Well Happy T-day to everyone back stateside. We're a day ahead but didn't celebrate yestereday. Instead we have our big shindig tomorrow and the day off wheeeee 2 day weekend! I do have to say it's nice not to be wading through all the black Friday stuff. Tonight we're having "Freezing Man" the Antarctic version of Burning Man, should be umm interesting. Although I think it should perhaps be called Melting Man. The weather here really headed south (heh) Yesterday we had a nice little snow storm that dropped about 3 inches on us and the next couple of days is supposed to get much worse so it looks like there won't be much in the way of outdoor activities this weekend. It kind of stinks we have the Turkey Trot tomorrow a little 5K race around town and out onto the ice shelf. Then Sunday I'm supposed to go out to the ice caves at Cape Evans and another Scot hut but if the weather holds who knows. Anywya hope everyone is well and enjoying their calorie fest!
Clay
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Friday, November 21, 2008
Back from the WAIS lands
This post may get a little long so go ahead and grab your favorite beverage kick back and hopefully enjoy the travelogue.
The trip started out with a flight on an LC-130 Hercules New York Air National Guard. These are specially built hercs that have skis attached to the landing gear so they can get into some of the more remote area of the continent. It was a 3.5 hour flight from Mactown to WAIS divide. As we were getting ready to land the left main landing gear wouldn't deploy, it had frozen up or so the indicators were telling the pilot. He went into a series of sharp turns, climbs, and banks to break the landing gear free. After all the gyrations one of the flight crew checked the gear itself and assured us it was locked down. Personally I think a cargo pilot just wnaed an excuse to do something other than fly the airforce equivalent of a UPS truck. Nothing against the AF crew they were great, very professional and let people up to the cockpit for lookarounds etc.
Once on the ground the plane kept its engines running so they wouldn't freeze up. It dropped the cargo and took off again. We then took snowmobiles out to the tent site and set up our mountian tents. These would be home for the next 10 days. After everythign was set up we headed to the galley for a nice meal.
The next day we started camp construction. For the winter they put most of the permanent buildings up on snow berms in the hopes they won't accumulate too much snow. It's a bit of an exercise in futility but still made it easier for the tractors to haul the modules down to the summer camp site. Once there we built a RAC tent (it's kind of an improved version fo the old MASH style canvas tents) that connected to the galley module so we would have some place to sit down to eat, relax etc.
Day 3 we experienced some of the milder ANtarctic weather. Snows and 30 mph wind. It was too windy for us to do any construction so we ended up sitting in the newly constructed tent playing cribbage, reading and eating cookies...it's a harsh continent I tell you.
We had decent weather the rest of our time there and ended up building 2 multisection rac tents, 3 smaller rac tents, 3 jamesways (they're the older MASH style olive drab buildings) and 2 10-15 man tents.
Once again I had a new found appreciation for the hardships the 1st explores went through to try and reach the pole. Here we were with a nice tent set up and heaters and it was still a pretty grueling exercise, especially when you had to take your gloves off to do any sort of intricate work like tying a knot.
Now for some interesting yet disgusting facts
There are showers there but we had to build them, melt the snow to fill the water tanks and water heaters. They were up and operational the day we left. 10 days without a shower is icky
Taking care of any sort of bodily functions has to be planned in advance. it takes a bit of time to get out of all the cold weather clothing. The outhouses sit over a hole drilled in the ice and believe me there are few things less miserable than plopping your butt down on a frozen toilet seat.
On the plus side though the air is pristine. For example, when you exhale in cold weather you can see your breath right? wrong!! the reason that happens is there is some sort of particlate in the air that moisture can latch on to to create a cloud. Unless you were near a source of exhaust, say an oil stove or vehicle you never saw yoru breath.
Which brings up the next good thing no particlate in the air no boogers to generated inside the nose
The final bit if eww factor is what to do when you have to go to the bathroon and you're all nice and cozy inside your sleeping bag, 2 words...pee bottle that's right instead of losing all the trapped heat inside the bag, getting dressed and stomping to a pee flag or outhouse you just find an old nalgene bottle to use as a chamber pot. Yeah it's kind of high on the eww factor but it beats freezing.
All in all it was a great experience and I wouldn't trade the memories for anything. I was on one of the most remote ares of the continent in -30 degree weather sleeping in a tent. How many other people can say they've had that kind of opportunity?
Photos are up at the photobucket site.
Cheers
Rewarmed Clay
The trip started out with a flight on an LC-130 Hercules New York Air National Guard. These are specially built hercs that have skis attached to the landing gear so they can get into some of the more remote area of the continent. It was a 3.5 hour flight from Mactown to WAIS divide. As we were getting ready to land the left main landing gear wouldn't deploy, it had frozen up or so the indicators were telling the pilot. He went into a series of sharp turns, climbs, and banks to break the landing gear free. After all the gyrations one of the flight crew checked the gear itself and assured us it was locked down. Personally I think a cargo pilot just wnaed an excuse to do something other than fly the airforce equivalent of a UPS truck. Nothing against the AF crew they were great, very professional and let people up to the cockpit for lookarounds etc.
Once on the ground the plane kept its engines running so they wouldn't freeze up. It dropped the cargo and took off again. We then took snowmobiles out to the tent site and set up our mountian tents. These would be home for the next 10 days. After everythign was set up we headed to the galley for a nice meal.
The next day we started camp construction. For the winter they put most of the permanent buildings up on snow berms in the hopes they won't accumulate too much snow. It's a bit of an exercise in futility but still made it easier for the tractors to haul the modules down to the summer camp site. Once there we built a RAC tent (it's kind of an improved version fo the old MASH style canvas tents) that connected to the galley module so we would have some place to sit down to eat, relax etc.
