Landing on Nussbaum

One of the Dry Valleys, most of Taylor Valley lacks the large glaciers that fill both Ferrar and uppermost portions of Taylor Valley, therefore laying bare its desolate ground. Our first landing was on a hill nestled in the middle of this formidable valley. A hill made of grounded up rock and boulders apparently pushed and laid down by glaciers from a time of when this area was filled with ice. Upon landing here, we scurried like little children on Christmas morn, running in this case to spy one vista after another of spectacular ice and soaring peaks. We were several hundred feet above the valley floor, which was covered in hexagonal shapes fashioned by the ice itself, although their appearance looked far more manmade by their symmetrical lay out. However, it was evident that what laid in front of us contained no hint of humanity's heavy hand anywhere.

Inside twenty minutes, we were back in the helicopter to continue down to the Commonwealth glacier. Within this “dry valley” were features that appear to be incongruent with dry; small frozen lakes of light turquoise blue, with small braided streams and rivers saddled between Nussbaum Ridge and the mountainsides. Though now locked into place from the frigid conditions, one can imagine when in the summer time, when the Sun moves in the realm of Aquarius in the sky and with it, bursts of sunshine warm the ancient stones and rock, which lie beneath the frozen lakes, melting the ice from below. One would then see expanses of liquid water forming in this “dry valley” that would flow down these ephemeral streams. The dark rock laying on the ground also serve to melt the surrounding snow and ice forming little streams that flow into the channel that crisscrosses along the bottom of this valley. With a never setting sun gilding her beams of radiant energy, the spirits of winter’s cold and dark would be much maligned and would bemoan in envy that the sun so low in the sky can produce such results, ”this is our realm and the sun and her legion of warm golden rays has no place here”. But the sun is unrelenting and warring against her is a most futile ambition.