Skiing the Castle Rock Loop

I love cross-country skiing and since we arrived, I had been hoping to ski the Castle Rock Loop, a ~9-mile snow trail to the rock formation known as Castle Rock. After we finished all of our field work wrap up on Jan. 24, we started doing other work while waiting for the next flight to Christchurch. On Sunday, we squeezed in some relaxation. I went to see the inside of the Chapel of the Snows in McMurdo.

Stained glass in Chapel of the Snows in McMurdo.

Then I had brunch, and the Galley had REAL EGGS!

Cartoon reflects everyone's excitement about real eggs for Sunday brunch.

And then I met another enthusiastic cross-country skier to ski the Castle Rock loop. We saw a New Zealand Hagglund near Castle Rock as well as fabulous views of the open water, sea ice, and ice shelves. The second half of the loop also included a ski down the NZ ski hill, which was great. We got in some cross country turns on the way down.

New Zealand Hagglund visiting Castle Rock.

Castle Rock with Mount Erebus behind it (I took this photo on a different day than the rest of the Castle Rock photos in this post. It was so great, I skied the Castle Rock Loop again on Tuesday.).

Views over McMurdo Sound.

Open water. My skiing friend told me you can sometimes see orcas in this area.

Open water and edge of another ice shelf.