Whiskey on the Glacial Rocks

Blogs often only focus on the amazing and extraordinary or weird and wild aspects of one’s adventures.  This skews the real experience however.  I don’t want to only focus on the ‘facebook moments… I mean, hell, I’m not writing this to make people jealous!  Im writing this for my million dollar movie deal… and to please my sisters…  So with that in mind I’ll describe a quiet moment after a hard day spent on the ice working with the seals. 

Today was a shorter day than most, only 9 or 10 hrs or so, no lunch, no break… but despite it being a shorter day it still was a big day.  The pups were everywhere calling and flopping, pooping and peeing on the ice and often enough on us…  Three of our northern study areas for our project were successfully worked, 30+ pups tagged, five adults head-bagged and tagged or retagged and several mommas weighed on a giant weigh sled towed behind one of our snow machines.  Head-bagging is something we do when we need to tag or replace broken tags on an adult.  It’s exactly what it sounds like.  We throw a bag over their head with the hopes of keeping them calm while we work them, making it safer for the animal and us.  More on head-bagging and tagging later.

So at the end of this hard day my body is tired and cold, brain a little fuzzy but soul full, satisfied and euphoric.  Standing outside our kitchen hut looking east, an incredible view greets me.   Across the ice covered bay, Mt Erebus is glimmering in the evening sun, seals are out on the ice like giant grunting sausages, and in my hand is a glass of whiskey being chilled by glacial ice from a nearby iceberg.  Never has drinking whiskey felt so profound.  One can’t help but wonder as you look at the bubbles escaping the ice and mixing with the liquid, when the last time that bubble of air was in the atmosphere.  Perhaps it comes from the time of our revolutionary war, perhaps the time of the Romans and Jesus, perhaps even before the pyramids were built…  It’s moments like these, standing outside our kitchen hut after a very long and difficult but still fun as hell day, that this job seems even more surreal than my brain can handle.  There are absolutely moments of boredom and mundane tasks, like prepping gear, or processing genetic samples or sitting inside a hut waiting out a three day wind/snow storm, but even those moments of boredom and frustration are still awesome.  Hell, my commute, a part of our day that most of us dread, is a 20-30 min snow machine ride that takes me along a glacier slowly falling off a volcano!  The reality is, I’m in Antarctica!  I’m exploring the sea ice and sea cliffs and caves, something that literally only a handful of people in the entire world have ever had the chance to do, plus I’m doing it all to freaking put hands on seals!!! And now, after that kickass day, I’m relaxing with a glass of whiskey that is currently being cooled by thousands of years of pressure and cold.  I love my job.  

Ok, so maybe that quiet moment wasn’t as ordinary as I had planned, but honestly there are very few things here in Antarctica that are anything other than extraordinary.  Even the posting of this blog, the amount of craziness involved in getting a wifi signal out here, solar panels generating electricity to power it all… the number of people and processes utilized to make it happen…. Unbelievable.  My life currently is extraordinary, and that… that is ok with me.

 My view of Mt. Erebus standing outside our kitchen hut.

 The reason I'm here, Weddell seal pups.  This little guy is only a few days old at most.  His or her umbilical cord is still attached.

An ice cave we explored the other day.  More on this in a future post...

 Self portrait outside the ice cave.

Penguins staring in disgust at our tortured penguin stuffed animal.

Going to the Bathroom in Antarctica

 THE CENTER OF EXCELLENCE

I threw my back against the outside wall of the sleeping hut, taking cover as if dodging a wave of enemy fire.  Instead of bullets, I’m dodging from 80+ mph wind gusts full of stinging snow and freezing temperatures.  I look through the white wall of blurred snow to the Center of Excellence, our outhouse.  The fake and filthy stuffed penguin isn’t dangling from the handle meaning it isn’t occupied.  Time to go… in more ways than one.  With a gathering of my coat and courage I run out into the open to cover the last few exposed feet before reaching the center.  The wind cuts through all of my clothes.  My breath catches in my throat only to be freed by yelps of shock as the cold grips me.  I feel my beard freezing, my hands going numb.  The wind tears at my shirt and finds where I neglected to tuck it in….  I grip the metal handle with my bare hand cursing myself for forgetting gloves.  The wind fights me as I open the door, but with squinted eyes and white knuckles I wrestle it open and jump inside. 

