The Isolated Water Bowls

29th November was a very windy day. It had been so for a few days now. We did not venture out much because of the wind. The cold did not disturb us much. But today, Ralf, the meteorologist at Neumayer had predicted a decrease in wind velocity to 12 kt. So we planned a trip to the base of the Trishul peak for Dr Asim to take a few samples. We waited all day for the wind to die down. It did not quite reach 12 kt but it did drop to 20 kt in the evening. So we decided to leave at 6 PM. We were in no hurry to come back because there will be no sunset. There were 5 of us, Dr Asim, Leader, Asit, Hembram and myself.



So we proceeded towards Trishul. Instead of going to Trishul, we turned northwards before it and proceeded towards Long Lake from the eastern side of Trishul. I had never been here before. As we went on, we suddenly came across an area which was flat and was surrounded by hillocks all around. The ground here appeared to have been levelled. The grounded was carpeted with dried mosses. It looked like a bowl, enclosed on all sides. It had the appearance of a dried lake bed. And it was. It does get filled up with water during the summers. This inspite of the fact that it does not communicate with any other lake in the vicinity. The source of the water in that lake is the permafrost. When the permafrost begins to thaw during the brief Antarctic summers, the water rises to above the ground and forms a lake a few inches deep. With the onset of the winters, the water again seeps into the ground and refreezes. Since this lake has no drainage, the water does not leave it. The result is the high salinity and alkalinity of the water. This place appeared very lonely. Dr Asim took a few samples of the lichens and we moved on.



We crossed the western face of Trishul from a distance and we came across a deep gorge to the northern side. This again appeared to have been levelled. But this time it did not appear to be a bowl. It was long and appeared like a dry river bed. We descended into it by sliding down on the snow that was still relatively hard. This we later came to know, was the “flood plain” of the Long Lake. This implies that when the Long Lake overflows, it drains into this area. It was not totally dry but had a few isolated puddles of water. The only apparent source of the water in these puddles was the permafrost that had probably started melting. This was confirmed by the high alkalinity of the water that Dr Asim measured. The water in this puddle repeatedly underwent the cycle of freezing and melting during the last few days. This was evident by the presence of water rimmed with ice along the edge and ice in the centre. The wind was causing ripples in the water. Further on, there was a bigger puddle, that could be called a lake. It had a similar appearance, with a thin layer of ice at the edge, then water and finally a thick layer of ice again. There were a few rocks in the water. These were topped with ice. The water that passed over them froze in the wind due to the wind chill factor. This layer of ice appeared like multiple huge diamonds studded all over the rocks. At places, where the ice over the rocks had again started melting, were huge icicles. They appeared like the teeth of a shark and sparkled brilliantly in the weak sunshine. Had we gone further, along this lake, we would have reached the Long Lake. But we did not want to expose Dr Asim any more to this harsh weather (wind chill temperature was around -30ºC) and decided to return. The journey back was along the base of the Trishul peak and passed through a few more gorges. This route was known to me. Right at the base of Trishul was another isolated bowl. At many places, tell tale streaks of salts were present of rocks, that told about the presence of water there.

It was strange that even though I have been to Trishul many times, but I had never before seen these isolated bowls before.