Happy New Year to all,
Subject: Missing seal to watch for on sea ice trips
We have had a seal escape from Fat City and she is most likely going to show up either by the Erebus Ice Tongue or out somewhere on the crack running from the Tongue over towards Penguin Ranch. I believe these are areas that your team routinely visits.
She is very easy to ID...instruments glued on her back with bright yellow and pink neoprene. If you find her, please contact the Crary lab immediately and let them know. They will get in touch with us.
Thanks, Mike C---
What a crazy place this is. This message is quite old; forgot to include it last month.
Today is a comp day for my time on the South Pole Traverse (SPT). Our dept has time now because of a storm that's been swirling around for the past few days. Not cold (around freezing), a little snow, a little wind, but not a little impact on McMurdo. We have not had a flight for the better part of a week now; some people are stuck out at camps others waiting to get in... but this does not surprise anyone. I am grateful not to be stuck on the Traverse. It seems that anywhere that so much energy is required to make it hospitable (much less conduct research) will also be a place where people are frequently directly affected by normal natural events. It is unheard of in my other life for the world to stop for a mild storm such as this. Here we are very vulnerable, much less buffered than "back in the world", the developed world, at least.
Not only are freshies (food!) and package mail sitting on Air Force pallets in Christchurch, NZ, but so are three dozen people whom right now we were to be taking through Happy Camper School ("Snowcraft I": how to camp in the cold, use the camping gear in survival bags, use the radios, etc. Two days). This makes it easy on the dept for me to get one of two comp days for having been out on the SPT for nearly 5 weeks.
You might be surprised what my fingernails look like, and not what you're thinking. Yesterday I went to Girl's Night, an informal gathering hosted by the field-gear dept (5 women, one guy), where interested men are welcome. The table was covered with fancy lotions, incense, candles, nail polish, margaritas, the chocolate I contributed... and the main event of the evening turned out to be removing the 120 corn rows (very thin braids) from the hair of the Principal Investigator of the Blood Falls glacier project I told you about last time. Full on chick-style scene: nurturing of self and others; only men comfortable with their masculinity will enjoy. There was also a pre-made foot bath tub that was popular.
The novelty of the fingernail polish, in many non-traditional colors, was irresistible. Each of my nails is a different color, then with spots on top, and then covered with a glittery layer. (To answer your question: I only had one margarita). And two of the guys let me paint their toe nails. Fun in McMurdo-land (McWeirdo?).
The nail polish had been collected over time from Skua Central. A skua is a scavenger bird, a large brown and unusually bold gull. If you leave the galley with a plate in your hand, they will come right at you. Any item one has that is no longer wanted but still usable is donated to "skua" and anyone may take anything they want from skua. Skua is also a verb, like to "skua that coffee maker" before you leave. Especially for a remote place like here, it's a great system, one I wish was more widely used elsewhere. Not unlike OB roadkill, NOLS refugee food...
Girl's Night kept me up uncharacteristically late, and was followed by more novelty: a 4am wake-up to accompany Mr Needs No Sleep to the gym for his workout: arm, abs, and then a session on a gerbil-wheel machine. Recently I have overcome my self-consciousness and now am carrying a pack on the gerbil machine so that I might be able to schlep weight up into the NZ mtns post-ice if it stops raining/snowing there by then. Given that the weather there is worse this year than last, I am not optimistic, but there is still time.
Then we went to yoga, fortunately it was mellow. THEN, was breakfast and the "start" of the day. Yeowza.
Ok, something more of substance: the South Pole Traverse. My dad had some questions that others may share. The goal of the traverse is to put a route in across the ice shelf, through the mtns, and then across the polar plateau, 800 miles to the South Pole Station. Being able to haul fuel, building supplies (new station work continues), and equipment should be cheaper than flying all that down there, freeing up more resources for Science (the Sacred Cow). The route is little more than compacted snow, crevasse-free underneath, and flagged at quarter mile intervals with occasional 4x4 posts naming the waypoint and marked to measure annual drifting. The compaction from 5 heavy "tractors" and their numerous sled loads persists year to year even when buried by a the little new snow this place gets. This is the third year of this very involved, high profile, and pricey project. They are through the mountains and only have 300 miles to go across the plateau, but are turning back as they don't have enough fuel to make it to Pole and back.
Last year they had to cross a shear zone where the McMurdo Ice Shelf ice and that of the Ross Ice Shelf converge. The Ross ice is moving faster, creating crevasses in response to the tremendous shear forces (somewhat similar to the San Andreas Fault). These 25-30 crevasses were "mitigated" which means the bridges were blown up and then the holes were filled in with snow by a dozer with a blade taller than me. A handful of small new crevasses have formed since last year in the shear zone, and I don't know that anyone knows how often they will have to rework the route. Also, the ice along the route is moving at different rates, up to the better part of a kilometer in places... you can imagine what longterm havoc that could create on such a route. This is of surprise to no one so I assume they have some idea of how they'll deal with this over time. For now, they're just trying to get to the Pole.
This is a controversial project because of extending the US footprint down here (though other countries have traverses, all shorter), its feasibility, and because of the "professional style" of the project manager (he has pissed off many people). Some of you may be aware that Edmund Hillary criticized this project, though without a clearly articulated reason, when he was recently down here for a Kiwi base event. In 1956, he was among the first team to drive to the Pole.
My job as you might recall was reading the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) screen, a laptop with lines running across the screen, riding along in the Pisten Bully. The Pisten Bully has a 20' boom sticking off it's front at the end of which the GPR unit is mounted. The idea is that I can see a crevasse and say to Jim, "Stop", (or "STOP!") fast enough to remain on the surface. It worked fairly well*.
Meanwhile Jim, the engineer from the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab (a part of the Army Corp of Engineers; Fairbanks, and Hanover, NH) did his best to drive a straight line via the inconsistent GPS. Turned out that Jim is not a GPR reader, so guess who was stuck behind the darkening curtain for the 5 weeks! Jim's job was partly to gather snow strength data (lots of Rammsonde Penetrometer measurements) to figure out how much snow over a bridge was enough (a ratio of thickness to width of about one to one is generally considered adequate). He also gathered data on over-snow mobility, focusing on the varying forces created and on the designs of the sleds carrying our living and energy (generator) modules, food room, freezer (yup), two milvans which are like truck containers, and numerous tanks of fuel.
The Pisten Bully ride was often rather rough depending on the angle of the sastrugi (wind carved snow: irregular, often tall, sometimes so hard that boots wouldn't leave tracks).
At times the ride was violent, including head banging even at 3mph. I couldn't see past the curtain so could not see the bumps and anticipate them. Early on I resorted to duct tape to compensate for having failed to bring a sports bra. I only let Jim, my driving buddy (progressive, married, father of 2 women), know about this, and he didn't turn me in when others made comments wondering where the duct tape was going. I devised wrapping styles that allowed for breathing, but duct tape each day, even over a regular bra, takes its toll on skin. Finally I thought of the ace wraps in the first aid kit; quite an improvement. I cannot relate to wishing I was better endowed.
I secretly welcomed the crevasses, usually covered by bridges that were at least 8m thick, because they were something of interest on the screen. Our goal, however, was to not mitigate or cross any crevasses no matter how well bridged and instead to find a route around, which we did.This meant basecamping (the term "camping" is used rather loosely here) for a day or two at a time and lots of reconning with Jim or the Project Manager. At one area, we ran a multi-day search pattern covering about 70 miles. One 5 mile stretch showed 67 crevasse images, and the total was around 500. Evidently GPR use on glaciers is quite new so there isn't much information on how to interpret the images; they do not present like a crevasse actually looks. This meant we had to figure it out based on their experience in the shear zone last year. We casually named the different forms and a few times part of the crew set up a hot water drill to see how thick the bridges were so that we could "ground truth" what we throught we were seeing on the screen.
Before drilling, Jim and I used the GPR to find the "strike", the orientation, of the crevasse so the team could drill a cross section of holes. I started a library of saved GPR images for future educational use and had the idea to mark the hole locations on the screen image as we ran the antenna past each hole at the required speed. This would allow for correlation of the actual depths with what we were seeing on the screen.
The hot water drill involves a generator, heating elements, a large tub into which snow is shoveled, and then 120' of hose ending in a 1m x 2" copper pipe with a perforated cap (like a showerhead). They just lowered the drill at the speed at which 150 degree F water melts snow, till it broke through, or not, into the void. They also measured the crevasse depths: 130' was about the deepest of the 5 or 6 crevasses drilled.
The best part of reconning? Getting dropped off on the way back so I could then skate ski to camp. I had skate skied 3 times ever, so was in the steepest part of the learning curve out there. The rough snow surface and wind were often quite challenging, while the snow in the fresh vehicle tracks was unconsolidated and like skiing in deep sugar. But it did get me some alone time, active time, outside in the real world, and out of hearing of machinery, and over time I did actually come a long way in learning to skate ski. To ski the semi prepared surfaces here near town is a real treat in comparison. I skied quite a lot on the traverse, and think it saved my sanity.
*We experienced some excitement discovering that not all crevasses showed up on the radar. Fortunately, at those times we were out reconning and the Project Manager was on board so he realized that it was not incompetence that led to our breaking through. The first time he and I unknowingly crossed a 4' wide bridge that collapsed as we were leaving it. That bridge varied from 3' to 3" in thickness. The vehicle engine is up front and the track is 9' long so all we experienced was a particularly violent lurch as the back end went down but then came right back out as we pulled out. Turns out that the crevasse was just visible on the surface. We were left on the far side; some crevasses out there extend for a couple miles. With some exploration, we found an end where we could easily get across. In the probing and shoveling, I found a crevasse-hoar crystal about 4-5 cm across. Gorgeous. We took it back for Judy.
