Glacier Walk

Last night I walked to the top of the glacier behind Palmer Station. The view at the top was incredible. This is certainly the most beautiful place I have ever been. In one sense, being at the top reminded me of being on the coast in Mendocino, with the bluffs made of ice rather than stone and trees. You could hear the surf playing up and down the coast. It was the only sound at the top. This is the view to the south southeast. These mountains extend out from Cape Renard, a thumb of land sticking out of the Antarctica Peninsula.

To the east is Mt. William, 1200 or 1300 meters high.


The trail is marked with black flags and signs.

Cape Renard extending past the visible tip of Anvers Island. This is the view over the back side of the Station:


On the way down you get a good view of our glacier:

Most of the way down you can hear two sounds. One is water trickling beneath your feet and the snow. It's the glacier melting at its edge. The other is occasional crashes of ice. At the station you think the crashes are aways ice falling into the water, but when you see how far back the erosion extends, it's obvious that the noise mostly comes form internal rearrangement of the ice as it flows towards Arthur Harbor.

The view of Palmer Station from half way up the glacier:

Our Island paradise. This is the view of the islands we can boat to. On a sunny day like this its hard to imagine the weather can get so fierce that you would be able to get home from the closest rock.


This Adelie welcomed me home.

Then this morning we were visited by two crab-eating seals. This one has been lounging on this iceberg all day.

This chinstrap penguin is curious about what is going on in our refrigerator container.