Winter @ 66° South: Tiger Rock wind scour on the Mitchell

Saturday, 29 April 2017

Tiger Rock wind scour on the Mitchell

Tiger Rock with its stripey strata is an obvious and distinctive navigation aid on the Mitchell. The huge wind scour around it is invisible from the top when you pass by it even in good visiblity. This is a good example of the hazards that form around features as a result of blizzards and prevailing winds, and why we try and avoid travel in low viz conditions.
The melt lake around the rock is frozen, and has the most wonderful bubbles captured beneath its smooth dimpled surface. As you walk around on the ice, the crunching of the microspikes on your boots echos off the rock cliffs forming a mini percussion section that breaks the overwhelming silence of a windless Antarctic day.
Andrew, Elise, Adam and I spent close to an hour here marvelling at this juxtaposition of light, colour, texture and sound. Whilst I post them anyway, these pictures just don't quite capture the stunning surrealness of this spot.