Most of the crevasses we saw were associated with another shear zone created where the polar ice sheet splits into glaciers to squeeze through the Transantarctic Mountains, pouring 9000', over many miles, off the plateau. From there these massive glaciers spill out over the Ross Sea and merge at different speeds/volumes to become the Ross Ice Shelf, which flows north to the mouth of the Ross Sea and sheds icebergs into the circumpolar current.
These bergs, which may persist for years, feed the world's richest ocean ecosystem nutrients from the dust and dirt (and meteorites, another area of USAP study) collected over the eons. The people, dogs, sleds, Shackleton's ponies, and camps (Scott) that met their ends on the Ross Ice Shelf or in it's crevasses during the historical age a century ago, have/will become part of icebergs that get caught in the circumpolar current, finally breaking up and releasing their loads of organic matter (and from the USAP, shit like drifted over fuel caches: lost drums full of aviation fuel).
Some of these bergs might be as big as B-15 that made national news when it broke off the shelf in 2000, another natural event that affects our little world tremendously. Despite a third of it breaking off last season, B-15 remains massive. Recently the scientists have connected seismographic readings, picked up as far away as Fiji, with the movements of the berg (no, I'm also not drinking a margarita now either) as it bangs around. The quieting of the active and very close volcano Mt Erebus (12,000') in the past few years coincides suspiciously with the seismic activity; there is some thinking that the berg bangings have been slowly releasing the energy in Erebus that was building up into small steam and bomb eruptions.
Would you believe that the ocean is dimpled like a golf ball surface? Don't ask me how they measure that. Until recently the Big Berg was stuck sitting in one of these dimples. A berg a third of the size of CT now was stuck in an ocean dimple all of 2.5cm (one INCH) deep. Recently it's been on the move toward the Drygalski Ice Tongue, a glacier sticking 50 miles out from the northern part of the Transantarctic Mtns. There is some concern the berg might hit the tongue, pivot and ground against Beaufort Island, further blocking currents that have led to this years massive sea ice coverage in McM Sound. I continue to be amazed at this place.
So, back to McMurdo. There are people here of many talents, and many offer their skills to the rest of us, including massage therapists who bring down their tables and make extra cash in their free time (bliss). Awhile ago we went to an evening class on Argentine tango, taught by a very engaging and humorous fellow who works for NASA and runs the T-3 study going on (T-3 is a hormone that has to do with how we respond to light and cold... this is yet another story that I know little about). To an undetermined degree he is Argentine, and I think he has both a medical degree as well as a PhD; but I do know he sure can tango. About 40 people learned that there's more than one way to tango and got started with the basic steps. Quite entertaining... his teaching style as much as trying to coordinate my feet with the funny music. And yes, it does indeed take two.
Fear not, I recently found out that the Rec Dept is funded by alcohol sales, not Your Tax Dollars At Our Play, via the National Science Foundation. I know you were stressed about that. The fact that there are 6 Rec employees and lots of rec facilities, including all the exercise equipment... well, there are also three bars in addition to the store selling booze. Many people here party as hard as they work.
Just before heading out to the SPT, I had my final opportunity of few this season to visit the Penguin Ranch. The sea ice officially closed during my absence and the camps have come back in a bit earlier than normal. Larry hadn't been to Cape Royds, home of an Adelie penguin breeding colony and also Shackleton's 1911? hut, so we did pull off the trip that I referred to last time. We did actually do what we were supposed to to justify this otherwise-boondoggle. We investigated a recently opened sea ice crack off the tip of the Barne Glacier, which comes down off Mt Erebus, patron saint of Ross Island, and floats partway into McMurdo Sound. The crack was wide enough that we had to look around a bit to find a place where it was less than a third the length of our snowmobile tracks. We also found two newer active cracks further north and brought back that info for the sea ice guy in our dept.
The Penguin Ranch, a research camp, is set far enough back from the sea ice edge that the dear little (not so little) pengweenos cannot swim back to the edge and escape. A corral surrounds a large drilled hole in the sea ice, and the penguin ranchers kidnap some Emporers from elsewhere (16 this year), and make them live at the ranch for a month or two while their diving behavior and physiology are examined. Small cameras and speed instruments are glued to a couple of the penguins' backs, but the researchers don't like photos taken of the instrumented birds because of potential bad public relations; penguins are well loved here and worldwide. For good reason.
The highlight of the ranch, from our rubberneckers' point of view, is the observation tube, a 20' or so deep pipe about 3' diameter with rebar steps inside. It hangs in another hole in the ice and ends in a space just big enough for two to sit surrounded by windows slowly being grown over by algae-inhabited ice crystals. 'Twas a real treat to see the penguins, awkward on land, in their element speeding like graceful living torpedoes through the empty looking water. Empty except for hexagonal ice crystals, flat, solid, thin as can be, and of varying size (up to a cm?), floating gently suspended in the water.
The ice crystals making up the base of the sea ice were covered with an orange brown algae that will feed krill. The Antarctic krill population seasonally outweighs the Earth's human population five times over and supports the tremendous amount of fish and marine mammals who eat either the fish or the krill itself (baleen whales). This is a very important ocean ecosystem. The annual sea ice is the most significant seasonal cycle of the planet both for it's size and biological impact.
Anyway, we also watched a seal checking out the penguin hole, but not for long. Then she came right up to the ob tube window, suspended vertically and motionless in the water, staring at us with her big brown eyes: wonderful. (Could have been a Far Side cartoon: us in the cage.) They too are remarkably graceful in the water.
Seals visibly recoil, so we're told, when they approach a hole only to have sharp-tipped feathered torpedoes flying down into the water, and penguins can't necessarily differentiate a harmless Weddell seal from a leopard seal, one of their major predators, so they typically don't use the same holes. Weddells can dive deeper and longer than any other animal(?) so they can come far into McM Sound despite heavy sea ice coverage, which brings me back to the email message above. This year there were more hidden cracks than usual so that science group (seal metabolism studies) couldn't keep their seals so changed the kind of data they collected.
The sea ice warmed dramatically during December's heat (above freezing a lot, so I hear) and thinned to the extent that the icebreaker had an easy time getting in despite the additional mileage they had to break through. You might recall that in Nov, whether the icebreaker could get through all the sea ice this year (and then the fuel and supply vessels) was of serious concern as far north as the D.C. offices of NSF. The Coast Guard icebreaker is stuck here with mechanical problems (daily leaking 10 gal of oil into McM Sound, keeping the Environmental Dept busy) The diver/welder/mechanics are stuck in Christchurch).
We are awaiting the Russian icebreaker contracted late in the game; this job takes two ships in a "normal" year. The channel is so long this season that there is concern that it won't clear in time for the fuel ship (wind blows the ice north, but there's a bend in the channel too this year) or that the ship won't be able to turn around and they won't back up in the floating ice chunks for fear of propeller damage.
One quickly learns to not worry about what might happen here, esp. as we have our hands full working with whatever current unpredictable event we are experiencing. Many of us love the mystery of what will happen next here; it isn't boring. Definitely a good place to learn patience, flexibility, improvisation, problem solving, and to be at peace with not knowing what will unfold next. Also a good place to learn that fake hair, blue sometimes, gets braided-in to add volume when people get their hair corn-rowed.
Well, this is getting pretty long and you have more important things to do, so I think I'll wait and describe the Adelie penguin breeding colony and Shackleton's restored hut on Cape Royd's for the next installment of Susan's Antarctic Adventures.
If you are interested in more about almost anything I write about you'll get the official version: more accuracy and detail about the research projects and local phenomena, and a slightly sanitized view of McMurdo, you'll find it somewhere in the Antarctic Sun website. The Sun is "for the friends and family... of USAP participants" and it's the source of much of our overall info on the projects going on and iceberg and similar situations that highly affect operations.
Now it's Tuesday and sunshine is beginning to replace the storm. Yesterday out on the shelf ice, I found almost a foot of new snow, much more than I'd expected. Much of the snow melts here on the ground, but it was fun to have it floating down and feeling like a quiet spring storm in the high country. The Kiwi ski hill, a rope tow up a low hill and run off an old truck, more or less ran on Sunday. It's been a week since flights came in and I'm told this length of storm is unusual. We keep busy with long term projects, the ones that normally don't get done, but I'm looking forward to getting back up to speed. We are all drooling at the thought of fresh food. One could fund their post-ice travel by selling a single apple these days.
Love and salad, Susan
January 11, 2005
November 27, 2004
Dry Valleys, South Pole Traverse, dead penguin, sea ice
Happy Post Thanksgiving Coma,
So, finally I write. As you might suspect, life here has been rather busy; so what else is new. As you pass out noticing how long this is, be relieved to be reminded that it's been well over a month and will be another 5 weeks before you hear from me again!
Today is the day after Thanksgiving in your neck of the planet. I hope you all had a fine Thanksgiving and didn't eat to that painful point.
Last week I returned from two weeks at a camp in the Dry Valleys, next to Blood Falls.
Review: You may recall that the Dry Valleys exist because the mountains keep the plateau ice from covering them up. Plateau ice does flow in, but the area is so dry (plus summer "heat") that they valleys are extremely desiccated and essentially nothing changes. Mars related research goes on here; the area is unique in the world and highly protected: not only is poop packed out, but even all urine is collected. It's best not to even blow one's nose onto the ground: adds organic matter, of which there is very little and can effect future research. You can imagine the procedures for fueling stoves and how the carpenters collect all their sawdust when they work here.
