Theme: Skiing/Snowboarding
Strangely, most of the Antarctic is not really suited to skiing. Near the coast in East Antarctica, the surface is usually bare blue ice, swept of snow by the winds year-round and ablated by the sun to a solid block in summer. A little further inland the surface is compacted snow, hard packed into a solid white mass which is then scoured by the winds into sastrugi, something like waves and often over 300mm high - hardly ski-able!
So the only areas really suitable for skiing tend to be in the lee of hills, where softer snowdrifts sometimes form. There was such a place near Mawson, named Fischer Nunatak. In 1966 we had a small caravan located there (well strapped down with guy wires) which was used for occasional ski trips
(Photo 2). The snag then, of course, was that there were no facilities of any kind: so a run down the hill was followed by lengthy herring-bone climbing up the hill.
Equipment: Take everything - but don't expect to find any facilities such as ski-lifts!
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Antarctica
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on Oct 1, 2006
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