There is another short walk out to Discovery Hut, one of the huts Scott used on his expeditions. And then you can walk over to Scott Base, the Kiwi station, and buy a candy bar. McMurdo is a pretty small place, so once you've done these walks you've pretty much gone everywhere you can go, except Castle Rock.

We went over to the firehouse before we left to file a foot plan. You have to let them know who's going, where you're going, and when you expect to be back. That way, if you don't sign back in, they can send the search and rescue team after you. It's not as dangerous as it sounds, but they can't let people wander all over the island without anyone knowing where they are -- that would be dangerous.

Three people have died hiking out there in the past. Two people left the flagged route and fell in a crevasse, and one fell while trying to climb down the wrong side of Castle Rock. Basically, it's a very bad idea to leave the flagged route, but if you stay on the flagged route, wow!, what beautiful scenery!

We headed out up a gravel road behind McMurdo until we reached a point where the route takes a turn onto a glacier that collects at the ridge of Hut Point Peninsula. It's a very gradual up hill walk with views on every side. On the left (NW) is a view towards Cape Evans (another of Scott's huts is here) and open water, although the open water is too far away to see. Ahead is Mt. Erebus (12,400 ft), and Mt. Terror (10,702). On your right (SE) is the vast white expanse of the Ross Ice Shelf with Willy Field in the foreground.

Willy Field is a runway on the permanent ice shelf that they use when the sea ice runway closer to town starts to get messy. It's named after a guy named William's who drowned years ago when the forklift he was driving broke through the ice and sunk. The reason they don't use Willy field all the time is because only skied LC-130s can land here, while the bigger wheeled planes can land on the harder sea ice early in the season. They moved flight operations from the ice runway to Willy Field last weekend.

All of the buildings out there are just small rectangular boxes on skis, so they just hook them up to some heavy equipment and drag them to the new site. Well, it might be a little more complicated than that...

We followed the line of orange flags up to Castle Rock, passing two "tomatoes" on the way. These are small, round, red shelters that you can take refuge in if the weather turns bad. Castle Rock, like the whole island, is volcanic in origin. It's a volcanic plug, which I think is part of an old crater. It juts out in the middle of the glacier. We didn't go to the top of Castle Rock this time because we were worried that we wouldn't be back by check-in time, but we stopped at the base and ate some lunch - turkey sandwiches and brownies - yum.

From there we hiked downhill towards the southeast and the ice shelf. Along this section there are some black flags. A black flag marks where a crevasse or other danger lies. Obviously these areas should be avoided.

At the bottom, where the glacier on Hut Point Peninsula and the ice shelf meet, the Kiwis (New Zealanders) have set up a little rope tow and ski slope. We watched them ski for a while and then hiked on towards Scott Base over that flat ice. Some search and rescue people were practicing ice climbing on the ice falls just a way down from where the Kiwis were skiing.