Mountains abound on the islands along the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, and on the Peninsula itself, and form an extension of the Andes. Its central plateau is an ice sheet at around 1,500-2,000 m, but is largely hidden from our view from the west by rugged mountain ranges that rise 1,000 m, or more, more or less straight from the sea.
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I’ve always had a passion for mountains. I recall as an early-teen reading books about Alpine or Himalayan expeditions. I don’t know what sparked this interest; maybe it was innate! I clearly remember my first bushwalk. I was around 12 and joined some family friends walking up Mt Roland near our home in Sheffield. It was – and still is – steep, and I remember soaking in the bath afterwards and telling Mum that if anyone asked me to climb Mt Everest, I was saying “No!”.
At University I gave up my great love – cricket - to join the bushwalking and ski clubs, which lead to rock climbing and an active passion for mountaineering. I dreamed of going to the European Alps, the Himalayas, or Patagonian Andes to climb serious mountains, or of overwintering in Antarctica and exploring there. I did spend a summer mountaineering around Mt Cook in New Zealand, and thought that would surely lead to greater things!
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After that, I moved to Canberra to finish my degree, and found a different kind of love that put thoughts of conquering the world’s mountains well and truly to the side. I have absolutely no regrets about this change of direction!
However, I just can’t avoid looking at pictures of mountains, and especially the real things, and planning (hopefully feasible) routes to their summits. In Antarctica I had ample opportunity to indulge in this fetish – which may be one of the reasons I didn’t see the whales others had! The image I had was of non-ending mountains, and with a change of scale I could easily imagine I was viewing the Himalayas.
   Details of mountains – from the boat, via a telephoto lens |
The islands are mountainous, some rising to 2,500 m, though generally more like 1500 m. All these mountains are ice covered. Rocky ridges separate hanging glaciers or avalanche prone gullies. Other glaciers descend right to the sea, ending in massive ice cliffs that rumble and crack and are alive with promises of imminent icefall or glacier calving.
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When we visited Wordie (and Bransfield) House and Vernadsky Station it was clear their residents had indeed engaged in mountain sports. In particular, in Wordie House I saw skis that very much resembled the home-made ones we used in the University of Tasmania ski club in 1960, and a pair of boots that could well have been the first ones I used for bush walking and rock climbing at that time. Mountaineering clothing and gear has changed since then! In the modern Vernadsky Station I saw posters from an earlier era depicting rope work and belay stances, but their skis were state of the art cross-country skis.
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Two particularly spectacular areas for mountainous vistas were the Lemaire and Neumayer Channels. The mountains on either side of these narrow channels were not necessarily particularly high, maybe 500 m, but because the channels were so narrow and the mountains rose out of the sea with no coastal plain, or their heads were hidden by clouds, they could look enormous!
Click on the following two images to view a slide show of images from these two Channels. In each case, then click on the first image, and navigate with the arrow keys.
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Behind these coastal mountains were higher mountains and ice sheets that we could only see through gaps in the coastal ranges. Also, the channels were so sheltered that reflections are plentiful, though sometimes broken by floating brash ice to small icebergs.
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I remember standing on deck one morning scanning the surrounding waterways and mountains and seeing in the distance a wonderful copy of Cradle Mountain. The calm sea took the place of Dove Lake – never mind the icebergs floating serenely – and the Cradle Mountain look-alike was plastered with snow, right down to the lake, with just grey cloud behind. I thought this faux Cradle Mountain rose at least 1000 m from the sea, and would truly dwarf the real Cradle! Shortly, gaps appeared in the cloud and I realised the faux Cradle was really only 200 m high, if that, but behind was a vast glistening snow slope rising up to an ice dome that really was probably 2000 m above sea level.
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Another morning dawned with a truly magical light. The clouds were high and it was very bright, even though the sun was hidden. Land and sea were illuminated with a sharp light that presented the mountains in a clear black and white. I felt I was in an Ansell Adams landscape! Again, it was the mountains and the light that captured my attention, and it was only later that I saw in some of my images a whale way off in the distance, or a lone seal or penguin on an ice flow!
It was very hard to get a true sense of scale in this landscape. Often the summits were shrouded by cloud, so my imagination could then create anything from the bits I was seeing. Sometimes the clouds parted and I would be impressed by how high and majestic the full mountain actually was, and realise that what I had been seeing was truly just the tip of the iceberg (to mix my metaphors). Other times parting clouds simply cut my imagination down to size! When visible, the ridgelines of even quite moderate summits displayed awesome cornices and ice formations, or delicately poised hanging glaciers ending in ice falls above steep rock faces.
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These glimpses into the Antarctic mountains left me with a feeling of awe, and of admiration for those who do practice in the art of mountaineering on any of the remote mountains of the world. My small experience of mountaineering gave me a great appreciation of the dangers and challenges they would encounter on any of these peaks! My deck-bound route-finding and fantasising was certainly fun, but would I have been willing, even as an invincible youth, to venture out on one of my chosen routes, or onto mountains under the conditions that clearly prevail in places like this?
That is a question I’ll never have an answer to!
 Sunset glow, King Geroge Island |
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