Fluffy Kittens and Embroidery: Burnet, bog and scree

Heading over to Maiviken for a cup of tea in the hut

I've decided that, since I spend quite a lot of time wandering around our little bit of South Georgia of an evening or over the weekend, I will just write about that for now as I'm so horribly behind with the blogging. This also means I can just put all the nice pictures I've taken on recent walks up in one go rather than writing about them separately and trying to get my ever more dubious memory to summon up too many details of individual outings. The way it works for BAS employees here is that there are areas of the island you are allowed to go to on our own, there are areas you are only allowed to go to if you have a friend and there are areas you are just not allowed to go to at all. Luckily there are a few people on base who are keen to get out exploring at every opportunity so it's never too difficult to find company for the longer excursions. Before considering going walking in South Georgia there are two things that it's useful to know:

1) Burnet is evil

Why burnet is evil

2) Nothing is stable and you will either sink into it or it will fall off in your hand

Providing you remember these two points and are prepared to embrace them fully then wandering around these parts can be really most enjoyable.

Looking down over Penguin River from Brown Mountain

Sat in the evening sun

From base there are a couple of places to go for short evening walks, not so much right now admittedly as it gets dark before 5 and there is A LOT of snow around. When I first arrived here Penguin River was my favourite destination as, for a while at least, there were baby penguins to be seen. Unfortunately they didn't survive a particularly vicious storm and now there are none. All a bit distressing as I was rather looking forward to watching them on their path to adulthood, but I guess life's tough here when you don't have a heated base to go back to. Even without the baby penguins it's still a pleasant walk and, as it's within our single person travel limit, it's also a good place to go to clear the head and get away from it all. Once you get to Penguin River there are several options for extending the walk providing you have managed to persuade someone to come with you. Probably one of the best walks we've been on involved heading up the valley and around the Hamburg Lakes. We completely underestimated how long this would take and I'm blaming this on an optical illusion which makes the lakes look far smaller and closer than they actually are. Yes, we do have scale maps of the area and no, I hadn't looked at one prior to setting off. 6-7 hours of walking later, including much scrambling across loose scree above the water, lots of sinking into moss bogs, some incredible views down the valley and a mammoth trudge across what looks like some kind of American plain, and we made it home for a much needed cup of tea. Another wander in this area took us up a very benign looking hill on the far side of the river. The sky was clear, the sun was out and the climb looked short and easy. Or at least it did from across the same mammoth American-style plain mentioned above. On closer inspection, after sliding about through steep, snow-covered tussock grass mingled with occasional patches of slippery scree and up a couple of false peaks, we agreed we had probably underestimated the hill a little. That didn't really matter though as the views were spectacular.

Hamburg Lakes Tour

Eating goldfish (crisp-like snack rather than actual goldfish)

Looking back down the valley - it was really quite a nice day!

Starting the rather long walk home

Wandering along to the sumit of Osmic

Why the climb up was definitely worthwhile

Ella sort of posing for the camera

Another particularly wonderful excursion took us up to Glacier Col where we found a rather beautiful ice cave. Ernie joined us in the hope of finding some skiable snow higher up and carried his skis for the 2 hours it took to get up to the col (and of course the 2 hours to get back home). Now, I would say that I'm a fairly keen skier, but this level of dedication is well beyond anything I can muster. On arrival at the col we discovered it was essentially covered in sheet ice. We could barely walk on it and were regretting our decision not to bring crampons - the decision had been based more on an unwillingness to carry extra weight than an actual assessment of conditions. Ernie was undeterred though and set off up the ice on his skis. He's really a very good skier, but I definitely struggled to watch him come down on this occasion. Cross country skis and hills are a tricky combination at the best of times; if you add sheet ice into the equation then the possibility of me actually having to do what I'm paid to do becomes more likely and I get more twitchy. It may not have been the most graceful effort but he pulled it off and was looking extremely pleased with himself when he joined us at the bottom.

It doesn't really need a caption, but this is the ice cave

After what had been quite a long day out to Glacier Col we planned a short walk on the Sunday. Underestimating the length of walks is a fairly recurrent theme here and it's possible I should pay a little more attention to the scale on the map and maybe the contour lines when planning trips. On the plus side we did learn from our mistake the day before and actually took both crampons and axes with us. This was a good call. We were probably out for a good 6 hours or so and had to go over two reasonably sized cols (something I had entirely failed to notice at the planning stage). The first col required us to climb up a steep and narrow snow-filled gully with a tricky section in the middle which was somewhat lacking in snow and had some rather delightful loose rocks underneath. It turned out that one of our party had only ever worn crampons once before and, with the benefit of hindsight, it may not have been the best route choice for her. However, as stated at the start of this entry, nothing on South Georgia is solid and explorations here are all about embracing uncertainty. We saw a whole different valley and will hopefully get back over there some time with camping gear as there is meant to be pretty good cave in one of the bays that is eminently suitable for spending the night in.

The final type of wandering we do here involves going up steep scree slopes to the top of the impressive peaks that make up the skyline here. Now, I need to be a little careful here about the amount of detail I go into or I may get into trouble with my gran. What I will say is that the peaks here are remarkably similar to those in the Dolomites. The important thing to remember is that you can never be entirely sure whether what you're standing on or holding on to is attached to anything else. The massive scree runs that cover our travel area don't just appear from nowhere and the freeze-thaw patterns occurring here make the rock extremely friable. However, the slightly iffy moments are most definitely worthwhile as the views from the top on a clear day are jaw-droppingly, take your breath away, can't quite believe you're being paid to be here incredible!