Erebus: The Ice Dragon – A Portrait of an Antarctic Volcano

Haunting and searingly beautiful, Antarctica’s Mount Erebus has attracted explorers, mountaineers, artists, and scientists; each drawn to the mountain by their own particular vision or curiosity. The mountain is a truly unique geological phenomenon — an active volcano sheathed in ice, with hundreds of ice caves, huge steaming towers around its summit, and a lava lake. Also, in the minds of many New Zealanders, it is a place of destruction and despair, wrought by a single momentous accident.

Antarctic veteran Monteath presents a wonderful profile of this historic mountain covering its discovery by James Clark Ross (1841), first ascent during Shackleton’s British Antarctic Expedition (1907-09), second ascent during Scott’s British Antarctic Expedition (1910-13), third ascent during the New Zealand Geological and Survey Expedition (1958-59), early scientific research (1970s), the tragic Air New Zealand crash (1979), the first solo winter ascent (1985), understanding the volcanology of Erebus (1980-2016), and a chapter on artistic impressions of Erebus by Dr. Adele Jackson. This is a wonderfully illustrated and beautifully presented book.