Ob Hill Hike

So I know I promised pictuers, so here's a couple for ya. I'm trying to figure out where I can post all of them so you can all see the entire lot, but until then, here's a few.
The first one is the whole hill from the bottme where we started, the next is a zoom of the summit where we were headed, the third is me standing at the highest point of the summit.


The cross in the background is a memorial to Scott's party who all perished on the 1912 return trip from the South Pole to Ross Island / McMurdo Sound.


Its an amazing view up there and for the most part not nearly as windy as the rest of the area, which suprised me, but maybe nature is just honoring the memorial, too!



From the peak, we could see into some open water in the ice surrounding Ross Island. There in and around the edges were finally my first WILDLIFE!!! We could see what were sure were two penguins off in the distance, and lots of seals, and, wait.... yes! A whale breached and blew its spout!


Unfortunately, I was too slow to capture the whales on film, so I'll have to find someone's pics and steal them to show you, I'll post when I do.
From the top of Ob Hill we could also see Mt Erebus, the most southerly active volcano in the world, and it's just at the other end of Ross Island from McMurdo and Scott bases! Don't worry, Mom, were too far away to be in any danger here and this volcano is monitored as much if not more than any other in the world!


The left pic is Erebus in the distance, the right pic is the top where you can just make out some steam venting from the top! It's a pretty amazing site to see a volcano covered in snow and steaming!!!

Ok, well, I didn't realize how much effort multimedia blogging was and its getting to be bed time down here. So I'll post up some more tomorrow or Thursday!