Field Training and The Framnes mountains - Part 1 (part 2 of 4)
Sunday 28th Nov 99

... continued

Travelling over the plateau involves following drum lines. These are large 44 gallon drums mounted on poles every 200 metres or so that mark the known safe routes. There are no drum line routes on the plateau that don't pass over crevasses, but at least they are minimised. The drums also act as markers when radar navigation has to be used. In whiteouts or blizzards, visibility is reduced to less than 5 metres, and when using the radar on the Hagg, the drum lines show up as long dotted lines on the radar screen. The drum lines have to be constantly maintained and surveyed because during summer the ice melts and the drums fall over. The plateau ice sheet is also constantly moving which in turn changes the GPS co-ordinates of the drums.

After the Hagg arrived at our rendezvous, we headed off to Rumdoodle Hut. As I rode the Quad towards the North Masson range, of which Rumdoodle is a peak, I felt mesmerised as to the scale of the mountains, and the way they projected out of the ice sheet. The ice sheet at this location is already about 400m thick so a mountain range jutting out another 200m would be an even more the amazing view if the ice was not here.	Rumdoodle Hut - Below Rumdoodle Peak
I had to make sure I keep my eyes on the drum line and watch out for crevasses and hazards while admiring the mountain range I was approaching! The view out of Rumdoodle Hut - towards "Sharks Fin" After I arrived at Rumdoodle Hut, I had to spin around and soaked up the sheer magnificence of the sheer walls and scree slopes - mountains are both beautiful at a distance and even more over powering close up !
Leighton and I sitting in Rumdoodle - admiring the view out the window Once that rush had died down - we went into the hut for a cup of tea and stared out the hut window at the "Shark's fin"...

After a short pause, and a cup of tea at Rumdoodle, we headed off to our campsite at Fearn Hill (not a spelling mistake!). Below Fearn Hill is a melt lake, and on the side of the melt lake is a what could be best described as a "beach". The beach made an excellent camp site to we pitched our pyramid tents for the night.

Email continues in part 3