🧵 40 years ago today, during my first #Antarctic and Southern Ocean research cruise, two colleagues and I began our second day on South Georgia while RRS Discovery III was moored at King Edward Point. We had camped overnight in West Cumberland Bay next to the Lyell Glacier. 1/n - ThreadSky

polarrobs.bsky.social • 80 days ago

🧵 40 years ago today, during my first #Antarctic and Southern Ocean research cruise, two colleagues and I began our second day on South Georgia while RRS Discovery III was moored at King Edward Point. We had camped overnight in West Cumberland Bay next to the Lyell Glacier.
1/n

Reposted from Rob Larter

On that first day we managed to cross Echo Pass and descend to the flank of the Lyell Glacier in West Cumberland Bay. The three of us then spent the night there crammed into my small 2-man mountain tent. I noted in my diary that the Lyell Glacier was the dirtiest glacier I had ever seen.
5/5

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polarrobs.bsky.social•80 days ago

On this day we planned to cross the glacier and get as high as we could on the ridge on the opposite side in the time available. We had started to try and cross the glacier the previous evening, but turned back after realising that we would not have reached the other side before nightfall.
2/n

polarrobs.bsky.social•80 days ago

We set off at about 6 am, shortly after sunrise. A strip of ice along the far side of the glacier was much cleaner, and after reaching this we were able to make faster progress.
3/n

polarrobs.bsky.social•80 days ago

Realising that reaching any of the mountain summits around the Lyell Gacier was not achievable in the one day we had, we revised our objective to reaching a col at about 2000 ft on the ridge between the Lyell and Geikie glaciers.
4/n

polarrobs.bsky.social•80 days ago

On reaching the col (in the middle of the top left photo) we were rewarded with a wonderful view to the west over the Geikie glacier (top right photo). The views along our route of the mountains around the Lyell Glacier were also stunning.
5/n

polarrobs.bsky.social•80 days ago

We made good time on our descent and got back to the tent around 4 pm, allowing us some time to explore along the shore and admire some of the elephant seals, fur seals and king penguins there before dusk.
6/n

polarrobs.bsky.social•80 days ago

We slept in the tent again that night, but knowing that shore leave was scheduled to end at 1 pm, we set an alarm for 4 am. When it woke us we brewed up using the last of the fuel we'd brought for the makeshift meths stove that I'd made in the ship's workshop from an empty hot chocolate tin.
7/n

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