Crew 291 EVA Report 25-01-2024
EVA # 7
Author: Clare Fletcher
Purpose of EVA: Went to Kissing Camel Ridge West to identify concretions and possible fossils, as signs of life on Mars. Attempted to reach the Hab Ridge via Kissing Camel Ridge. Dual purpose of this EVA was to get bearings to locations identified during EVA 5 that we are considering using as wayfinding points.
Start time: 1000
End time: 1230
Narrative: Kissing Camel Ridge has proven to be a site of great success for Crew 291. After a steep hike up the ridge, and a lot of disappointing conglomerate, we found the unit with the concretions. We could follow the unit for a little way, but the slight dip angle of the unit meant that we couldn’t find too many, and we would have done better on the North side of the ridge. However, the North side of the ridge was much steeper, so we weren’t able to investigate. While up near the concretions we also took a few bearings to several different peaks that we could see as part of our wayfinding research. We are yet to come to any conclusions about which peak we are seeing is which on the map, and if our crew will develop colloquial names for them that we might use amongst ourselves. We had planned to attempt to reach Hab Ridge via Kissing Camel Ridge, but we determined the path to be too treacherous in our EVA suits. With that and the lack of time, we decided to downclimb and look around the road cutting for anything interesting that had washed down the talus slopes from the top of the ridge. We found several interesting pieces of chert and jasper, as well as a few samples of interesting staining patterns, perhaps by iron oxide and copper, and desert varnish (manganese oxide).
Destination: Kissing Camel Ridge West. Walked within 700m of the rover. Parking rover at 518271, 4249560, walked to 517664, 4249650.
Coordinates (use UTM WGS 84): Parked rover at 518271, 4249560, walked to 517664, 4249650.
Participants: Andrew Wheeler, Clare Fletcher, Scott Dorrington
Road(s) and routes per MDRS Map: Exit Hab via main airlock. Drive down driveway to Cow Dung Rd 0110. Drive South on Cow Dung Rd 0110 to Kissing Camel Ridge. Walk up and along Kissing Camel Ridge to Hab Ridge.
Mode of travel: Driving and walking.