<p class="lead"><strong>Fifty years ago, UW scientist Charlie Bentley made his maiden voyage to a frigid, faraway land – and he’s been returning ever since.</strong></p>
<p class="byline">By Jenny Price</p>
<p>Charlie<strong> </strong>Bentley’s adventure of a lifetime has lasted more than fifty years.</p>
<p>It started in 1957, when he first set foot in Antarctica as a young researcher. Bentley’s own photographs — some reproduced here — document his two-year stay, including exploration of uncharted territory and some remarkable discoveries.</p>
<p>“I never looked back. I never looked around. I never considered doing something else,” says Bentley, shown at left in December 1958. Today an emeritus UW professor of geophysics, he has returned fifteen times and is considered a leading expert on Antarctica. Yet, his work is not done. Now seventy-eight, Bentley serves as principal investigator for the UW’s Ice Coring and Drilling Service, which produces ice cores containing a record of the last 80,000 years of the earth’s climate. Scientists use that information to determine the connection between previous increases in greenhouse gases and climate change.</p>
<p>Bentley most recently traveled to the continent in January 2008, but it was his first trip into the unknown that got him hooked.</p>
<p><em>Photos courtesy of Charlie Bentley.</em></p>
<p class="attribute">This story appeared originally in the <a href="http://www.uwalumni.com/home/alumniandfriends/onwisconsin/archives/fall08/fall08.aspx">Fall 2008 issue</a> of <em>On Wisconsin</em>.</p>