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earlier, after all, and tugged our cameras & orange bags up to Berg Center. Were driven in a truck to the pad along w survival gear & 3 ice axes. Loading into a helo was fun, overstuffed, plushy. I rode up in seat next to the load master. Our two Kiwi friends had just been collected at Cape Evans where they were happy as clams all week; had an artist with them thinking there was room for 3. Bob would have dropped off but we urged him not to volunteer, so the artist, who was not properly checked through, dropped off. We had a 1 hour ride over sea ice - past Erebus with extremely long thin banner above the clouds, and out north. Seals along cracks most everywhere. Turning into Granite Harbor we found a steep rock-strewn cliffside with a short pediment going toward the embayment. Oval, cracked pressure ridges along shore. And boulders over everything. The pilot raced up the shore looking for a wooden hut. A Kiwi told him it was stone and he slowed down. We made 3 turns at least searching for the hut before we saw the ruined sledge and the stonework. We made a difficult, gutsy landing on the rocks. Before we came down a fire extinguisher was activated & filled the cabin w. fumes. They threw it out near the hut & asked us to pick it up. (no litter). When we landed we blew up a sandstorm. We offloaded our gear and were expected to bear  

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it -- cleaning sand and getting it in our clothes & eyes. Finally Bob walked out of range & I followed. The helo took off. Bob ordered us to clear boulders from an area for the next landing pad -- we spent quite a while doing that. Then searched out the hut. From the helo I could see the meteorite -- it still looked promising. We climbed over ridges & boulders, found sledge, cans, and finally the masonry familiar in our pictures. There it was - a meteorite it was not!

It was a granitic crystalline w a dark coat, not a gabbro or dolemite. But certainly not a meteorite.

So we took lots of pictures. W. my camera & the Hasselblad. Had great fun. There on the rocky shore yellow & orange lichens cling to cracks & soil zones. Many growths were twisted & lumpy like coils of refuse. [[Sl??]] were [[con??]] in the area. We wondered what they ate. 25 seals along a crack in the ice. The Mackay glacier tongue much receded in the west of the valley. 

After ~ an hour we heard the helo returning. Scrambled to it but forgot the fire extinguisher. After we took off we hovered low near the hut. The 2nd Kiwi was out there & he had picked it up. We gingerly landed again for man and artifact. Then began a lovely ride back over the ice with