There are amazingly intact mummified seals that are carbon dated to 5000-9000 years old. Nothing breaks down here: the ultimate freeze drying. Here is only the tiniest of life: microbes, some of which live in the interstices in the rocks, yet a thriving ecosystems of various microbes under the 15' of ice on the lakes. There are some algae and even some visible non vascular plants, like lichens, in a very few spots.
I was supposed to work with this group for a week before switching out with another from our dept, but one of us had to fill in unexpectedly elsewhere and it made sense to keep me in the field the second week. Blood Falls is named for an orange flow coming out of the toe of the Taylor Glacier, see:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031105064856.htm .
The project involves placing ablation stakes and tilt sensors on the sides, and seismometers on and near the glacier, to measure calving and strain. (This team is mostly women.) They are also drilling a number of cores. At the terminus, these glaciers have vertical sides 20-30m tall even, usually, unlike glaciers in most other places; hence the need for Field Safety people.
The Taylor was chosen because it most mimics tidewater glaciers by ending in a lake (the West Lobe of Lake Bonney) and for other reasons as well. Some of this research is part of the Long Term Ecological Research going on worldwide (UN related??) and is related to climate change.
Much research occuring here relates to other ecosystems. The example I'm thinking of is seals. It is far easier to study seals than Yellowstone's wolves and grizzly bears; the Weddell research here is closely tied to my home ecosystem. Many patterns apply to different species and systems, and a Sunday Science lecture recently highlighted the similarities between the ecosystem in which seals play a part and in Yellowstone.
Back to the Taylor Glacier project. This group has their own "mountaineer", a former member of our dept, who is with them through most of their six weeks in the field. One of us switches out periodically as further support.
It was probably the most fun project I'll do all season. Not often do we actually get to do exciting things like hang ropes, skills related to what we do and love in our other lives. I assisted in the drilling on both the faces. Two of us (a mountaineer and a scientist) are on the face at a time and the drill is tied in from above.
The most novel part was using a motor-head (like for a chainsaw) with a 2.5 meter bit attached, 2" diameter, to drill the holes from one-meter depth to the two-meter needed. We had problems with the augers and at one point had to hand drill from .5m to a meter. The holes are at 10 degrees down from horizontal and it was a humorous and gymnastic challenge to get enough leverage on the hand drill for the other person to be able to crank it and get it going. Some hack saw (contain the shavings!) creativity got the augers to connect and we were back in business with the power drill.
For anchors, we used V-threads in the ice like we do in climbing with ice screws (drill out two holes to make a v-slot and run a piece of rope through) but with the 2" wide 1m long hand drill, so they were most burly (the rope would fail well before the ice).
This was, however, only two days of the work (days that went, incidentally, to midnight and 2am respectively). The rest of it involved finding and maintaining the access onto the glacier (Blood Falls can work but it's better not to because of it's uniqueness as well as it's scientific value; do check out that website above), selecting sites for both the faces and drilling, setting them up, arranging for the helo loads of science equipment to get onto the glacier sites, etc.
Interesting how field science actually happens. Two of our crew work for Ice Core Drilling Services and were there to run the drill, which is the very same drill in the slides some of you saw last June. Another was there to install the seismometers.
Science groups don't necessarily have all their own science equipment (not to mention all the camping gear and food that the USAP provides). The USAP is one of the easiest for researchers to work within because the USAP essentially provides everything: inexperienced researchers can work in remote and hazardous settings, which can be interesting. In other places, like the NSF Office of Polar Programs (of which we are part) Greenland program, the scientists have to provide much more of their own gear, expertise, and resources, drawing more experienced and organized researchers.
This project had a grand total cargo weight of 15,000 pounds; that was not a typo. I was astonished to see, over that first week, more and more equipment come in. They have a lot of "basic" electronics, including 80# batteries to hold solar power. Many of these camps (not the deep field, at least) are fully decked out with wireless internet, which often works even. But most of the weight was the gear to go up on the glacier, for example six 150# wood boxes custom built here in town by the science carpenters to withstand multiple Antarctic winters to house data-loggers, more batteries to receive power from the attached solar panels (at least until the long dark night arrives), and all dozen long wires coming up from each cliff face. The drill is 1500#, and the long white-painted steel pipes going into the holes on the face weren't exactly light either. We had a chainsaw to cut the ice, however Erik and I got pretty into hacking away ice where needed. This stuff was flown onto the glacier in sling loads that the helo tech put together.
One of the other people was Thomas, my high school classmate. He and his grad student set up 3 cameras below the glacier to take 9 photos a day, until the polar night, of the toe of the glacier. Each camera needs similar attendant equipment as the equipment on the glacier.
What a scene!
A few weeks ago I spotted a penguin, my first of season, lying down on the sea ice during a sea ice course. We approached gingerly, only to find the feathered fellow had only hours ago perished. We checked out this Emporer anyway, noting how deep the feathers go for insulation (1-1/2 to 2"), looked at the reptilian feet, and otherwise appreciated being as close as we'll ever get to a penguin.
One of the penguin researchers caught wind of our find and requested the bird. The next sea ice course found me distracted with a more unusual agenda, but we also did drill some cracks as expected.
We knew not to post the photos we took on the intranet because if we had touched the penguin, dead or not, on our own volition I would have been busted under the Antarctic Treaty and would have had to get the scientist to get me out of hot water.
Paul Ponganis, Principal Investigator at the Penguin Ranch, said that the bird had died of hypothermia from starvation, that the body weight was about half what it should have been (despite feeling a bit heavy to me!). Apparently this is a highly unusual occurence (not sure exactly what details: time of year? location? etc?) and they were psyched to send the body to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography for dissection.
The Penguin Ranch has an observation tube down under the ice that I'm hoping I'll be able to get into this Sunday (my last chance). I've seen footage of penguins swimming and it is phenomenal even on a screen. I'll only be able to leave, to use a snowmachine, for real purposes, so we'll have to drill a crack or two to justify this potential "boondoggle". We shall see.
Speaking of sea ice, the ice is still close to 100 miles out. This is the most locked in McMurdo Sound has been in memory. It's not an issue of weather; hardly: it's been super warm this season. It's because of that massive iceberg still blocking the current that would otherwise break down the sea ice.
This year one of the ice breaker ships is having an engine replaced, and they haven't been able to contract another, so they're talking about having to build a road across the ice to offload both the fuel ship and the cargo vessel, both of which arrive in February. This would be a big deal, a decision made at NSF in DC and requiring emergency funding. But the ice might break out... who knows.
This year our dept doesn't have a road flagged all the way out to Cape Royds (north, site of Adelie penguin rookery and one of Shackleton's huts) because of a large active crack near the Barne glacier. This one actually does need monitoring, so a Sunday sojourn to measure it has real value this year.
Before I went out to the Dry Valleys, I was doing my Sunday yoga session when my pager went off. This was the first SAR call-out I've been here for. It was a late check-in from a field camp. Like most everyone, I knew not to be concerned because it's easy to be late for a daily check-in on certain days. As we headed over for the briefing, the follow-up call came in that they had indeed called in.
I have a personal reason to completely understand and forgive them, but I wasn't inconvenienced enough (or concerned enough) to have anything to forgive. The thing about SAR here is that there is a good chance we'll know whoever it is that we are taking care of, which would add an additional component to a rescue that I would not experience working SAR near home with the patients being strangers.
By the time you find time to actually read this, I will be out on the South Pole Traverse (I leave Monday). I am scheduled for 5 weeks, including 2/3 of our 2-day weekends (the holiday season. Again). The resupply flight will include dynamite which cannot be flown with passengers, so they can't bring out someone else to replace me, but they are flying another guy (not our dept) in on Dec 22nd. Four weeks was the max stay last year with the SPT (fewer had been planned).
The South Pole Traverse, to refresh, is the "building" of a "road" (a track in the snow) to the South Pole, about 800 or 1000 miles to supply fuel and if it's done early enough, some of the construction materials for the new South Pole Elevated Station (replacing the famous dome). This should eventually pay off in terms of flights to the South Pole, assuming the shear zones on the ice shelf and glacier up to the plateau don't need "remitigation" too often.
This is a massive project and a real engineering challenge as the machinery is super heavy and the snow is, well, snow. Highly variable, changing year to hear, and overlying glacial ice with the expected crevasses. A phenomenal amount of money has been sunk into the project (it was originally funded directly by Congress) and it's one of those government projects that "has" to succeed (at any financial cost?) once the investment is started. Not unlike a war.
The crew consists of 4 or 5 heavy equipment operators and mechanics, someone from our dept (Field Safety), and a (rotating) engineer from CRREL, which is the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab based in Fairbanks. A lot of research is being done via this project, which is indeed unprecedented. Already papers have been published about using the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to identify crevasses (which they then "mitigate": blow up the bridge and then fill in with snow) and other specific research on mobility and snow/crevasse movement.
I went out with our guy who is covering the first shift and two CRREL guys for a day of training with the GPR. The training went well: crevasses seem generally reasonably easy to see and as it's a computer program on Windows, I could get around pretty well within it, yea.
