Southeast elevation of Shackleton's Nimrod hut. Food depot in foreground to the southeast.

This season, the annual artefact monitoring programme for Cape Royds was carried out. With the snow levels around the hut, it was noticeably more humid inside than the previous year when a lack of any snow had resulted in noticeably drier artefacts. This was evident in the damp ‘feel’ of paper objects in particular. One paper leaflet had evidently been moved or looked at as it had shifted a long way off its Mylar footprint. Some glass bottle fragments had been picked up and placed inside the front door by a visiting cruise ship party due to safety concerns as they were large sharp fragments and these were returned outside to the rubbish dump area. All else looked undisturbed. All planned conservation work programmes for the 2016-17 summer season were completed, this included the annual Inspection and Maintenance Programme (ongoing) for the Ross Island Huts, the Conservation Programme (Year 1 of 1) at Hillary’s TAE Hut. Work tasks completed included snow removal around the historic huts, artefact monitoring at Cape Evans and Cape Royds, emergency repairs at Cape Evans and Hut Point and inspection of the Observation Hill Memorial Cross. The Maintenance team consisted of Lizzie Meek, Programme Manager (Artefacts) AHT, Sue Bassett (Lead Conservator) AHT and Ciaran Lavelle (Conservator) AHT. Day visits to Cape Evans and Hut Point were carried out by Martin Wenzel, Geoff Cooper, Doug Henderson (Heritage Carpenters), and Annika Andresen (Sir Peter Blake Antarctic Youth Ambassador – Heritage).