly snowed as well, so I'm pretty keen to see the situation for myself as soon as possible. The unusually high precipitation of snow is another ironic indicator of global warming, as warmer air sustains more water vapour, and in dry regions such as the PCMs, this becomes snow. The cleft of Pagodroma Gorge came into view as we passed over the Jetty Peninsula, and the huge pressure ridges where the Charybdis Galcier spews into Beaver Lake. These pressure ridges were heavily laden with filthy debris eroded off unseen ranges beyond. Normally, Beaver Lake is a dazzling sheet of blue ice, set against a backdrop of brown-red mountains and the canyon of Pagodroma Gorge. Now, the scene is completely white with snow cover. Five red spots near the shore became larger, the distinctive, round, "apple huts" of Beaver Lake base camp, our home for the next few weeks. A stiff katabatic breeze from the SW was still blowing at 3.30 and altostratus cloud was starting to roll in. We unloaded the choppers, paid our farewells and thanks to the pilots and we hastily moved all the gear into the empty apple huts. It was doubtful whether they would return today with the worsening weather conditions. Many of the fuel and gear caches around were completely buried in snow drifts and the quad cache excavation a few days earlier by Andy and Margie must have been exhausting work, as the three quad bikes were buried up to their handlebars. One U/S quad remained, the other two were taken with great difficulty up to Lake TerraSavoje 29km to the north last night by A & M. We attempted unsuccessfully to call Davis and Lake Terra.. (Mobile 10) on the HF, but still nothing. Anya and I went for a stroll up towards the GPS site, 4km to the west. What till was exposed was very spongy and moist in consistency, a bit like walking over wet clay covered in small stones. Exposed seams of coal were leaking black, inky streams onto the snow below, much as through the snow was being bombed by buckets of sump oil. Anya, remarked the difficulty of locating a suitable site for the seismic kit in these conditions. Returning to the apple huts, we cleaned out about eight years of very stale and iffy ration items and started to clean up the some of the huts, suitable for habitation (hibernation?). The Christmas cake given to us by Robyn and Simon at Law base was absolutely delicious. By midnight I turned in, after blocking out the strong light coming through the apple hut windows.

Beaver Lake, Base Camp S 70°48'11" E 68°10'46"

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