Eva Report
12/28/2012
Nora Swisher
April, Derek, Erick, and I started this morning's EVA at 10:33 am, a little later than planned because two backpacks had problems. Once we got out on the road we were all breathing comfortably and riding happily. We took the ATVs on the same route as yesterday. Erick marked the first road intersection with the GPS because we had trouble finding it.
We stopped when we got to the canyon and explored for about two hours. Because of the water activity, many interesting rocks were grouped together. We found green, red, black, and white stones, smoothed from tumbling down the river. The water also carved a cross section of the land for us to look at. Beautiful red, tan, light green, and dark purple stripes were displayed on the canyon walls. I took some pictures of April in front of the striations for size comparison.
After filling our collection bags, tiring our muscles, and fogging up our helmets at the canyon, we moved on. The road between the canyon and the second way point was very hard to see- there are hard rocks instead of soft dirt so there are no tracks to follow. It was much easier the second day, when we had fresh tracks on the soft spots and memory to guide us.
An area of interest was discovered on yesterday's EVA. With a second look and a geologist's eyes, we learned that the strange hill was actually just sandstone, eroded by water. April said it had badlands topography.
We were on our way back to the Hab when tragedy struck! The hose on Derek's backpack broke (details in Erick's report) and my glove developed a hole. Our EVA of four healthy Martians returned with only two remaining alive at 2:01pm.