Patriot Hills
Patriot Hills (80°20′S 81°25′W / 80.333°S 81.417°W) is a line of rock hills 5 nautical miles (9 km) long, located 3 nautical miles (6 km) east of the north end of Independence Hills in Horseshoe Valley, Heritage Range, Western Antarctica.[1]
To the north of Patriot Hills (in their slipstream) there is an approximately 2x8 km large blue ice rink, a snow-free surface that can be used as a landing strip for large aircraft including C130 and Ilyushin Il-76 .[2]
History
The hills were mapped by
In 1987, the Patriot Hills Base Camp was built here by the Adventure Network International (now Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions, LLC; ALE). The camp, used only in the Antarctic summer months, was the only privately operated camp on the Antarctic continent.[3] In 2010, they moved operations to the Union Glacier Camp.
During the Antarctic summer of 1998, a team of scientists at
References
- ^ a b "Patriot Hills". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior. Retrieved 2010-07-16.
- ^ National Science Foundation: INITIAL ENVIRONMENTAL EVALUATION DEVELOPMENT OF BLUE-ICE AND COMPACTED-SNOW RUNWAYS IN SUPPORT OF THE U.S. ANTARCTIC PROGRAM. 9. April 1993.
- ^ Adventure Network International - Patriot Hills
- ^ "Robotic Antarctic Meteorite Search - Expedition 1998". Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2014-05-30.
This article incorporates public domain material from "Patriot Hills". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey.