I climbed to the top of Castle Rock on Sunday!
Another Sunday, another day off. I did the Castle Rock loop trail 2 Sundays ago, when the climb to the top of Castle Rock itself was closed. It recently opened for the season, so I went with a big group of people out on the trail again to climb to the top.
On the way there, we saw some pretty awesome lenticular clouds around Erebus. The lenticular cloud in the picture is the lens-shaped cloud right over the top of Erebus. Fun fact I learned while hiking: the word lenticular comes from the Latin word for lentil (lenticula), which is also where the word lens comes from. Because lenses, and lenticular clouds, are shaped like lentils!
Lenticular
clouds form when relatively moist air is pushed upwards by a mountain,
which then condenses over the mountain where the temperature is low
enough. Here are two links from the Mount Washington Observatory that explain how these clouds form.
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| A beautiful lenticular cloud over Mt Erebus. |
We brought 2 radios with us in case the group wanted to split up. Which was a great idea, because some people wanted to turn around before we got to Castle Rock.
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| The hiking group! |
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| The hiking group, but from farther away. |
Using this handy map, you can see where we hiked. We started in McMurdo and went up the Castle Rock Loop (CRL), past both emergency shelters, and then on the Castle Rock Summit (CRS) trail to the top!
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| A windswept me at the top. I need to put on gloves! |
The summit trail was a fun rock scramble (which was unnecessarily difficult in my huge mountaineering boots). It was kind of windy up top, but the views were spectacular.
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| View towards Erebus. The Erebus glacier tongue is off to the left. |
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| View back towards McMurdo. Discovery is the tall mountain in the center. You can also see the Castle Rock trail down the center of the picture. |
I also got to see Castle Rock's hyaloclastite rock. I forgot to bring my hand lens to look at it up close, but I'll remember next time!
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| Castle Rock hyaloclastite, with Erica's hand for scale. |
There's a pretty steep and icy hill to climb in the snow up to the Castle Rock Summit trail. It was challenging going up, but on the way back down, I just sat on my butt and slid. SO MUCH FUN!!
Instead of finishing the loop, we turned around and headed back to McMurdo. We wanted to be back in time for Sunday brunch (which ends at 1:00, and is SO TASTY) and the craft fair! The craft fair was very cool. People were selling crafts they have made in McMurdo, from tiny felt penguins to skirts made out of repurposed clothes from Skua to waterproof zipper pouches.
All in all, a good Sunday!
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