I genuinely like the crew. The heavy equipment operators and mechanics all seemed friendly/warm if not also fairly open. I felt accepted and do not anticipate any stress with them. I'm sure it helped that we were working in my area of expertise, not theirs. I didn't get the feeling any of them had gender issues. I can deal with gun and killing-things talk I'm warned of (one or two individuals); that's not unlike tuning out endless chatter among teenagers about movies or partying. I have been strategizing on how get some personal time, even if it's within the cramped living module.
I will be spending much time in the Piston Bully vehicle with the CRREL guy, alternating between driving and staring at the GPR screen on the laptop suspended from the ceiling and surrounded by a darkening curtain. The GPR unit is mounted on a 20' boom that reaches out front and they've always been able to stop well before driving over a bridged crevasse.
We will also be analyzing the snow periodically. Last year, the snow was hideously soft and loose and they were bogged down heavily and didn't get nearly as far as hoped. Many changes have been made in the equipment for this year.
When I arrive they will have just made it to the end of last year's progress. This means I'll also be involved in flagging the route at quarter mile intervals with the snowmobile behind the vehicle. I am sure project manager will be the third person involved in the PB driving, GPR reading, and flagging team.
We are there as safety experts, esp when we have to rappel into blown-open crevasses to report on dimensions and directions (which might be a lot going from the Ross Ice Shelf up the Leverett Glacier at the south end of the Transantarctic Mtns.
We will be working 12 hour days every day of the week. Last year out of 66 days, there were 2 during which visibility prevented progress, so they worked on other projects instead. That was their time off.
I have been less than well this past week after picking up "the crud" after getting back from the Dry Valleys. As you can imagine, illness here in particular travels like wildfire in a hot dry wind. I have been taking advantage of my roommate, the Education Coordinator, for her stack of videos about Antarctica. Many exist and I've been somewhat of a slug lately, with a special friend, watching penguins and leopard seals and Weddell seals and a few whales and early explorers and learning about the ecosystem created by sea ice and icebergs breaking off from the shelves (floating glaciers as opposed to frozen ocean water)... fascinating. Jean and I won a drawing and thereby have a vcr in our room. I believe they pipe in some sort of tv programming here as well as the Armed Forces Radio channel or something like that too.
Tomorrow Sir Edmund Hilary will give a presentation in the galley which I am certain will be most well attended. He was a major part of the first traverse of Antarctica in 1957 using modified (tracks) farm tractors, one of which is in the Antarctic section of the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch. NZ's Scott Base (about 8% as big as ours) is just a couple miles away and they are building some facility that will be named after Hilary when it is completed in a few years. You might have realized how old Hilary must be (the Everest summit was in '53)... which is why they're getting him down here before the facility completion. In fact rumor has it not to expect too much from his presentation as he is not getting on quite so well these days. I plan to attend.
Thanksgiving for us is today, Saturday, so we get a two day weekend (our first, and one of three all season). People are tired and despite the nice weather I don't think a huge number of people are out hiking or skiing Ob Hill or the Castle Rock loop.
There are three dinner shifts, and I have been thinking that we could go in for the first, then come back for the third and have more pie. Hmmm... we shall see what they do to mimimize this obvious plan.
Have a wonderful holiday season, enjoy the solstice on the completion/start of yet another trip around our sun, and I'll be in touch again when I get back at the beginning of the New Year.
Love and warm holiday and new year's wishes to all, Susan
So, finally I write. As you might suspect, life here has been rather busy; so what else is new. As you pass out noticing how long this is, be relieved to be reminded that it's been well over a month and will be another 5 weeks before you hear from me again!
Today is the day after Thanksgiving in your neck of the planet. I hope you all had a fine Thanksgiving and didn't eat to that painful point.
Last week I returned from two weeks at a camp in the Dry Valleys, next to Blood Falls.
Review: You may recall that the Dry Valleys exist because the mountains keep the plateau ice from covering them up. Plateau ice does flow in, but the area is so dry (plus summer "heat") that they valleys are extremely desiccated and essentially nothing changes. Mars related research goes on here; the area is unique in the world and highly protected: not only is poop packed out, but even all urine is collected. It's best not to even blow one's nose onto the ground: adds organic matter, of which there is very little and can effect future research. You can imagine the procedures for fueling stoves and how the carpenters collect all their sawdust when they work here.
There are amazingly intact mummified seals that are carbon dated to 5000-9000 years old. Nothing breaks down here: the ultimate freeze drying. Here is only the tiniest of life: microbes, some of which live in the interstices in the rocks, yet a thriving ecosystems of various microbes under the 15' of ice on the lakes. There are some algae and even some visible non vascular plants, like lichens, in a very few spots.
I was supposed to work with this group for a week before switching out with another from our dept, but one of us had to fill in unexpectedly elsewhere and it made sense to keep me in the field the second week. Blood Falls is named for an orange flow coming out of the toe of the Taylor Glacier, see:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/11/031105064856.htm .
The project involves placing ablation stakes and tilt sensors on the sides, and seismometers on and near the glacier, to measure calving and strain. (This team is mostly women.) They are also drilling a number of cores. At the terminus, these glaciers have vertical sides 20-30m tall even, usually, unlike glaciers in most other places; hence the need for Field Safety people.
The Taylor was chosen because it most mimics tidewater glaciers by ending in a lake (the West Lobe of Lake Bonney) and for other reasons as well. Some of this research is part of the Long Term Ecological Research going on worldwide (UN related??) and is related to climate change.
Much research occuring here relates to other ecosystems. The example I'm thinking of is seals. It is far easier to study seals than Yellowstone's wolves and grizzly bears; the Weddell research here is closely tied to my home ecosystem. Many patterns apply to different species and systems, and a Sunday Science lecture recently highlighted the similarities between the ecosystem in which seals play a part and in Yellowstone.
Back to the Taylor Glacier project. This group has their own "mountaineer", a former member of our dept, who is with them through most of their six weeks in the field. One of us switches out periodically as further support.
It was probably the most fun project I'll do all season. Not often do we actually get to do exciting things like hang ropes, skills related to what we do and love in our other lives. I assisted in the drilling on both the faces. Two of us (a mountaineer and a scientist) are on the face at a time and the drill is tied in from above.
The most novel part was using a motor-head (like for a chainsaw) with a 2.5 meter bit attached, 2" diameter, to drill the holes from one-meter depth to the two-meter needed. We had problems with the augers and at one point had to hand drill from .5m to a meter. The holes are at 10 degrees down from horizontal and it was a humorous and gymnastic challenge to get enough leverage on the hand drill for the other person to be able to crank it and get it going. Some hack saw (contain the shavings!) creativity got the augers to connect and we were back in business with the power drill.
For anchors, we used V-threads in the ice like we do in climbing with ice screws (drill out two holes to make a v-slot and run a piece of rope through) but with the 2" wide 1m long hand drill, so they were most burly (the rope would fail well before the ice).
This was, however, only two days of the work (days that went, incidentally, to midnight and 2am respectively). The rest of it involved finding and maintaining the access onto the glacier (Blood Falls can work but it's better not to because of it's uniqueness as well as it's scientific value; do check out that website above), selecting sites for both the faces and drilling, setting them up, arranging for the helo loads of science equipment to get onto the glacier sites, etc.
Interesting how field science actually happens. Two of our crew work for Ice Core Drilling Services and were there to run the drill, which is the very same drill in the slides some of you saw last June. Another was there to install the seismometers.
Science groups don't necessarily have all their own science equipment (not to mention all the camping gear and food that the USAP provides). The USAP is one of the easiest for researchers to work within because the USAP essentially provides everything: inexperienced researchers can work in remote and hazardous settings, which can be interesting. In other places, like the NSF Office of Polar Programs (of which we are part) Greenland program, the scientists have to provide much more of their own gear, expertise, and resources, drawing more experienced and organized researchers.
This project had a grand total cargo weight of 15,000 pounds; that was not a typo. I was astonished to see, over that first week, more and more equipment come in. They have a lot of "basic" electronics, including 80# batteries to hold solar power. Many of these camps (not the deep field, at least) are fully decked out with wireless internet, which often works even. But most of the weight was the gear to go up on the glacier, for example six 150# wood boxes custom built here in town by the science carpenters to withstand multiple Antarctic winters to house data-loggers, more batteries to receive power from the attached solar panels (at least until the long dark night arrives), and all dozen long wires coming up from each cliff face. The drill is 1500#, and the long white-painted steel pipes going into the holes on the face weren't exactly light either. We had a chainsaw to cut the ice, however Erik and I got pretty into hacking away ice where needed. This stuff was flown onto the glacier in sling loads that the helo tech put together.
One of the other people was Thomas, my high school classmate. He and his grad student set up 3 cameras below the glacier to take 9 photos a day, until the polar night, of the toe of the glacier. Each camera needs similar attendant equipment as the equipment on the glacier.
What a scene!
A few weeks ago I spotted a penguin, my first of season, lying down on the sea ice during a sea ice course. We approached gingerly, only to find the feathered fellow had only hours ago perished. We checked out this Emporer anyway, noting how deep the feathers go for insulation (1-1/2 to 2"), looked at the reptilian feet, and otherwise appreciated being as close as we'll ever get to a penguin.
One of the penguin researchers caught wind of our find and requested the bird. The next sea ice course found me distracted with a more unusual agenda, but we also did drill some cracks as expected.
We knew not to post the photos we took on the intranet because if we had touched the penguin, dead or not, on our own volition I would have been busted under the Antarctic Treaty and would have had to get the scientist to get me out of hot water.
