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Sarah Krall, guide and helo tech extraordinaire, escorted my fellow Artists
& Writers Program grantee, Bill Fox, and myself up to the top of the
active Erebus Volcano. To avoid potential altitude sicknesses, we stopped
off at Fang Ridge climate to acclimatize at 10,000 feet on the slope of
Erebus before continuing to the lower Erebus hut camp above. Because the
earth's air is thinner towards the poles, we were at an atmospheric density
equivalent to 11,000' at sea level. No problems with the altitude, but
problems with the weather. A storm kept us inside our Scott Polar tents for
3 days.
A helicopter had planned to pick us up and transport us up the mountain
after 48 hours, but it could not fly in the weather. Finally, Bill
MacIntosh, from new Mexico Tech, working with Phil Kyles volcanology group
raced down the mountain with some colleagues on snow mobiles to rescue us.
They managed to whisk us up to the lower Erebus hut just before the largest
storm in human memory hit the mountain. More about that in the next journal entry.
In these photos, please note the extraordinary clarity of the air; things
are often 4 or 5 times farther away than the appear to be. Landscape,
skyscape, icescape and (often frozen) seascape are WRIT BIG here. HK
 Fang Camp
 Cloudscape 1
 HK at Fang
 Note Size of Yellow Tent
 Cloudscape Over Mt. Terror
 My Scott Tent at Fang
 Fang Snow Toilet
 Cloudscape 2
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