This is what it’s like anytime one goes to the bathroom in Con 1 conditions here at camp, which is what we’ve been in for many of the past several days.  Con 1 or condition 1 means extreme winds, low temperatures and very, very poor visibility.  We are never out in the field in Con 1 conditions… on purpose anyway.  It is literally a serious and very dangerous situation.  Con 1 days are our days spent in camp.  

Camp

On a normal day in camp, a walk to the center is an easy even pleasant 10-second stroll, but on days like today, taking that walk becomes an adventure.  Looking out the kitchen door windows at the swirling columns of snow and the blanket of white obscuring your view of anything more than 30 ft away, makes you seriously consider the question, “do I really need to go to the bathroom right now?”  That’s a waiting game you will loose!  So eventually, the white, the wind, you and your digestive needs, will all meet.  It’s a process, an adventure for sure.  One that doesn’t end simply once you’ve entered the center.  Not to be overly graphic but honestly, it’s pretty damn interesting what goes on in there.  It is a step, by step, by squat process. 

 

Our Center of Excellence Guardian.

First, how does one know if the center is occupied?  Our in use or not in use symbol is a poor raggedy stuffed penguin doll who either hangs on the handle indicating someone is being excellent, or from a hook on the corner of the building meaning the center is vacant and excellence could be achieved by anyone who feels so moved.  We have three depositories; two are urinals, one for the gents and a sit down model for the ladies.  The third is a glorious throne for solid waste.  That’s right, we keep 'em separate down here.  I’ll let your imaginations and a hopeful understanding of the physical properties of water and freezing temperatures to suss the ‘why’ out of that one.  It does complicate the process however.  One must be sure to have their… hmm… order of things, planned out before… committing.  The seats are covered with this wonderful blue foam that amazingly and thankfully, despite the negative temperatures inside the center, never feels cold when you… um… utilize them.  The men’s urinal empties into large oil barrels sitting outside the center that contain urine/grey water.  The ladies simply empty their liquid waste tin into the men’s urinal when they’re done.  These barrels are collected every few weeks by the Carps (carpenters – essentially a division of handy people on the base who are in charge of setting up and maintaining field camps).  The solid waste container is a painters bucket lined with a plastic bag that is situated beneath the throne.  Here’s where it gets kind of weird.  In order to keep things a little more… aesthetically pleasing, after each ‘event’ a layer of cardboard is put down creating one of the most terrifying layered cakes you could possibly imagine within that bucket.  Once it fills up we screw a special lid onto the bucket and duct-tape the crap – no pun intended… ok maybe a little – out of the bucket and change it out.  Every week or so, at least two of us will go into town for a day off.  In with us goes various trash bags, empty water jugs and the human waste buckets.  From there amazingly the buckets are shipped off continent in refrigerated containers at the end of the season back to the states to be incinerated bucket and all.  It’s a pretty wasteful process honestly.  Man, just imagine what the cargo hold of that ship would be like.  Better hope the refrigeration units don’t break!  Doesn’t make sense, but that’s the way the do… do it Haha.  Thankfully the cold here ensures smell is at a minimum and that those buckets are frozen solid by the time we need to transport them.  It’s a strange, comical and effective system.  Weirdly, it very plainly gives all of us a clear measure of the camps digestive health, but thankfully also provides regular comic relief with a bit of frozen outhouse humor.  Going to the bathroom in Antarctica leaves no room for humility only excellence J  Utility and practicality are at the core of everything we do down here.  Not even the most basic of human functions are exempt from those principles. 

Going to the bathroom in the field is an entirely different beast and one that is solely and undeniably controlled by the wind.  I’m sure you can understand why.  

Not many picture with this post.  You're welcome.

 

 Morning starting with clear weather around us but bad stuff headed our way.

Why We Fight or “Why the hell are you in Antarctica?”

Kirstie, Katie, Michael and our F-Stp guide for the day during our first visit to Turks Head.

 

During the past several months of summer I’ve found myself stuck in a strange transitional stage, preparing not for an upcoming winter season but oddly enough for an extension of summer… well, an Antarctic frozen summer of ice anyway.  Antarctica is a confusing place to prepare for.  24 hrs of light, summer with winter conditions, ice roads, penguins (no polar bears! No matter what Gary Larson draws) 

shipping container sleeping huts, tagging and at times wrestling seals… it’s a strange place to pack for, train for, mentally prepare oneself for… part of the fun I suppose. 