Paul Ponganis, Principal Investigator at the Penguin Ranch, said that the bird had died of hypothermia from starvation, that the body weight was about half what it should have been (despite feeling a bit heavy to me!). Apparently this is a highly unusual occurence (not sure exactly what details: time of year? location? etc?) and they were psyched to send the body to the Scripps Institute of Oceanography for dissection.
The Penguin Ranch has an observation tube down under the ice that I'm hoping I'll be able to get into this Sunday (my last chance). I've seen footage of penguins swimming and it is phenomenal even on a screen. I'll only be able to leave, to use a snowmachine, for real purposes, so we'll have to drill a crack or two to justify this potential "boondoggle". We shall see.
Speaking of sea ice, the ice is still close to 100 miles out. This is the most locked in McMurdo Sound has been in memory. It's not an issue of weather; hardly: it's been super warm this season. It's because of that massive iceberg still blocking the current that would otherwise break down the sea ice.
This year one of the ice breaker ships is having an engine replaced, and they haven't been able to contract another, so they're talking about having to build a road across the ice to offload both the fuel ship and the cargo vessel, both of which arrive in February. This would be a big deal, a decision made at NSF in DC and requiring emergency funding. But the ice might break out... who knows.
This year our dept doesn't have a road flagged all the way out to Cape Royds (north, site of Adelie penguin rookery and one of Shackleton's huts) because of a large active crack near the Barne glacier. This one actually does need monitoring, so a Sunday sojourn to measure it has real value this year.
Before I went out to the Dry Valleys, I was doing my Sunday yoga session when my pager went off. This was the first SAR call-out I've been here for. It was a late check-in from a field camp. Like most everyone, I knew not to be concerned because it's easy to be late for a daily check-in on certain days. As we headed over for the briefing, the follow-up call came in that they had indeed called in.
I have a personal reason to completely understand and forgive them, but I wasn't inconvenienced enough (or concerned enough) to have anything to forgive. The thing about SAR here is that there is a good chance we'll know whoever it is that we are taking care of, which would add an additional component to a rescue that I would not experience working SAR near home with the patients being strangers.
By the time you find time to actually read this, I will be out on the South Pole Traverse (I leave Monday). I am scheduled for 5 weeks, including 2/3 of our 2-day weekends (the holiday season. Again). The resupply flight will include dynamite which cannot be flown with passengers, so they can't bring out someone else to replace me, but they are flying another guy (not our dept) in on Dec 22nd. Four weeks was the max stay last year with the SPT (fewer had been planned).
The South Pole Traverse, to refresh, is the "building" of a "road" (a track in the snow) to the South Pole, about 800 or 1000 miles to supply fuel and if it's done early enough, some of the construction materials for the new South Pole Elevated Station (replacing the famous dome). This should eventually pay off in terms of flights to the South Pole, assuming the shear zones on the ice shelf and glacier up to the plateau don't need "remitigation" too often.
This is a massive project and a real engineering challenge as the machinery is super heavy and the snow is, well, snow. Highly variable, changing year to hear, and overlying glacial ice with the expected crevasses. A phenomenal amount of money has been sunk into the project (it was originally funded directly by Congress) and it's one of those government projects that "has" to succeed (at any financial cost?) once the investment is started. Not unlike a war.
The crew consists of 4 or 5 heavy equipment operators and mechanics, someone from our dept (Field Safety), and a (rotating) engineer from CRREL, which is the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab based in Fairbanks. A lot of research is being done via this project, which is indeed unprecedented. Already papers have been published about using the Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to identify crevasses (which they then "mitigate": blow up the bridge and then fill in with snow) and other specific research on mobility and snow/crevasse movement.
I went out with our guy who is covering the first shift and two CRREL guys for a day of training with the GPR. The training went well: crevasses seem generally reasonably easy to see and as it's a computer program on Windows, I could get around pretty well within it, yea.
I genuinely like the crew. The heavy equipment operators and mechanics all seemed friendly/warm if not also fairly open. I felt accepted and do not anticipate any stress with them. I'm sure it helped that we were working in my area of expertise, not theirs. I didn't get the feeling any of them had gender issues. I can deal with gun and killing-things talk I'm warned of (one or two individuals); that's not unlike tuning out endless chatter among teenagers about movies or partying. I have been strategizing on how get some personal time, even if it's within the cramped living module.
I will be spending much time in the Piston Bully vehicle with the CRREL guy, alternating between driving and staring at the GPR screen on the laptop suspended from the ceiling and surrounded by a darkening curtain. The GPR unit is mounted on a 20' boom that reaches out front and they've always been able to stop well before driving over a bridged crevasse.
We will also be analyzing the snow periodically. Last year, the snow was hideously soft and loose and they were bogged down heavily and didn't get nearly as far as hoped. Many changes have been made in the equipment for this year.
When I arrive they will have just made it to the end of last year's progress. This means I'll also be involved in flagging the route at quarter mile intervals with the snowmobile behind the vehicle. I am sure project manager will be the third person involved in the PB driving, GPR reading, and flagging team.
We are there as safety experts, esp when we have to rappel into blown-open crevasses to report on dimensions and directions (which might be a lot going from the Ross Ice Shelf up the Leverett Glacier at the south end of the Transantarctic Mtns.
We will be working 12 hour days every day of the week. Last year out of 66 days, there were 2 during which visibility prevented progress, so they worked on other projects instead. That was their time off.
I have been less than well this past week after picking up "the crud" after getting back from the Dry Valleys. As you can imagine, illness here in particular travels like wildfire in a hot dry wind. I have been taking advantage of my roommate, the Education Coordinator, for her stack of videos about Antarctica. Many exist and I've been somewhat of a slug lately, with a special friend, watching penguins and leopard seals and Weddell seals and a few whales and early explorers and learning about the ecosystem created by sea ice and icebergs breaking off from the shelves (floating glaciers as opposed to frozen ocean water)... fascinating. Jean and I won a drawing and thereby have a vcr in our room. I believe they pipe in some sort of tv programming here as well as the Armed Forces Radio channel or something like that too.
Tomorrow Sir Edmund Hilary will give a presentation in the galley which I am certain will be most well attended. He was a major part of the first traverse of Antarctica in 1957 using modified (tracks) farm tractors, one of which is in the Antarctic section of the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch. NZ's Scott Base (about 8% as big as ours) is just a couple miles away and they are building some facility that will be named after Hilary when it is completed in a few years. You might have realized how old Hilary must be (the Everest summit was in '53)... which is why they're getting him down here before the facility completion. In fact rumor has it not to expect too much from his presentation as he is not getting on quite so well these days. I plan to attend.
Thanksgiving for us is today, Saturday, so we get a two day weekend (our first, and one of three all season). People are tired and despite the nice weather I don't think a huge number of people are out hiking or skiing Ob Hill or the Castle Rock loop.
There are three dinner shifts, and I have been thinking that we could go in for the first, then come back for the third and have more pie. Hmmm... we shall see what they do to mimimize this obvious plan.
Have a wonderful holiday season, enjoy the solstice on the completion/start of yet another trip around our sun, and I'll be in touch again when I get back at the beginning of the New Year.
Love and warm holiday and new year's wishes to all, Susan
October 18, 2004
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
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
October 05, 2004
Christchurch Boomerang, October 5, 2004
Hi the few,
Antarctic adventures begin already.
After four hours in the air, word came down that we were turning back (a "boomerang" flight). We were hoping they were joking, but knew better.
The first plane that landed on the ice runway left an 8"deep trench 1000' long that needs a bit o' work before another plane can come in.
Apparently this is fourth year sea ice (fairly old) and it has a 9" layer over a weak area, so they have to fill in all the holes with fresh water, give them 24 hours to freeze, then test each one with something heavier than heavy equipment (which they have).
They had a wooden boomerang on board that the crew photographed one of their guys with. Cute.
The weather has closed in, which would preclude our arrival anyway. I am ready to be down there, not hanging out in Christchurch, but there are far worse places to be stuck.
I'm trying to absorb the colors and scents of the many flowers, the songs of the birds, the dogs... and of course the Thai food.
Our pay is not affected. In fact, on delay days we get the same per diem cash to cover accomodation and food, much of which the resourceful among us hoard for post-ice travel. Not a bad deal.
Antarctica is a good place to learn to let go to attachmentto plans! So, I'll let you know when we land. On the ice.
Love to all, Susan
Antarctic adventures begin already.
After four hours in the air, word came down that we were turning back (a "boomerang" flight). We were hoping they were joking, but knew better.
The first plane that landed on the ice runway left an 8"deep trench 1000' long that needs a bit o' work before another plane can come in.
Apparently this is fourth year sea ice (fairly old) and it has a 9" layer over a weak area, so they have to fill in all the holes with fresh water, give them 24 hours to freeze, then test each one with something heavier than heavy equipment (which they have).
They had a wooden boomerang on board that the crew photographed one of their guys with. Cute.
The weather has closed in, which would preclude our arrival anyway. I am ready to be down there, not hanging out in Christchurch, but there are far worse places to be stuck.
I'm trying to absorb the colors and scents of the many flowers, the songs of the birds, the dogs... and of course the Thai food.
Our pay is not affected. In fact, on delay days we get the same per diem cash to cover accomodation and food, much of which the resourceful among us hoard for post-ice travel. Not a bad deal.
Antarctica is a good place to learn to let go to attachmentto plans! So, I'll let you know when we land. On the ice.
Love to all, Susan
October 03, 2004
SAR training in NZ, more about McMurdo life
Hi all,
I hope this finds you well and looking forward to the cooling weather.
