Camp 3: Mt Crean, 77°55′S, 159°32 E, 30 Nov - 6 Dec.

We camped at 2200 m on an ice covered section of the ridge leading to the south facing Aztec red beds. We arrived a day behind schedule, again due to poor weather conditions. There was no Sirius programme although a sample of glacial regolith and a sample from melted snow were collected to check for airborne diatoms. Rachel left our party and Nerida helped with the coring. Our section was located 30 mins from the campsite. During the next five days we experienced whiteout conditions, strong winds, snow and temperatures down to −27° with a storm on Dec 2 which confined us to our tents. However, we obtained 150 cores from sites we had previously identified as the most promising. This more than fulfilled our objective.