Ice Cave

Current Conditions
Temperature: 16F
Wind Chill: 8F

I heard rumors over the summer that several years ago there used to be tours of an ice cave on the Erebus Ice Tongue. According to the rumor, it had walls 50 feet high, which may be true, and tours stopped due to the recently overbearing focus on safety; which isn't true; they stopped because they have been unable to find a suitable cave to tour.

Also several years ago, a large iceberg (about the size of Delaware) broke off of the Ross Ice Shelf and drifted in front of McMurdo Sound, blocking the frozen sound off from the rest of the Ross Sea, and preventing the sea ice from melting out. In the old days before iceberg B-15, McMurdo Sound would often melt out all the way to town in the summer. During the B-15 blockage, the ice on the sound surely became thicker, and hasn't melted out completely since.

This year, the Erebus Ice Tongue grew quite a bit more than it has in recent years. meaning that a considerable amount of pressure must have been released to allow it. I'm assuming this has to do with the slow thinning of McMurdo Sound's sea ice, back to it's pre-B-15 equilibrium. More importantly, what that means for us is that chunks of glacier on the edges of the ice tongue were able to flake off this year, creating ice caves, one of which we now have the pleasure to explore.

On Sunday, the day before I was scheduled to leave the ice, they arranged a trip to Cape Evans and the ice cave for guide trainees, winterovers, and polies who are still in McMurdo on their way to South Pole station. It was a beautiful, sunny, balmy day, and I was ecstatic to have the opportunity. What a great way to spend my last* day on the ice!

Three Deltas full of people drove for two hours out to Cape Evans. Those of us who had seen the cape and hut reloaded one Delta to head straight to the cave, about half an hour back.

The entrance is a shallow, tubular slide. Here's Emily ready to drop in:

And RaJa, looking like a kid at Christmas at the bottom of the slide:

Once inside, the ambient light changes to a deep azure as it filters through the snow and ice above our heads. Thinner sections of the enclosure allow whiter light to pass through.

The left wall is a perfectly smooth sheet of glacial blue ice. The right side, where the "flake" has fallen away to create the cave, is covered in snow and ice.

Icicles hang over our heads:

At the back of the room, the cave continues on as a narrow crack up towards the surface.

A closer inspection reveals large ice crystals clinging to walls and hanging from above.

The white light of day creeps in through the entrance when we turn around:

And on the way home, a single Adelie penguin scooting across the ice sheet, the Royal Society mountains as his backdrop.

What an amazing day.