Champ Island, Franz Josef Land. Captain nosed the ship into the...

Champ Island, Franz Josef Land. Captain nosed the ship into the channel separating Champ from Salisbury Island and the views of the glaciers were amazing.

Homathko Part 3

Homathko Part 3

We had an auspicious start, with two solid days of good weather that saw us well established on the icefield. However, it quickly became unsettled again, a common feature of the weather in the Coast Mountains! We were often able to make distance across the icefield, but it was always too poor for downhill skiing.

Occasionally storms would pass through and we’d be woken by the tent flapping and vibrating in the gale. We built high walls from snow blocks to prevent damage to our thin nylon and aluminium shelters, and once we were safe we opened the whisky and lit our pipes, broke out the books and the iPods and enjoyed some downtime. Roger built an igloo as the latrine kept filling in with snow, but before we ruined it we had a Scotch and Christmas cake party inside, happy to be both a) out of the wind and snow and b) standing up!

Eventually time grew short enough that we had to think of leaving we had a boat to catch and so we used our Yellowbrick beacon to request a forecast. Fortunately a break in the weather was expected so we holed up, kept digging the tents out and waited for the sun…

Glacier calving in Patagonia.

Glacier calving in Patagonia.

Boom!!

Falling ice; The Perito Moreno Glacier in Argentina calves blocks of ice into Lago Argentino http://flic.kr/p/q6EceU

Antarctic Sunset

Antarctic Sunset; An early season sunset illuminates clouds in Antarctica http://flic.kr/p/pYdxtV

Yawning polar bear

Yawning polar bear; A bear on an iceberg stretches and yawns. Svalbard, http://flic.kr/p/p2NsEU

Polar bear sleeping on an iceberg

Polar bear sleeping on an iceberg; A bear sleeping on an iceberg next to a calving glacier in Svalbard. http://flic.kr/p/oJcd2K

Lockroy Sunset

Lockroy Sunset; A typically fab sunset at Port Lockroy, Antarctica. http://flic.kr/p/nHNQv4