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Cape Crozier

20 images Created 11 Sep 2016

Visit to Cape Crozier, Antarctica, site of the Worst Journey in the World

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  • Pram Point, location of New Zealand's Scott Base, on flight to Cape Crozier. The waves in the ice are pressure ridges formed from the Ross Ice Shelf pressing against Ross Island at Pram Point.
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  • Details of some very large ice features, crevasses and caves, on the slopes of Mount Terror. Shot during the flight to Cape Crozier.
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  • Slopes of Mount Terror and massive crevass on the approach to Cape Crozier
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  • Cape Crozier, Ross Island, Antarctica
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  • The Knoll, Cape Crozier
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  • Wilson’s Igloo, a stone igloo built by Edward Wilson, Birdie Bowers and Apsley Cherry-Garrard during the 1911 Worst Journey in the World expedition. At that time the only known emperor penguin rookery was located at Cape Crozier, and they were attempting to collect emperor penguin eggs for study.
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  • A hurricane strength blizzard struck the party when they were in this stone igloo, and it’s the telling of this story by Cherry-Garrard that makes this ruin significant. The roof was torn from the igloo, and their tent was carried away, leaving the 3 men stranded in the igloo enduring hurricane force winds and getting buried under snow for days. In the end they managed to collect three frozen eggs.
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  • 100 year old cord still tied to igloo rocks
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  • The remains of the green Willesden canvas roof which shreaded and left Bowers, Wilson and Cherry-Garrard exposed to the hurricane/blizzard which struck Cape Crozier in July 1911
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  • Wilson's Igloo, Igloo Spur, Cape Crozier, Antarctica. "Our scheme was to build an igloo with rock walls, banked up with snow, using a nine-foot sledge as a ridge beam, and a large sheet of green Willesden canvas as a roof. We had also brought a board to form a lintel over the door. Here with the stove, which was to be fed with blubber from the penguins, we were to have a comfortable warm home whence we would make excursions to the rookery perhaps four miles away. Perhaps we would manage to get our tent down to the rookery itself and do our scientific work there on the spot, leaving our nice hut for a night or more. That is how we planned it."  Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World 1910-1913
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  • Ted Doerr environmental scientist, John Radford helicopter pilot and Ben Adkinson  mountaineer accompanied me to the ruins of Wilson’s Igloo. This view looks toward the slopes of Mount Terror and Bomb Peak. Helo can be seen in the distance on the upper right.
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  • Items visible in a wood crate in the igloo include canvas, wool and penguin skins.
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  • Yours truly buffeting the increasing winds at Cape Crozier. We were forced to retreat after spending less than 20 minutes at the site because of the rapidly changing weather.
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  • Looking toward Minna Bluff where the storms blow out of the south, and where the hurricane that struck the igloo came from.
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  • Other objects in the igloo, penguin skin and what appears to be part of the canvas roof popping up through the snow cover.
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  • Different angle reveals what appears to be wool or possibly a ball of string, penguin skin in center, and canvas from the roof on the right.
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  • "I do not know what time it was when I woke up. It was calm, with that absolute silence which can be so soothing or so terrible as circumstances dictate. Then there came a sob of wind, and all was still again. Ten minutes and it was blowing as though the world was having a fit of hysterics. The earth was torn in pieces: the indescribable fury and roar of it all cannot be imagined." Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World 1910-1913
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  • Making our escape, a view of Igloo Spur and Ben the mountaineer packing up his gear in high winds.
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  • "The view from eight hundred feet up the mountain was magnificent and I got my spectacles out and cleared the ice away time after time to look. To the east a great field of pressure ridges below, looking in the moonlight as if giants had been ploughing with ploughs which made furrows fifty or sixty feet deep: these ran right up to the Barrier edge, and beyond was the frozen Ross Sea, lying flat, white and peaceful as though such things as blizzards were unknown. To the north and north-east the Knoll. Behind us Mount Terror on which we stood, and over all the grey limitless Barrier seemed to cast a spell of cold immensity, vague, ponderous, a breeding-place of wind and drift and darkness. God! What a place!" Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World 1910-1913
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  • Helo landing site about a half kilometer from Wilson’s Igloo
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Portraits of Place - Photographs by Shaun O'Boyle

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