I am in Christchurch, NZ at the International Antarctic Centre in preparation for heading back to the Antarctic for another season on "the ice". I am surprised how familiar this city feels, and am enjoying seeing our crew again. It's a lot different, smoother of course, second time around. More mental energy left for other things.
We leave your-Monday morning and I anticipate being there just over four months again.
You might remember that McMurdo Station is home to about 1100 people in the summer. It looks like a mining camp with industrial buildings and with all the pipes on the surface, but we do live indoors, can go to the coffeehouse, the gym, the hair cutter, or play sports or music or use the crafts room or bouldering wall or... it's a full on town of interesting and varied people. About one third of the population is new people, and I am of the average age. It's about 2/3 men, and includes a disporportionally large lesbian population.
Most people are from Colorado, where Raytheon Polar Services Company is located, but WA and Alaska are also very well represented. I think about a third of us are National Science Foundation Grantees (scientists), and there are also a number of NY Air National Guard guys floating around later in the season. NYANG is the contractor for large planes.
The US Antarctic Program is a part of the National Science Foundation; "your tax dollars..."
The US Antarctic Program is a part of the National Science Foundation; "your tax dollars..."
When we get there we will have some darkness during the short night, but in not too much time the sun will always be up. We are at 77 degrees south. It's cold down there now (well below zero F), and the sea ice is at its maximum, but all of that will change in the coming months. It'll even get above freezing for a few weeks. There'll be times that it's colder outside your window than mine. (smirk)
I have the same job in Field Safety. There are six of us in our department and the gender ratio, well, I'm the only woman (and am the first in a few years). We have some really good guys (a Buddhist, and other granola-sympathisizers) with a lot of experience. As last year, I feel very welcome. Everyone works a six day week, 9 to ten hours a day. In our job, we often work longer hours, but then we also get out of town (which is everyone's craving), routinely... a real bonus and most of the reason to be here in the first place. Many people hardly ever can get out of town.
We spend a lot of time teaching classes to the scientists ("beakers") and others, such as snow camping, sea ice safety, glacier travel, GPS, and the like. We also accompany some of the scientists out into the field for up to a few weeks at a time in a safety manager role. Our third responsibility is search and rescue, for which we train one day per week.
We arrived in Christchurch over a week ago to train in search and rescue with our counterparts at the Kiwi base just 2 miles from us. We all work together in the event of a call-out... definitely makes sense to combine our resources though our station is an order of magnitude larger than theirs.
Our home in the South Pacific is Ross Island, located at the edge of the Ross Sea, an enormous bay covered with a plate of floating glacier, the "ice shelf". On our peninsula is a four mile flagged route for skiers or hikers, ending at Castle Rock, a crag big and steep enough that in years past fatalities have happened there. Not only do we train for snow rescues and crevasse extraction, but we also work on getting someone up or downrock cliffs as well. This, of course, is fun. We spent two days at crags near town working with the toys and systems, and also spent 3 nights at a ski area (think Colorado circa 1960... cool!) working on snow. We also reviewed a lot of first aid, which I also quite enjoy. It was a fun training with great folks.
Once again I absolutely loved watching green parrots soaring just above us in the high alpine. You can imagine how graceful they soar (ha!) as they scope out whose pack they'll rip into if given half a chance. They also perched on the rail outside the hut, watching us through the window, hoping we'd leave one open (they actually come in and cause an astonishing amount of damage; we saw photos). They strut with"attitude". But it sure is funny to see a parrot in the snow. They are orange under their wings, so suddenly colorful in flight.
Then two of us taught a Refresher course at the International Antarctic Center here by the airport. It was a reveiw for the helicopter staff, and the first course ever taught pre-ice. You can probably imagine how crusty and cynical the pilots and other long time ice-heads can be having to be told once again how to stay warm, fed, and sheltered in an emergency, especially by second year punks like us. Fortunately, they refrained from copping the attitude we were braced for and it was even fun. We work with them a lot and it's valuable to have a good rapport going. (Flying in helicopters is another bonus of our job).
We have today off and most of tomorrow, yea. Today involved buying a lot of avocados and fresh fruit at the local weekend street market to take down there with me. "Freshies" will probably not be a huge priority on the first few flights. The season is starting 4 or 5 days later this season, probably because of availability of the NY Air National Guard. We are competing to some degree with military needs, which as you know have changed lately. The later season start has many of the scientists stressed (it's a short season anyway considering how difficult it can be to gather data in such a challenging place), and everyone will hit the ground sprinting this year in particular. Planes will be filled with people and equipment, not salad!
This is the third year of the South Pole Traverse. It's an immense project to squash a route in the snow 800 miles to the SouthPole. The new Pole station requires much in the way of heavy construction materials, so if they can free up all those flights, then the flights will be available for science. The route crosses crevassed terrain, wicked deep loose snow in places, and has been a, uh, "challenge" for those involved (hard core mining engineer and heavy equipment operators). They figure it will take 30 days for the convoys to reach the Pole and 20 to get back.
Last year most of our guys hated it for various reasons, but our boss has taken many of our complaints to the Traverse people, and there should be some significant improvements. This season, I too will have to be involved. Sigh. But I know it's the price I pay to get to be down here again. I believe I am scheduled for five (5) (cinco) weeks out on the traverse, just after Thanksgiving to NewYear's.
My job will be scientific snow assessment (cool), sittingin the cab staring for endlesss hours at the Ground Penetrating Radar to watch for upcoming crevasses, and first aid as needed. We will work 12 hour days.
I don't know if they'll allow tofu on the Traverse; I think I'll hide five weeks worth in my enormous parka. I'm told by our guys who went down last year that I'll hear a lot about guns and killing things. I'll just quietly practice yoga in the corner. Right.
Well, that's plenty for now.
Love and wild places, Susan
January 04, 2004
Great White Expanse, Dry Valley, hs classmate, icebreaker ships
Hi all,
Remember how I said early in the season that I dreaded the idea of leaving? I went on to say that I expected that I'd be ready for it by then because of the natural flow of the season here anywhere. Well, I will be. Not that I don't want to return, it's just that a break, a long break, will be very much savored. Plants, animals, fresh food, my own schedule. Climbing.
I am exhausted. Not so much from immediate lack of sleep, but from what will soon be four months of a very structured lifestyle in which much energy and time goes into work and, in the field, simply living (as manyof you know).
My 3-plus weeks on the east Antarctic plateau was mixed. It is interesting, in it's own monotonous way, to be in a place that is flat andwhite out to the horizon for a complete 360-degree view. Between shoveling out caches, inventorying food, fuel, and other supplies, calling inweather reports, trying to get 25 year old snowmachines to run (little luck), and trying to stay out of the hut when one of the engineers was watching endless versions of the tv show "Friends" on disk while he worked, I hiked out beyond view of camp into the Great White Expanse.
I walked into the wind, the cold-flat version of walking uphill first, and did find that there is still a distinct sense of orientation out there. The wind blows and the sun cast shadows on the uneven, wind-carved snow,changing direction only slowly. At one of the three sites I could actually see that the plateau fell off toward the Weddell Sea, many miles distant,and rose ever so subtlely toward the pole 300 miles away. It was high and cold (warmest was 18F, coldest -23F), but the wind was reasonable and we mostly had sunshine, so it was not the awful time it could have been.
I did, however, made a serious error that at the time I thought could cost me my job next season. I forgot to call in one evening for our daily check-in (called in late next morning). Fortunately significant errors were made by the acting McMurdo Station Manager in his response, so the plane assigned to fly over to see if we were no more than a smoking crater (hut propane problems), didn't actually leave the ground. Other parts of a rescue were mobilized as well; many people were involved directly or indirectly. In addition to scaring people, search-and-rescues divertresources from science. It's bad enough when a scientist does this (happens a few times a year), but when a member of the primary Search andRescue team, who also works in Field Safety, makes such an omission, it is quite embarrassing for the whole department. Our boss makes a big deal about professionalism and the fact that "credibility creates opportunity"; for us opportunity means getting out into the field.
When I called in and asked to talk with my boss, he was really nice (though I distrusted it). I think he knew that if he came down on me I might have asked for an immediate plane ticket back to New Zealand.
Anyway, I took this mistake hard. Really hard. In fact I was surprised how wracked I was. The rest of that week in the field was awful. Unbenownst to the 2 engineers I was working with (I lived in a tent, notthe 8'x16' hut), I cried a fair amount (but still did my job!) in frustration with myself and with a system that only recognizes, so I was sure, mistakes and not the previous 3 months of good solid hard work.
Given the nature of my work out there, I had plenty of time to think...and dwell. I concluded the intensity of my reaction reflected the depthof several things: how much I wanted to come down to the ice and do this job, how hard I have worked for 3 months, and how commited I have been to doing the best work I can. I was a mess. I truly dreaded returning to McMurdo and facing my world.
This stress was draining. Getting back to town was initially traumatic.
However, it seemed that people knew that I was less than pleased with my oversight, and were amazingly supportive (and some told stories of mistakes they made early in their ice careers). In fact, I was astonished how much my work team and friends, even those I don't know well, rallied for me. Several people said that their depts had found some glitches in their responses so were improving their systems as a result. And the engineers from the field made it clear to the powers of US Antarctic Program that there were a number of extenuating circumstances, which were indirectly the responsibility of the Program, that led up to my missing the call though of course it was still my mistake. Rick wrote a letter to my boss on upto the Station Manager to put the missed call in context with both that whole (exhausting, stressful, and distracting) day as well as my performance for the other 21 days out there, weeks during which we and worked every day, not taking any holidays or other breaks.
