Impressions of a Trip into the Dry Valleys
By Stephen Pekar
As our helicopter lifted off, we quickly started to head toward the western shores of the frozen McMurdo Sound. The “helo” is a powerful machine that swirls with such intensity that the entire craft bounces slightly as the propellers spin above, suspending us in mid air, like a puppeteer suspending his marionette. There to our south lies an enigma that is literally black and white in all regards, Black Island, White island, and Minna Bluffs. As the names suggests, Black Island and Minna Bluffs are black, consisting of bare black volcanic rock, that have been blasted by mother nature's wind, scouring nearly all forms of ice and snow away. It is as if the polar winds seem to converge, blowing adversely along these landscapes stripping them of all their snow-white cover, leaving them naked to the elements with little ability of the viewer to see the relief of their periphery and the crannies of these rugged dark black volcanic hills. The next island over is White Hill, which as one would expect is draped in thick snow and ice. Why do the winds spare their wrath on this hill, but blow with such fury at the island next to it? One is blown with perhaps moist or more gentle winds that permit it being buried by the soft white powder, giving it a far more tranquil landscape than the harsh forbidding lands of Minna Bluffs and Black island.
As we continued up, there rising up from behind the blacks hills of Ross Island is the great mount of Erebus, not far behind McMurdo Station, whose frozen top belches fire and rolling smoke. Within its crater lies the center of Hades itself and is hidden to all except that brave its perilous slopes of ice and black jagged rocks, past its gaping blemishes of fumaroles of hot steam and poisonous gases that sweat sulfur and water, creating vast passageways of ice on Erebus˙s skin. For those so inclined, a trip to the rim of this living-breathing mountain, one can gaze down into its interior. It is here where a lake exists consisting of rolling boiling scenes of Hades itself, molten in all manner of fashion. A pool of Earth˙s hot interior churning and frothing to the point that in its fury it explodes, hurling out of its rim molten debris in all directions. Today, man taunts this massive edifice of molten lakes and jagged rocks and ice by putting a live video cam at the rim, so we have a 24-hour TV show of a day in the life of what Gates of Hades must be like from the high capital of the lord of the underworld.
As we continued westward toward the Ferrar Valley, we first flew ever closer to the Royal Society Mountains. These majestic peaks loomed larger than at McMurdo Station, with their cliffs of rock laid mainly bare, with only a sprinkling of snow. This is possible owing to their vertical inclinations, which cast snow and ice off, revealing in all of their glory, their naked backs up heaved high into the sky, where only clouds dare reached their icy crest. Within their sides laid the relatively flat layers of an Earth of by gone eras. Some created before all of the continents joined in one great union of a landmass and then only later torn apart to the present continental configurations and before the monstrous sounds of dinosaurs pierced the land. It was a time of warmth that bathed this now harsh ice covered world, a world once covered by simple plants and still nascent fauna that were making their first steps onto land. Now these rocks lay revealed high up stretched across these peaks, revealing the ancient history of this now frozen place.
Turning into Ferrar Valley, all eyes peered eagerly into the vast expanse and heights that beheld our gaze. A long nearly straight valley that extended many tens of kilometers, steep mountains lined it sides with the lower half of these peaks all lined up like a huge carving knife had sliced their fronts off, forming a neat row of mountain slopes, crafted by glaciers from times past. Flying into this valley was like entering a mighty gothic cathedral and an awe of silent amazement was beheld by all.
Deeper and deeper we flew into this valley of juggernauts of iridescent blue ice hanging in heaps that was once snow laid down, but now transformed from the unrelenting pressure from the snow above into a solid mass so hard and forceful. It is strange that what once was such a soft powdery substance is now this unstoppable mass of harden blue crystals, moving inexorable with unwavering desire, carving deep into the solid rock that it now is perched on, and in many times resting on them in a most precarious manner.
