Exploring a chasm at the Rumples

Michal Krzysztofowicz
Mon, 17 Oct 2016 17:21:02 +0100

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Day 5 of my second winter trip.

After a day's break spent on base due to bad weather, we went out again (in a slightly changed team: Rich replaced Ross and Greig who had to stay back), this time to explore the Rumples.

The Rumples is an area where the Brunt Ice Shelf is grounded on underwater rocks, and therefore slows down its drift quite significantly. This creates an area dense with features like crevasses, chasms, cracks, elevated piles of ice, etc. This area has the most, and the best features on all of the Brunt Ice Shelf.

We set out on Friday afternoon, explored one chasm, set up camp in a different area of the Rumples and went for a walk along a large crevasse, exploring a number of features around.

In the image visible are our shadows after we abseiled into the chasm and then climbed pile of snow and ice for better view.