Sea Ice & Happy Camper classes, season overview, LINKS

Hi folks,

I hope life in your neck of the planet is going smoothly. Is it getting cold yet? How much snow in the high country? What are the fall colors like this year? I do like to hear. The complete lack of vegetation here is part of the magic, but also leaves the soul hungry for the company of other forms of life.

It's good to be back here. Today is Sunday, our one day off, and this morning I did my long yoga session followed by brunch (a veggie omelette and a waffle: we're not exactly roughing it here). Last night was the '70's disco party (can get costumes from the Recreation office), but I opted to stay home and read "Mawson's Will" an engaging polar survival story instead. Boring I am :-)

I am rooming with my friend Jean, who is the Education Coordinator. She organizes the Intern Program for college students coming down here, the twice weekly science lectures, a series of classes offered (credit and non-credit), the National Geographic type movies that are shown weekly in the coffee house, and a number of other mini-programs. When school kids send packets of letters, they land on her desk and she finds people to answer them...

She is an interesting and dynamic person and easy to room with; I had an excellent roommate last year as well (fortunately most of us have outgrown the behaviors we subjected our college roommates to). This year I'm in a somewhat nicer dorm: both of my wardrobe/closet doors shut, there are hooks on the wall for our gigantic red jackets, and best of all the hall lights can be turned off so that one may stumble to the bathroom (which is also nicer) at night without fully waking up.

The weather has been quite warm and calm. Temps ranged from -17F (ok, that's cold, but it's all relative) up to 19 degrees, closer to the week's average, and not cold, esp when the sun is up, which is most of the time. It's generally been clear and often calm. This time last year was more normal: storms (the wind chill is as brutal as the solar radiation is hypnotizing), cold; more like what one might expect for the Antarctic spring. This has been nice, but it's also a bit disappointing.

Part of the draw for many of us is actually experiencing the challenge of being here. I have to say I do appreciate situations that demand more from me; there is something very elemental in the simplest tasks taking more time and effort, the focus of life slows down a bit. But most likely we'll have some of that too here in town sometime. The six weeks before we arrived were quite cold. Last year there was more snow around town, esp on the roads. Have to say I find this relative lack of snow distinctly disappointing too.

Sure is different the second time around: tremendously easier. I am glad I didn't realize how overwhelmed I was last year. The difference is striking and much enjoyed. This year there are no new people in our department Field Safety Training (6 of us total), so we all jumped back in and essentially picked up almost as if we'd only been away a month. There is one guy returning from having taken last year off (and two from last year are not here, but will likely return again I'm guessing). He is a Kiwi, has guided for US companies (incl on Everest) and has a ton of USAP experience. He's a good fellow and it's been fun getting to know him a bit. Now he's the one on the South Pole Traverse, and his wife works as a physical therapist in Medical.

I taught two Happy Camper (officially "Snowcraft I") courses this week, the overnight "survival school" in which we cover the skills necessary if people get stuck out of town and have to use the gear in their "survival bag" until they are rescued. We have an area outside of town on the shelf ice (glacial ice floating on McMurdo Sound) where we conduct most of the class. The students put up polar and normal winter tents, build quinzees (mound snow shelters), igloos upon occasion, and survival trenches in an area called Snowmound City.

We wimpy Instructors stay in a quonset-style hut a quarter mile away; the students have a radio and check in. The students range from scientists on their first year down here, through people in support departments who will spend time out of town, and if there's space, in-town people can come out with us. For some, this might be their only out of town adventure of the season (I hope I'm wrong about that). I also enjoy being out of town for the night as well as getting to know more folks. Return folks are required to take a one day Refresher course at the beginning of each season.

On this last course, the snow where I built the survival trench was absolutely exquisite, perfect styrofoam snow, the kind we dream about for climbing. The most perfect I've ever experienced. It was crisp, dense, and cut clean and sharp; sawing through it took some real effort. It cut in perfect corners and held an edge, not unlike styrofoam insulation. Wonderful for building: all the blocks came out fully intact and it was easy to move them around without damage and trim them precisely to fit. Glorious. But just two meters away, where the students were quarrying for their snow wall, the snow was soft and more difficult.

I also taught a Sea Ice course, a one day class designed to provide students basic knowledge about sea ice (which is fascinating, by the way), and also the skills to assess whether they can cross a crack en route to their destination. The concern is less that one will fall through (the ice is generally a couple meters or thicker now), but that later in the season one might cross a crack with the wind to one's back, then find that one is 'going with the floe' toward New Zealand. Or cracks are hidden by drifted snow.

In years past it wasn't unusual to put a vehicle partially in the drink (with occasional fatal results), but in recent years the 30" rule has changed that. A sea ice scientist described why 30" is ludicrous overkill, but then, we are working for a corporation that answers to the government and it's not our decision anyway. Congress (which funds the National Science Foundation) and Raytheon Polar Services stockholders do not look well upon death in the Antarctic.

This year the ice is out really far out this year, far north of the large island we are one (Ross), all the way north to the Drygalski Ice Tongue, a 15 miles wide and 50-60 mile protrusion of glacial ice coming off the mainland far dozens of miles north of us. The massive ice berg that calved off the Ross Ice shelf (over the Ross Sea) in 2000 (and made the national news for it's enormity), though split into two, is still blocking some of the currents coming into McMurdo Sound. The berg(s) block some of the swells and warmer water that would otherwise slowly break up the ice. Aerial imagery shows another one on it's way to cracking off, and we will accompany the glaciology team at times while they put in seismometers and other instruments near where it's cracking.

The sea ice is at its maximum now and effectively doubles the size of the continent (which itself is 1.5 times the size of the US), and by February, the end of our season, it will have broken/melted back quite dramatically, allowing penguins and seals easy access to the McM sound area. The seals come up now anyway through the sea ice cracks, and some of the seal research groups are already out camped on the ice doing their research.

