Hiking the Ridge

After getting off work and scurrying to get some hiking clothes on I hit the trail. The hut ridge trail follows the line of the sea cliffs along the bay and heads up toward Mt. Erebius, the active volcano near base. The hills here, surprisingly, are not all snow-covered. There is so much wind here that the snow is blown off Ross Island and onto mainland Antarctica. This leaves exposed rock in many places- black, sharp, volcanic rock. The trail shot up and down a few ridges and then plateaued out into one of the most beautiful high country trails I could imagine. Directly in front of me was Mt. Erebius rising over 12,000 feet from the bay. To my left was the "virtual sunset." The sun does not set here in the summer time, but it circles the sky. Each evening and night it passes the Royal Society Range and leaves the sky pink and orange. It was shimmering off the glaciers at the base of the mountains and reflecting off the sea ice. For a second I imagined that the sun was going down in the Caribbean- the snow was sand and the reflection off the windswept sea ice was the Caribbean sea. Well, not so lucky this time, but the beauty here is incredible in it's own way. After returning from hut ridge trail I felt as if I had taken the remote and flipped off the special I was watching on pristine Antarctica. It's hard to believe, but today is the first official day of summer on the ice.