Walking on Mars with John Schutt

July 31

I’ve been invited to take a walk with John, our camp manager. Well, not really a walk. I’ll be walking and taking pictures while John continues his 5 year project to create an accurate topographical map of the areas around camp. He is carrying a long yellow instrument which will provide GPS coordinates and elevation measurements for various points.

John taking measurements of a known  spot

                                                                    

It’s amazing to me that I’m walking and watching John work, because John is a legend in exploration at both ends of the Earth. He has found more pieces of other planets on Earth than any other person. Countless researchers and support staff owe their safety -- and many owe their lives -- to the abilities of this soft-spoken man. He has been at HMP since the beginning.

John tells me this terrain is very Mars-like

Very small plants between the rocks

Over the past two weeks, I have spent many hours with John (mostly doing dishes), and have come to appreciate how he lives for his work and the study of geology.

There are so many things this man has done in his life. Please do some research on him! 

From wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Schutt

John Schutt (born 1948) is an American mountaineer and a member of the yearly Antarctic search for meteorites (ANSMET) program. John has probably recovered more meteorites than any single person in history and has personally recovered more samples of Mars. John has also served as a Field Safety Officer and camp manager for the Haughton-Mars Project with annual field work held on Canada's Devon Island.
John won the Meteoritical Society's Service Award in 2007.^[1] Asteroid 61190 Johnschutt is named in his honor,^[2] as is the Schutt Glacier in Antarctica.

My destination: IRP Ridge. IRP is  a NASA project group.

From the New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/25/sports/othersports/25outdoors.htm

This is the land where Schutt, a compact 59-year-old with a ponytail and wire-rim glasses, has won the admiration of hundreds of scientists from around the world. Each November, fresh from a Mars study expedition in the Arctic, he flies to Antarctica to join a team of geologists from the Antarctic Search for Meteorites program, known as Ansmet. His primary mission is to ensure that all of the scientists make it back alive. To date, he is batting a thousand.

“Down there, he’s a sort of a mythical figure,” said Timothy D. Swindle, a University of Arizona professor who will be joining Ansmet for his third trip this year. “He’s known as Johnny Alpine.”

House Rock, as big as the name implies

A recent honor came in the form of an honorary Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University

for his incredible contributions to planetary science, which extend far beyond what he's done for the Antarctic Search for Meteorites program.

 http://www.case.edu/commencement/news/honorary.html.