Jan 01 - A stroll around Mt Henderson

After lunch, Kym, Bob and I headed up to Mt Henderson hut in the yellow Hagg for an afternoon walk about. We parked at first just south of Hendo and walked about the ice formations for an hour or two. The ice pools form interesting patterns near the rocks, where presumably the heat of the sun melts the ice just next to the dark rock, which then refreezes - you can see layers and layers of ice frozen around the edges.

The ice around the edge of the nunataks is cut away - often called 'wind-scours' but really it is due to preferential daytime melting as the sun's heat is absorbed by the dark rocks. There are icicles formed over the edge of these scours, which can be used to play cricket with, or to eat. It's very nice to live in a land of ice, where when you get hot & thirsty (walking about in 5 layers of clothing can make you get hot), you can just reach down and pick up a piece of the ground and eat it.

After a bit we popped up over the rocks and into "Hendo bowl" where you can see upwards to Mt Henderson and the small red hut to the right of it. Which is probably not visible here. After marvelling at the small patches of lichen, which are intriguing here since you rarely see any plant life and just the colours which are not blue white or brown is novel, we walked back to the hagg and then drove up to the hut to stay the night.