So a valid question from a reasonably sane person would be, “why the hell are you going down there?”  That’s a difficult question to answer to be honest, well perhaps the philosophical and spiritual answers to it anyway… so how bout I skip those for now… how bout instead I answer, what will my colleagues and I be doing while we’re down there?  Well, we are here to study seals.  No, not Seal or Navy Seals or any other corny seal joke.  We are studying Weddell seals and in so doing we are ensuring the continuation of one of the longest infield studies of long-lived mammals to date.  The data gathered on these amazing animals has been collected since 1968 and with such a long-lived program the evolution of technologies, techniques and more importantly the questions we are asking have resulted in substantial changes and modifications.  Despite these variations it all has led to the building of an incredible database of information painting an amazingly detailed, in many respects, but still somewhat obscured picture of these beautiful animals.  There is still plenty more to learn. 

What to me is so incredibly fascinating about this study is something that perhaps is not at first obvious when you hear of our project.  Yes the study’s name is Weddell Seal Science.  Yes, for two and half months our lives revolve around nothing but Weddell seals.  Yes we’re called the seal team, we get to literally rub the bellies of seal pups for science!…  The surprising thing is, seals are not the true focus of the project.  Really, at its core, the questions we are attempting to answer are questions my good friend and talented ecologist Michael Davis, calls the “holy grail of ecology:” What regulates and influences how all populations grow and decline? What are the rules that vertebrate populations dynamics are governed by?  These questions do not simply need to be aimed at seals but can be applied to all vertebrate species and the longevity of this study, the shear mass of data already collected and the tolerant temperment of the Weddell seal allowing for consistent continued collection of data, makes the potential for answering these questions an attainable goal.  It is absolutely thrilling to be apart of something so big and important to the world of ecology all while getting to hang out with such damn cute, fuzzy, laughably smelly and affable creatures, plus working with the seals… ha! See what my colleagues get to be entertained by?  Wonderfully stupid and moronic researcher humor…  You can learn more about the project and not my poor humor at http://weddellsealscience.com/index.html

 Kaitlin and Kirstie (left to right) prepping pup tagging equipment

 Kaitlin, Terrill and Kirstie planning their approach to the mamma and pup.

 Michael, Kirstie, Terrill and their helo pilot discussing their flight plan for a recon flight of our study area in order to assess sea ice conditions.  We will all get to do one of these soon.  Can't wait!!!

An adorable mom and very young pup.  His or her umbilicus is still attached.  Probably 3-4 days old at most.  We try to get to the pups within the first 2-3 days of life to measure various birth conditions.

View of some of our study sites from right to left: North Base Colony (The northern side of the Erebus Glacial Tongue, the large glacier in the forefront of the picture), Turks Head (the rock face), Inaccessible Island in the distance and Little Razor Back Island.

 

Myself, Michael and Terrill finishing working a pup.  The bag is for weighing the pup also in theory keeps them calmer during the workup... not always what happens in reality.  

Sunset with blowing snow.  Rare sight these days, the sun setting that is, not the blowing snow.

Camp Life... in Con 1

Well, so I have much to write about in regards to the last month or so.  I owe a story of my time in Rocky Mountain National Park, and of course the at times overwhelming process of getting to Antarctica: the preparation, trainings, clothes, gear, cold, the outhouses... experiences with seals and snowmobiles,

 Kirstie distracting a seal mom as Katie and Michael tag the pup.

moments of geological violence and moments literally frozen in time.  The juxtaposition of the volcano and frozen moment are curious, for the later literally lies at the formers feet.  Normally we think of volcanoes as slow gradual build ups of pressure, as something existing on the geologic timescale and not effecting our day to day, but Mt. Erebus is actively erupting above our heads right now, changing the geologic future and perhaps man's future on Ross Island.

Mt. Erebus

And the instance put on ice...   At the base of Mt Erebus is a hut and within its walls takes place a moment that should have been a cursory and frantic few minutes of action and escape and then nothing; but instead, Antarctica's environment has captured and preserved the moment that Shackleton's men abandoned the hut, their home for over two years.  The moment is still ongoing, their absence is so peculiar that you half expect them to walk through the door to retrieve their things: pictures, food, bags, blankets, chairs pushed hurridly to the side, even an ill-fated dog tied up out back are all still there, just as the men left them that lucky day when a ship finally and unbelievably came into view a little less than 100 years ago...

Alasdair (our sea ice instructor) opening the hut

The anchor that broke, leaving Shackleton's food supply crew stranded for two years.

Pictures the men left behind in the hurry

Kitchen table

 Ok, fine yeah, here's a pic of Emperor Penguins. We get to see these guys every now and then.  It's awesome!

