We did some cross country skiing a couple of the days that we were in Antarctica.  Our most ambitious ski was a  9 km ski out to a DC-6 that crash landed on the continent in 1993 (everyone survived).  The plane is slowly being buried by blowing and fallen snow.  This is Matt and I with the tail fin, which is the only thing that is still showing. 

The easiest and fastest way to get around Antarctica is on the snowmobile or Skidoo.  The Skidoos that we were on held two people, with two additional people being pulled on sleds behind them.  While this was a very efficient way to travel and a lot of fun (especially when they try to go up the blue ice hills and slide around!), it could be very cold if you spent too much time traveling and didn't get off to move around a bit.    

One night we drove on Skidoos to the middle of the Independence Range to camp out overnight away from Patriot Hills.  There were 11 of us camping, including two guides and the weatherman Jaco, who had never been on an overnight trip in the three years that he has been working in the Antarctic.  We spent the morning before we left getting together enough food for an army and getting all of our gear.  We brought smaller tents and found a nice place next to the mountains "on the beach" to camp for the night.   When we arrived, we set up our tents (not a small endeavor) and started setting up a make-shift camp.

Doug wanted to build an igloo bathroom and kitchen to shelter those activities from the blowing wind.  Matt worked with Doug to cut the blocks using the large machete you see to Matt's right.  The two were both a feat of engineering - very impressive structures.  Unfortunately, I didn't get a good picture of either. 

After we got settled, it started snowing and became very, very cold.  In order to keep warm, we had to find ways to exercise so we decided to play Eskimo baseball, which is a fairly absurd but entertaining game.   It snowed on us all night - almost four inches of snow where we were camping out - so when we woke up in the morning, we were ready for a nice warm breakfast.  Matt volunteered for breakfast cook duty and made us excellent eggs with cheese and onions with bacon.

We went on a couple of hikes up and around the Patriot Hills and Independence Mountains.  The views from the mountains were fascinating.  The day we went up the Patriot Hills, it was very cloudy and you couldn't see where the snow ended and the sky began.

We found all sorts of strange rock formations - this one Matt was even able to crawl into.

We also were able to take a ride in one of the three planes that they keep on the ice - a Cessna, a single Otter and a twin Otter.  The DC-3 that they have at camp was supposed to be used for trips as well, but was damaged in a big storm early in the season and is now waiting to be disassembled and taken back to Chile.  These planes take off and land on skis.  They take people to the various different points of interest on the continent including the South Pole, Vinson Massif and the different ice shelves.   We got some great aerial pictures, the best ones you have seen on other pages.

You can see how badly the DC-3 was damaged...

This is a sport that I didn't even know existed until our trip.  Using large kites you can effectively sail on your skis or in a buggy.  Some of the skiers from the expeditions had brought kites with them and were practicing, getting up to some very good speeds in the good winds that we had at camp.  You can see in this picture that there is both a skier and someone in a buggy with wheels that are taking advantage of the wind.

At various different points, you are reminded that you are in a natural ecosystem and is relatively untouched.  And so sometimes you just sit for an hour and take it all in - or as the staff at Patriot Hills calls it - have an "Antarctica moment" 

Patriot Hills threw a rocking party on New Years Eve.  They invited some of the scientists over and we had a group of 43 for dinner, which started at about 5:30.  As you can imagine, this is a Scotch drinking crew, and they got through several bottles over the course of the almost 7 hours.  To keep us going during the long night, we taught Carwin and Katrina how to play poker and blackjack.  At midnight, we all went outside to open champagne and toast the new year.  It was quite strange to toast the new year with it being light out.  The party continued until around 4:00 in the morning.  There was a lot of Scottish jigging that looked very painful (people falling all over the place), but everyone seemed to be in one piece the next morning.