Day 3 we experienced some of the milder ANtarctic weather. Snows and 30 mph wind. It was too windy for us to do any construction so we ended up sitting in the newly constructed tent playing cribbage, reading and eating cookies...it's a harsh continent I tell you.
We had decent weather the rest of our time there and ended up building 2 multisection rac tents, 3 smaller rac tents, 3 jamesways (they're the older MASH style olive drab buildings) and 2 10-15 man tents.
Once again I had a new found appreciation for the hardships the 1st explores went through to try and reach the pole. Here we were with a nice tent set up and heaters and it was still a pretty grueling exercise, especially when you had to take your gloves off to do any sort of intricate work like tying a knot.
Now for some interesting yet disgusting facts
There are showers there but we had to build them, melt the snow to fill the water tanks and water heaters. They were up and operational the day we left. 10 days without a shower is icky
Taking care of any sort of bodily functions has to be planned in advance. it takes a bit of time to get out of all the cold weather clothing. The outhouses sit over a hole drilled in the ice and believe me there are few things less miserable than plopping your butt down on a frozen toilet seat.
On the plus side though the air is pristine. For example, when you exhale in cold weather you can see your breath right? wrong!! the reason that happens is there is some sort of particlate in the air that moisture can latch on to to create a cloud. Unless you were near a source of exhaust, say an oil stove or vehicle you never saw yoru breath.
Which brings up the next good thing no particlate in the air no boogers to generated inside the nose
The final bit if eww factor is what to do when you have to go to the bathroon and you're all nice and cozy inside your sleeping bag, 2 words...pee bottle that's right instead of losing all the trapped heat inside the bag, getting dressed and stomping to a pee flag or outhouse you just find an old nalgene bottle to use as a chamber pot. Yeah it's kind of high on the eww factor but it beats freezing.
All in all it was a great experience and I wouldn't trade the memories for anything. I was on one of the most remote ares of the continent in -30 degree weather sleeping in a tent. How many other people can say they've had that kind of opportunity?
Photos are up at the photobucket site.
Cheers
Rewarmed Clay
Sunday, November 9, 2008
delays delays delays
As expected my flight out today was cancelled. It's a logistical challenge to coordinate flights between here, the pole and field camps while hoping for good weather in all 3 locations. Hopefully we'll get out tomorrow
Saturday, November 8, 2008
New Photos and stuff
Hey gang I just put up new photos on photobucket
http://photobucket.com/Sliding_South
also for any of you googlers that are interested in what I'm going to be doing for the next few weeks. I'm heading out tomorrow to the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS) to help set up the summer camp. They're drilling ice cores there for climatological research. It's a pretty big camp once we get it up and running although going a few weeks without a shower doesn't really sound all that pleasant to me, I can't wait to get out onto the continent itself. It'll be just a bit colder -20ish F vs here where it's up to 23 today HEAT WAVE!!! I'm not even wearing a jacket.
http://photobucket.com/Sliding_South
also for any of you googlers that are interested in what I'm going to be doing for the next few weeks. I'm heading out tomorrow to the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet Divide (WAIS) to help set up the summer camp. They're drilling ice cores there for climatological research. It's a pretty big camp once we get it up and running although going a few weeks without a shower doesn't really sound all that pleasant to me, I can't wait to get out onto the continent itself. It'll be just a bit colder -20ish F vs here where it's up to 23 today HEAT WAVE!!! I'm not even wearing a jacket.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Happy Camper reprecussions
The Happy Camper school is a prerequisite to leave base. I found out in our morning meeting today that I'll be heading out to a deep field camp about 200 miles away from the pole in the next couple of days. Basically we'll be setting up the summer camp there so they can do some ice core drilling. I'll be gone about 3 weeks but hopefully back in time for Thanksgiving. I'm not sure when I'm leaving yet but probably sometime this week. I'll be just a bit out of touch while I'm gone so sorry in advance for the lack of updates. I'll drop a line before I leave.
Cheers!
Clay
Cheers!
Clay
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Photobucket
Not sure if this will work for everyone or not but I uploaded photos to Photobucket at
http://photobucket.com/Sliding_South
Let me know if you can see them
Clay
http://photobucket.com/Sliding_South
Let me know if you can see them
Clay
Halloween
So I made it back from Happy Camper school with just the bare minimum of frostbite. It has to be the most unusual Halloween I've ever had. I mean most people just dress up like a ghost and go door to door extorting treats....not me, I go a few miles outside the 1 bit of civilization there is dig a hole in the ground, throw a sleeping bag into the hole and take a nice nap. I guess it's a good zombie impersonation. So back to the happy camper thing. It was interesting we learned how to make a wind wall out of blocks of snow, pitch a tent in high winds, and my favorite...wander around outside with buckets on our heads to simulate a white out condition. The goal was to find a lost member of our party....unfortunately we never found him and "killed" off a member of the rescue party who lost his grip on the lifeline we were attached to. So the moral of the story, don't get lost you'll die.
We finally finished up camp and made it back to town just in time for the big Halloween party, sure it was a day late NZ time but most of us are off on Sunday's so Saturday night is much more fitting, besides we can rationalize any holiday into a 2 day event. Celebrate on local time then back on US time the next day. New years must be fun here.
So the scariest costume award went to our Sarah Palin look alike.
We finally finished up camp and made it back to town just in time for the big Halloween party, sure it was a day late NZ time but most of us are off on Sunday's so Saturday night is much more fitting, besides we can rationalize any holiday into a 2 day event. Celebrate on local time then back on US time the next day. New years must be fun here.
So the scariest costume award went to our Sarah Palin look alike.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
Posts