The Adelie peguins, who nest here on Ross Island to the north on Cape Royds, are not here yet and the Emporer penguins, who spent the winter standing in a tight group on the ice with an egg then a chick on their feet under their skin flap, are still at Cape Crozier, on another arm of Ross Island (the center of which is Mt Erebus, a 12,700' active volcano, always steaming far over our heads), but we are unlikely to see any for awhile. Later, Adelies will later nest on the land at Cape Crozier.

That same berg has dramatically reduced the Emporer population at Crozier because they nest on the sea ice attached to the island and the Ross Ice Shelf, and the berg has banged against the shelf crushing the Emporer's nesting area. There were zero chicks in 2001, when just a few years prior there were 1200. This year there are more penguins there so they are hoping there will be also more chicks. The chicks are hard to count when still on a parents feet under the skin flap, but later the parents will leave and then it's easy to make the count.

The remaining day of this week was spent not training, but being trained (often more fun). This season the helicopters operations people invited a bunch of us Science Support people (many depts that directly support the scientists, as opposed to Operations, who run the infrastructure) to learn how to rig the cargo loads that the helos haul underneath. Last year in the field I got to be the one to crouch a couple times under the large hovering helo and clip the cargo cable to the hook under the belly of the roaring monster as we moved a camp... that was exciting. But knowing how to rig the various types of loads of course helps me feel more competent and be more useful in the field.

That afternoon we had helo "step-out" training, getting out of and into a hovering helicopter with a litter (stretcher) and packs as we might have to do during a search and rescue (we are the Primary SAR team and train one day a week for this). Last year we just did it as a dry run on the helo pad because the weather wasn't allowing flights. This time we did it live, on the flat, then on a low angle rocky slope and a low angle snow slope to simulate the types of terrain that we might have to do this on if the helo cannot land where we need to be dropped off. The helo people also recorded the weights of our SAR packs and our own flight weight, which is how much we weigh with all our warm clothing on. My flight weight, which includes pockets full of various items, is almost 25 pounds over my body weight! Fortunately it's distributed in such as way as to not feel like it's suffocating me. It does, however, make getting into high vehicles interesting.

Some of you may recall last year how blown away I was by the various pieces of ancient heavy equipment that I had to learn to drive to transport large numbers of people (happy campers) across snow and sea ice. Each machine is different in terms of where all the fluids are and other things to check as well as in how to start it, so last year I took extensive notes which have greatly helped.

What I'm finding more interesting is how normal it feels now to drive a mammoth rig, lumbering along at 10-15 mph, my head up to 10' off the ground. It's just as well they're slow as it could be easy to get into big trouble with such a heavy behemoth: difficult to slow down as well as get it to move in the first place. Our "Nodwell" that we use for Happy Camper is not-well again, so we have a Delta from Recreation until the Heavy Shop gets it running again. That's the most massive one, with a ladder to get up into it. It's wheeled, not tracked; the tires are almost 6' tall and about 2.5 feet wide.

I have to say I miss the Nodwell, with it's inability to track straight, with the two levers coming up off the floor for steering and braking and the ever-clanking steel track. Much of this machinery was built in the '70's and still says "U.S. Navy" from when the Navy ran this place for the NSF. Only about 5? years ago did private industry take over the contract.

This year I will actually follow-through on my previous plan to take photos of these vehicles and send a couple along to you. Perhaps this part of the job is the most "out there" to me. I do get a kick out of sometimes seeing contruction/destruction heavy equipment being driven by women, some of whom are quite small... breaking the stereotypes.

Nice to see people again; a lot of really cool folks down here. It really is a tight little community with all the benefits and bummers of living in a fishbowl.

The snow still makes all those marvelous crazy squeaking funky sounds. It's such a pleasure to walk across the mostly firm surface (out on the snow on the shelf ice) listening to how the tone and pitch of the squawks and creaks change, especially over the hollower areas which add a level of reverberation or percussion to the music. It varies spatially, often at just the right distance where it changes noticably each step, but not so fast as to be jerky or awkward. Wonderful.

[Now it's Monday morning. I went to the science lecture last night, which was an unusual one: Common Mammals and Birds of the McMurdo Sound Area, which was natural history (descriptive, not science, which is highly focused and is about testing a theory). It was packed with listeners and very interesting and included identification and new discoveries about orcas (3 species?), Minke whales, another whale I've never heard of, 3 kinds of seals including how leopard seals hunt, and of course our beloved penguinos ("pen-GWEEN-o"). Also, an aggressive scavenger flying bird that will show up later around town (squa), and all white snow petrels which most of us don't ever see. But it was a great lecture, one I hope they'll do again if the get a lull in the more scientific presentations.]

Well, my eyes have about had it from staring at this screen, so I'll let you get back to whatever you were working on before I interrupted.

Love and squarky sounding snow, Susan

I found this via a websearch. It isn't related to us officially, but is worthwhile:

http://www.antarcticconnection.com/antarctic/info-index.shtml
Antarctic photo library:
http://photolibrary.usap.gov/
And our weekly newspaper though it appears they haven't started the online summer page yet:
http://polar.org/antsun/index.htm#
NSF Office of Polar Programs:
http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/antarct/start.htm
area map, with the Dry Valleys (highly unique) on the left side:
http://www.niwa.co.nz/pubs/wa/11-3/map_island
map of part of Ross Island and our peninsula:
http://www.geocities.com/~kcdreher/ross_is2.html
And the map we use a lot, the one some of you saw at the slide presentation in Boulder last spring:
http://www.geocities.com/~kcdreher/ross_is2.html