Sunset and the Crater of Death

Current Conditions
Temperature: 2F
Wind Chill: -17F

Last weekend, Katie, Brody, RaJa and I hiked up to Second Crater for the sunset. I mentioned this spot briefly in a November post, but feel I didn't do it justice. If you look at the Kiwi's Arrival Heights webcam, you'll see the American building with Mt. Erebus above it in the background. Second Crater is the large hill between the two. It affords one of the best views around, and definitely my favorite.

Once a month I inspect an antenna cable that runs from the building all the way up the hill. At the top, the ground drops away again in a bowl-shaped crater. The antenna is right in the middle of the crater. It is a VLF antenna, which, I'm disappointed to tell you, just stands for Very Low Frequency. Remember UHF and VHF? Can you guess? These are all just boring designations for specific ranges of frequency.

The VLF antenna measures electromagnetic radiation from 3kHz to 30kHz, or, in layman's terms, low frequency radio waves. There is also an ELF antenna here that measures from 30Hz to 3kHz. Just like infrasound, which I've mentioned before, VLF and ELF waves are capable of traveling great distances and actually following the curvature of the earth. They do so by literally echoing off of the ground and the ionosphere, like bumper bowling on a curved lane.

Due to the remoteness of their location, these antennae can collect natural occurrences of low frequency radio waves without interference from civilization. The information collected is used to study everything from atmospheric and magnetospheric physics to auroral activity to polar cap phenomena. There is also a strong correlation with global thunderstorm activity, providing information on climate change. When I see that little needle spike, something somewhere is getting hit by lightning.

I found a couple pictures from a previous visit to Second Crater on a sunny summer day. Here I am trying to keep my footing on Crater Lake, the frozen pond beyond the antenna:

The wavy surface of the deep blue ice made for nice sunlight reflections in November. I've been back to this little pool several times, but it has not been this blue since:

Now some more recent shots, from last weekend. The long sunset alpenglow capping Erebus and Terror:

Check out the stylish "bunny boots" we're issued:

This is Rachel. Her last name is Javorsek. We call her RaJa. For some reason, only her left eye was frosty, giving her an amusing "clockwork orange" look:

Brody hiking into the sunset:

Katie thought the hike would be more exciting with an element of adventure and risk, so she renamed Second Crater. It is now the Crater of Death, exemplified by the eerie color in this picture taken from the rim:

The sun is up for exactly 5 hours today. In just one week it will set for the final time. It won't rise again until August 19th.