So, I survived, my future here is not in jeopardy, and life goes on.
Soon after returning, I was assigned a field job that I think I was given largely as an antidote for three weeks on the plateau and what I put myself through that last week. I got to spend 3 days in the Taylor Valley, one of the incredibly unique (Mars-like: for real) Dry Valleys of Antarctica. My job was to keep 2-3 scientists, one of whom was the previously mentioned high school classmate and friend of an old friend, safe while they stuck flags into the edge of the Taylor Glacier. I even got to setup a rappel for said classmate so he could put stakes in down the side of the glacier. Then of course I let them top-rope climb the same face. Cool. Actually using some real skills, rather than using about 2% of my skills. You know it's bad when I'm psyched to take someone top-roping!
It was a fun scene there at the Lake Hoare "camp" (full-on hut, camp manager; well established). Thomas had had his high school yearbook sent down, so we had fun looking through that. That time was half our lives ago; we both agreed that we are improving with age. Plus it was like being in the mountains. It WAS being in the mountains! Peaks, crags, talus, scree, glaciers, creeks (yeah, running water in this banana belt of Antarctica)... mummified seals (carbon dated from about 5000-9000 years old) many miles from the ocean, and I even saw some vegetation! It was a microbiotic crust like in the deserts of North America, and a bit of lichen... a veritable forest. I took a photo (I bet you can't wait to see that one).
And to get from the camp to the glacier, we commuted by helo. Bizarre: they pick us up in the morning, having flown the 40 minutes from McMurdo, set us down on the glacier, go do other work, then pick us up in the afternoon and deposit us back at the hut where we unload all the science gear (fortunately it's heavy: justifies not carrying it ten miles). I flew back on a Coast Guard helo, which are allowed to fly over open water, unlike "our" helos.
For the first time in my life, I saw...whales. Whales. Mostly Orcas (killer whales) and a few Minke. They were... how to summarize? Magnificent. They were cruising the ice edge, looking for seals or penguins to chomp, and the pilot turned the helo partly onto it's side and spun a circle over a couple different sets ofthese gorgeous and powerful creatures of the salty world. Wow.
So, as you can tell, I am feeling refreshed. I needed it.
Two Coast Guard Icebreaker cutters recently left. The night I arrived from the plateau I watched them finish plowing through the ice the rest ofthe way to the ice pier that has been being "built" for the last few months. It's the world's only ice pier, several acres in area, very thick ice I am sure as it never gets to melt, and it's managed to make is stronger, deal with tides, etc. It was something to watch this enormous ship back up a 100 yards or so, then plow forward into the ice, crunch crunch, riding up a bit, then backing up again. They accidently took a piece out of the pier (got a photo of that too).
I just happened to get to go on board with some workmates. The guy who runs their shop is a Search and Rescue fanatic from WA state: exactly the kind of rescuer who terrifies backcountry people/climbers (ALL enthusiasm, but essentially no skills or fitness; but at least he didn't have an attitude). He invited us (SAR team) down to "trade patches". Someone dug up a handful of patches describing who we are (our dept/SAR/Antarctica),and this guy gave us patches of the US Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star.
He was rather entertaining in his unbridled excitement over how cool our patches are, how psyched he was. Apparently there's a whole culture of patches, Search and Rescue and/or military... interesting. And, we got a brief tour of the ship. As you can imagine the engines are large, the hull thick (Two inches. The ice was up to 14' thick), the structure specialized. Steep stair-ladders, hatches between floors (when closed, you climb through a narrow round hatch in the big-door hatch)... hard to get a real feel of the size of the ship because all the spaces inside are so small, so compartmentalized, even the engine rooms. There were two of these ships here, hanging out for awhile in the channel they made.
Right after I leave the even bigger supply ship comes in, an annual event. It will leave with a year's worth of trash (including barrels of urinefrom the dry valleys. One carries pee bottles while out in the field. NOTHING is deposited on the ground there to preserve it for future science and because there is essentially no organic material there, but there are bacteria that like in the interstices in the rocks: very unique place, nothing breaks down (mummified seals), it doesn't rain, research to shed light on Mars is conducted here...). All the dry food we'll eat next season, which was bought almost a year ago, will arrive (fresh for sure) as well as everything else they don't want to spend the money to fly here.
The fuel tanker, loaded with 7.5 million gallons of fuel, is sitting out there to refuel the ice breakers, probably the USAP science ship that just pulled in, and then it'll unload the rest into the many mega fuel tanks here in town for the next year's worth of heating and transportation.
So there is now a channel from the open sea all the way (a few miles) into the ice pier. Today the wind picked up from the south and blew most of the chunks of ice out of the channel, so now we actually see the water of McMurdo Sound. Given all the ice, this is a big deal. And now the whales (whales!) are likely to come in to feed. I hear there is a telescope set up in the library upstairs in the laboratory...
This past week I worked two Happy Camper courses. There are far fewer now as most scientists are in the field, but I do think they bring more town people onto the course. For many, getting out for a night of this course is a highlight of their summer. A perspective worth remembering.
It's a lot different around here now. We can run around in light jackets (except for today's wind), the snow has sublimated from the roads, the channel, the snow consistency has softened a lot... Time moves along.
I happen to be the first of our team to leave, the others follow close behind in succession. There are still a few field parties going out, but most are wrapping up their seasons. In a couple weeks the helos stop flying and the need for field safety people quickly falls off. By mid-february, most summer people will be back in Christchurch, soaking up the warmth and vegetation (what a place to return to from down here!). The winterovers are preparing for the transition, while the rest of us discuss post-ice plans. And we often ask each other about coming back next year. Our department will lose 1 or 2 positions based on the completion of a couple projects, but it's too early to really know who will actually return. I certainly want to; we shall see what happens.
Next week two other primary SAR team members (one from the Kiwi part of our team) and I head out to climb a peak for training in the Dry Valleys. YES, I did indeed say CLIMB a peak! It won't be super technical (can you imagine how bad it would be if we needed rescuing!?). I must say I am somewhat lacking in energy given how late it is in the season, but I've been focusing on getting a lot of sleep, and I'm hoping that the location and the activity itself (training, mind you) will provide it's own energy.
Some answers to questions that have filled my inbox, and remain unanswered as I'm more behind than ever. I spent the solstice, Christmas, and New Years on the plateau. I was at the Pole for part of the solstice...cool. Christmas consisted of my putting 3 pieces of milk chocolate each in Joe's boot and Rick's glove, and New Year's comprised the cd movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (fun tongue in cheek humor) and some kahlua and mixed with nonfat milk made from a powder. Both days we worked, but that was ok.
No, Kelly, I didn't make any resolutions. Except perhaps, never to miss another check-in call!
Skate skiing. I went to considerable effort to obtain the gear, but have been away so much and so busy otherwise that I've only been out a few times. I don't exactly have it mastered, but I've figured out enough to see how fast and fun it could be. I suspect more time will go into that when I spend a winter in the north again, though I am considering leaving my skis downhere for next year.
No, Mike, I have not wrecked any large machinery, nor have I run over any penguins or squashed anything else of value. Funny how normal is has become to pilot these monsters, the level of comfort one develops despite how exotic and weird something is at first!
So, this will be my last mass mailing from the ice. I suspect I'll write once about peak climbing in NZ and again in late March about Australian rock climbing.
Post-ice plans have not evolved much. Guessing a week in Christchurch to recover, walk around the botanical gardens, eat fresh food and only fresh food, find guidebooks, partners, and formulate a plan. Still thinking 2-3 weeks climbing alpine routes in the Mt Cook area of NZ, then 3-4 weeks in Australia climbing rock in the sun at Arapiles. I do not have partner yet, but it'll work out.
By the way, there are all sorts of jobs available down here; there's something here everyone can do (beyond dishwashing), so let me know if youare curious...
Start with polar.org
Love and safe adventures indoors and out, Susan
December 12, 2003
South Pole Station, Antarctica, December 12, 2003
Hi family and friends, old and new, mostly far away,
Winter solstice occurs on December 21st for those in the Cascades and Sierras, at 11:04pm. For those in the Rockies, it’s on the 22nd at 12:04am. Rejoice in the Return of the Light and the Rebirth of the Sun!
I’ve made it to the South Pole. As we left for our flight here, on the infamous military cargo plane: LC-130 (ski equipped), they thought we might have to boomerang because of the weather at Pole. However, we had enough fuel to fly circles over Pole for an hour to see if the weather would break before we’d have to fly the 3 hours back: the boomerang. Lucky we were.
I hope you all are having a nice holiday and solstice season: not too much stress. In keeping with my solstice letter tradition (which I’m not keeping this year), here is the crucial information I'm sure you've been eagerly awaiting:
Winter solstice occurs on December 21st for those in the Cascades and Sierras, at 11:04pm. For those in the Rockies, it’s on the 22nd at 12:04am. Rejoice in the Return of the Light and the Rebirth of the Sun!
I’ve made it to the South Pole. As we left for our flight here, on the infamous military cargo plane: LC-130 (ski equipped), they thought we might have to boomerang because of the weather at Pole. However, we had enough fuel to fly circles over Pole for an hour to see if the weather would break before we’d have to fly the 3 hours back: the boomerang. Lucky we were.
Upon arrival here we were supposed to switch to a smaller plane to head out to one of the Automated Geophysical Observatory sites that very same afternoon. Anyone with polar experience will immediately recognize that as a plan to, uh, not to be counted upon. That was 3 days ago. We are scheduled to fly this afternoon if the weather at the site clears up and stays clear here. The weather here is fine now.The South Pole is an interesting place. Culturally, at least.
