Unexpected beauty

Mr Venkatarayudu and I went for a short walk on the eastern side of Maitri, along the glacier on 21 Oct at 10am. It was a bright, sunny day with a light breeze blowing, sometimes picking up and causing us some inconvenience in the process. We intended to return soon.

We decided to explore some slopes of the glacier. At places huge chunks of the glacier had fallen away leaving behind a vertical icy cliff, overhanging at places. On either side of this vertical cliff was a relatively gradual slope along which sastrugis had formed due to snow deposition by the wind. These served as excellent steps to ascend the glacier. I went up one of these till I encountered ice. I ascended as much as I could before I felt the ice too slippery and steep. I thought it prudent to return.

We then continued east, till we saw a proglacial lake nearby. We had never seen that lake before and decided to explore. It was a banana shaped lake extending in an east- west direction. The southern half of the lake was frozen in a rippled manner like any other lake. But the northern half was smooth like glass, with not the slightest irregularity. One could easily play carom on that surface. Surprisingly the smooth half was not as slippery as the rippled half. One could easily run on it. The northern bank had an overhanging cliff, which probably had protected it from winds while the lake was freezing, leaving the corresponding half of the lake smooth. There was a small cave in the rocky cliff along the lake.

The western end of the lake merged into a circular lake that had also frozen in a similarly differential manner. The periphery was smooth like the banana shaped lake. But the centre was frozen in ripples. What was more astounding was that the centre was raised above the periphery by about half a meter. The centre of a lake usually freezes after the periphery. Also, water expands when it freezes. Hence, when the centre of this lake would have frozen, it would not have found adequate space to expand and had risen in this manner. We continued north across this lake. This lake continued as a frozen stream to a very small lake downhill. Surprisingly, the surface of this frozen stream was also smooth like glass, although it passed over rocks and descended quite steeply. This area was easily the most picturesque spot in whatever I have seen of Schirmacher oasis. Not even the ice caves rival it. It qualifies as a number one picnic spot. One can have lunch in the tiny cave along the banana shaped lake, or a glass of beer on the snowy southern bank or rather, on the lake itself while it is still frozen.

We then continued to the eastern end of the banana shaped lake, only to discover that it was connected to another lake behind a rocky ledge by a small stream. This lake was also a proglacial lake and was quite large and unremarkable.

As we continued further east along the glacier, we stumbled across another picturesque proglacial lake. This was as unique as the previous one. It was surrounded by the glacier on all sides except the western bank from where I was approaching. On the southern flank of the lake, the glacier rose steeply and very high. One had to strain ones neck to see the top of the glacier. There were numerous icicles dangling at various places. One of them was about 1 meter long. This glacier sloped downwards along the western flank of the lake to form a vertical wall surrounding the western and northern flanks of the lake. The centre of this lake was about 2 meters above the periphery. This was not surprising, considering the high, icy walls enclosing the lake. This lake had a menacing and strangely ferocious and inhospitable look to it. It was eerie. We spent some time exploring and taking photographs. Then we returned to Maitri. It was already 2pm by the time we reached back. We had spent 4 hours at lakes that were just 15 min away from Maitri. It speaks volumes about the beauty of these