I didn't know my body was hurting in places I didn't know.
We've just returned from our longest overland journey yet, a 38 mile (56 kilometer) trip from the Haughton-Mars Project base camp to the North Pole.
To check on the condition of HMP's first Humvee, which was left between base camp and the coast in the same year, was one of the goals. At the time, the goal was to reconnoiter a path to the coast for a pressurized, crewed rover to follow after landing on the coast.
Get to know the Haughton-Mars project.
They did not make it all the way to the coast, so as the summer season ended, they decided to park the Humvee where it is today and land a Twin Otter plane nearby to get the team out. As the weather began to turn, they had gone as far as they could as the terrain would allow, with the Humvee getting stuck in mud and soft soil more and more often.
The ATV left a few miles closer to camp was essentially the same thing; two ATVs were removed with the crew, and the third added too much weight to leave it on a valley floor.
The expectation was for it to be recovered within the next couple of years, but the season didn't last long enough to get it back. Both vehicles sat out for four years.
As soon as the MIT crew came back from their excursion, we left camp. Due to the need to change out batteries for the heating system in this frigid environment, they ride out to the floor of Von Braun Planitia to swap batteries twice a day.
A month on Mars is Trekking across the Arctic.
My ATV was ready to go with my usual load of photographic equipment, but one of the cans of gasoline poked into my back for most of the ride.
It's not a good idea to include the final item on this list if you want to hunt polar bears. Nobody in our crew would want to hurt one of these magnificent animals, but if one of them charged us, action would need to be taken. Some of us have firearms experience and are tasked with security duties.
We went through the valleys to the southwest of the base. The weather was cold and cloudy. The valley walls are just a few hundred feet high and the landscape is mostly smooth. It was a very scenic way to begin the traverse, and for someone who has been looking at images of Mars for years, it was easy to believe you were on that planet.
A valley opened up before us after we crested a higher hill, and it was the first of many such views. The ground became carpeted with dull yellow lichens or dead overgrowth as we continued and we were used to it. The hills and valley floor were mostly covered with iron oxide-stained limestone and small yellow rocks.
I'm always surprised by how sharp the rocks are in this part of the island. It's like they dropped all around us just a month or so ago. While there is not a lot of weathering from rain and wind, the freeze-thaw cycles wreak havoc on the terrain here. Water causes tiny cracks to form in the rocks, causing them to become larger until the rock splits or explodes.
The area known as Freedom Airfield is located in the center of Viking Valley and was named after the space probes. There was a green Kawasaki ATV and a small trailer sitting in the center of a broad, flat wash, untouched by humans for the past year. This is where the HMP's crew and two ATVs were flown out, and all that was left behind were the last ATV, the trailer, and the Humvee.
It was just short of miracle.
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