 Seal Team 6... see what I did there?

Eric, Katie, Kirstie, Terrill, Michael and me...

(we're standing over a pile of frozen seal blood.  Yeah sounds intense, but bites and squabbles are day to day in the seal world.  They have such wonderfully insulating fat layers that even deep looking cuts, while they may bleed a bunch aren't serious at all.  We get to play in all sorts of seal fluids... more on that later...)

So anyway there are so many things to write about but before I do, I simply wanted to share a short video I shot today that gives an idea of life here in camp when the weather is less than, let's say Florida-like.  No claims of an awesome video by the way, simply good music to go with it.  We're currently at Con 1 (condition 1) which means visibility, winds and cold are at dangerous levels.  Currently our temperature is not too low (in the single digits to negative single digits) but the wind is extreme and the visibility is at times less than 20 yards.  So... that means we stay inside.  We relax, tidy up the place, drink tea, read a book, maybe temp one another to run outside in our underwear - no pics... - listen to music, the wind and one another.  So anyway, enjoy a small glimpse at the wonderfully strange life we're living at the moment.  By the way, the black building in the video named Center of Excellence, is our most important building... the outhouse.  The other containers are our kitchen (the yellow building) two sleepers (the center two containers) and our gear shed/boss's sleeping quarters (I don't envy him his own place since that's where all of our seal soiled garments hang and dry - or rather thaw.  Doesn't smell very nice in there...).  Hope you enjoy!

j

(At the time of posting this, the weather has intensified from what the video shows... simply imagine more snow, wind and way less visibility.  we now run from building to building instead of walk :) enjoy!)

Welcome!

Hello!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Welcome to a goofy website dedicated to stories about me and my travels.  I know what you're thinking, "why should I care about some bearded idiot traveling around the world?" Well first off sis, I'm your bro and you should care about me because I'm you're brother, crazy adventures or not!  Stop being so negative!  For the rest of you, if you’re anything like me you probably aren’t all that excited to read another blog written by a stranger about sweet adventures you’ve never been on and probably will never go on and ‘plus, that dudes probably just lying anyway so, psh… whatever!’  Yeah, I know, I saw that stupid facebook post about some college student who convinced her family she was in Asia but ended up never leaving her dorm room or whatever it was…. ugh.  I can assure you I’m not some world wide web-connected conspiring conartEEST of a college student.  First off, I’m not even in college… I'm just out having fun in the world trying to enjoy each day.  Simple...

Anyway, let’s take care of the stranger issue.  My name is Jon Rees – or if I’m in trouble, Jona-THAN Rees.  I recently bid farewell to my 20s and diggin every moment of it!  I grew up in southestern PA went to school for Jazz (with a capitol ‘J’) performance and music ed in Philly, performed professionally – still do I suppose - taught music for four years, quit to be a park ranger, toured with a big band around the states, walked through Nepal and India for a few months, enjoyed odd jobs skiing on frozen lakes chasing fish under the ice with radio telemetry equipment, sage grouse with ATVs and now am sitting here in a storage container on skies in the middle of a wind storm on sea ice off the coast of Ross Island in Antarctica.  There, now we’re no longer strangers!... which is good timing since I need to borrow some cash… the black-ice market down here does not take plastic… haha see that, we’re no longer strangers and you just learned I’m funny.  What fun you’re going to have reading this!

Well so yeah, in a nutshell of a run-on sentence, that is what’s happened to me over the past 10+ years or so.  I figured some of my friends and family might like to follow along with my adventures and have even entertained the delusion that perhaps a stranger or two may also enjoy my stories.  Some of my going-ons are weird, some amazing, some sad, most happy and much of it, well much has yet to happen, so I have no idea what it’s going to be like.  As I mentioned, my latest adventure has brought me to an extremely remote place that for many of us is painted more by our imaginations than by our photos or experiences.  It’s the bottom of the map, the last bit of unclaimed land, miles of ice extend out from you in every direction you look including directly below you … I’m living on the ice locked continent of Antarctica.  

So, yeah, I'm here to write about that and other adventures along the way - under extreme duress you should know, and pressure from my immediate family, so if you don't like this, well… then blame them.  I'm an innocent bystander in all of this, simply wandering around, usually with only a glimmer of a clue as to what i'm doing, smiling at the world, taking a picture and pausing for a moment to write about it.  

(more photos to follow... may be surprised to learn that the internet is not great in a remote field camp on sea ice in Antarctica...) 

Enjoy

j