Biologically, it’s not a place. Geographically it’s windy flat white snow surrounded by hundreds and hundreds (or more) square miles of more windy flat white snow. The only difference is that when you stand there, suddenly you are no longer spinning around the Earth’s axis. Because we evolved being used to spinning, we don’t recognize that we are. Those who actually felt it were driven crazy long before they were able to reproduce so their genes did not perpetuate. When you stand on the precise pole you are actually NOT spinning, so the balance function in your brain that cancels out the spin nowmakes you think you are indeed spinning. This makes you dizzy so you have to step back onto the spinning part of our dear planet to not feel like you’re spinning. Odd phenomenon.*
Culturally this place is more what one might expect of Antarctica. It makes McMurdo look like Seattle. There’s the old station: the huge geodesic dome, housing smaller buildings which appear to be little more than modified, orange truck containers (the ones you see on the interstate). It’s the classic South Pole Station, well photographed. The floor is snow, dirty hard snow. There are five holes in the tope of the dome, through which diffused light peeks and moisture escapes, though it appears most of the moisture condenses on the walls in frost and icicles. It’s actually quite surreal. It feels like what a space station might be like, or something out of a sci fi movie. Or maybe some artificial almost-town set up like for a museum scene.
Sound is absorbed. The subdued light, the quiet except for squeaky walking on the snow, the ice crystals and icicles dangling. Someone might go by towing a paper-clad (moisture is not a problem here) bag of flour on a little sled headed to the galley in the New Building. That there is hardly anyone around adds to the strange feeling. Cave-like. Much stuff is stored in here in addition to a variety of facilities. Attached to the Dome are a several long buildings they call “arches” which makes them sound classier than they feel. They are galvanized half-pipes, rather large, and house all kinds of mechanical facilities. They too are covered in hoar frost on the inside and have that same space station feel.
The walkways are grates, both metal (like ski areas) and plastic to manage snow accumulation. Not that is snows much here; it just blows and drifts; all these old buildings are mostly buried. Between the arch buildings are little narrow tunnels, emphasizing the whole underground surreal feeling.
This morning I was shown the tunnels from the galvanized tower (the “beer can”) of the new station over to join into one of the arches. These tunnels are lined with all kinds of heavily insulated pipes; very industrial. When there’s a heinous storm in mid-winter here, one can avoid actually going out into it: a real safety issue.
The Dome/arches is like no where else, at least that I’ve ever been. Very unique. When you go inside the container-buildings, everything is different. All the doors here (only some in McMurdo) are full-on freezer doors. And like McMurdo, the buildings have entry-rooms (never locked; for emergency escape from being outside) before you get into the actual building. They buildings are quite warm, cozy, and occupied; quite the contrast to the outside. Low ceilings add to the cave-like feeling.
The interiors of the buildings are well decorated. Anyone who doubts our psychological connection to plants and animals need only observe the volume of realistic looking artificial plants, photos of plants and landscapes, plastic plants stuck in the snow behind a little garden-type fence in the snow under the Dome, a realistic fake-fish tank with ‘fish’ swimming around, and even a very life-like looking stuffed animal Golden Retriever lying on the couch (startling).
McMurdo is well decorated with landscape and plant photos and artificial plants, but not as much as this place! Then you might also notice some of the posters. One reminds folks to get their time sheets in promptly. It informs you that “Every day your time sheet is late, God kills a kitten. Please, think of the kittens”. Sad-faced kittens, one running from two strange tiny robots, emphasize the point. Then in one of the bathrooms is a poster, commercially produced and humorously illustrated, advocating wiping one’s asshole (using that specific word) at the necessary time. It elaborates on the social benefits of such behavior and emphasizes how little time and effort it takes. The home page for the station website includes a countdown of not only how many more days the station is open (for summer), but also the number of remaining hours and minutes. Hmmm.
Yup, an interesting place. Strange.
Can really see how people who have been here awhile must have very intense mixed feelings about the eventual loss of the Dome and moving into the much more comfortable (higher ceilings, big windows in the galley…) new elevated station, which I believe will eventually house everything, at least everything that needs to be inside. And to think of wintering over down here; darkness and incredible cold for months. Intense. Not enough time here to get a real sense of the people. About 200 here at Pole, 1150 at McMurdo.Water is very tight down here. They melt snow and showers are limited to 2 minutes twice a week.
McMurdo desalinates seawater and they don’t seem to care much about water use.
The new station will be enormous and is big even at this stage. The Dome is being drifted in so the new complex is up about 10’ on steel posts. The wind scours underneath so it’s not expected to drift in over the decades. They are eventually going to fully move out of the Dome and take it down and off the continent (back to the US, like everything else). Everything here is flown in. Everything; all in the name of being the scientific leader of the world.
Another massive project underway is the South Pole Traverse. A snow-road for heavy machinery is being built all 800 or so miles to the pole. It crosses ice shelf shear zones, crevasses, a steep long glacier to get through the Transantarctic Mountain Range, and every year the shear zone moves a bit more, opening up new crevasses. They blow up the thick snow bridges over the crevasses and then fill in the crevasse with all the snow. Someone is my dept goes along with them to assist and to keep them out of trouble.
Anyway, they plan to use this road, scheduled to be completed by end of next summer, to haul in construction materials so they can free up the planes to support science. The drive is expected to take 20 days out and 10 back. The scale of projects here is astonishing.
This is from yesterday: In 45 minutes I have plans to meet with the two AGO guys for our photo shoot at the ceremonial South Pole. They are into helping me get my headstand photo, which should be entertaining. As I’m only going from building to building, I can wear sneakers around here so don’t have to deal with the mega-hot (when indoors) boots that make it difficult to get into a handstand because of their weight. So in sneakers, I should be able to pull this off. I hope it’s not windy.
The ceremonial pole is only about 70 meters from the geographic pole. The geographic pole slowly moves over time (which is why noting the year of the declination reading on a map is theoretically relevant). That plus the movement of the ice sheet, which is super thick here (many thousands of feet), makes it easier to just mark the current location with a post topped by a benchmark with, among other things, yin and yang (!) on it. They move it every year on New Year’s Day to its current location (which has already been determined and flagged off). They leave the official pole and flags from the 12 Antarctic Treaty nations in one place. The flags surround the pole in a semi-circle, and are placed so that to get all the flags behind the short pole and it’s shiny mirror globe on top, you just also happen to include the new station in your photo, not the Great White Expanse. Politics even at the farthest reaches of our little planet. We are the only country with a presence in every time zone in the world. Interesting.
It’s cold here. McMurdo is getting to be above freezing… a real treat, while this place is today –11 F. I hear it’s never been over something like 7 degrees F here. Brrr.
It’s also exceedingly dry. The big hazard here, despite the cold, is fire. If one did start, not only would everything go because of the aridity and wind, but people would then be left without shelter. They say that if the power went out in the winter, they would have four hours before everything started to freeze… forever. There is zero transportation in or out of here for many months. A scary thought; no doubt they have quite a lot of structures in place to keep the power running as well for survival (a huge stash of tents, shovels, and food/stoves?) as if the buildings burned down.
It’s really good to be out of McMurdo. I’ve been in my mid-season slump, though a better phrase would be mid-season “non-high” because it’s still awesome to be down here. As some of you know I spent 11 days waiting to get flown up to Mt Erebus, an active volcano right there on Ross Island (McMurdo location). There are all kinds off interesting ice caves, the crater and lava pool to check out from the hut once one has acclimatized at the lower camp. I was scheduled to spend two nights at each with some volcanologists/geologists, but was pulled out before getting to the interesting part (the hut area). This was very disappointing; however it was a good decision on my boss’s part based on tight scheduling and this project. We have a lot going on.
So hanging around town, working, but not at the same engaging level (or outdoors, which is quite significant) as normal, getting sucked into the town social vortex, wore on me. No time on the sea ice, which is on it’s way out, which means camps are closing, the ice runway will be moved, etc. No wildlife in awhile either.
Also I wasn’t psyched about this project (maybe I’m still not), which was not supposed to include Pole time (yea that it has!). It was NO pole time, and 3 weeks of very cold white flat time: shoveling out equipment and taking weather observations 3x/day… yee haa. Accompanying this project (as safety manager: altitude, cold, injuries) is a form of paying one’s dues in my dept. Plus, I’d miss a two day Christmas break, several Sundays (our day off), and esp. New Year’s: the big festival here (music and I’m not sure what else; an outdoor gala of sorts) with another 2 days off.
When I get back, I’ll only get one day off despite having missed about 6. But we get out of town unlike many people. We also get out of town to a wide variety of sites. I dare not complain, (at least in public!) At least I’ll get my mail sent to me with resupplies. So, I was not having the best time of the season. Getting some time here has helped a lot. We come back through Pole en route to the next two sites. We have no time planned here at Pole, but we know what that doesn’t mean. Let me know if there’s any South Pole paraphernalia you just can’t live without. South Pole Station chapstick anyone? SPF 15, and it’s cheap.
There are “official” (looking) South Pole Station rubber stamps that you can use in your passport (also for McMurdo), which is fun. One is also the one they actually use to for USPS mail.
I left town mid-season, but when I return in early January, it’ll be almost the end, only another 5 or so weeks left. I’m sure the energy and topics of conversation will be different… FLASH it’ll be over. So I’m trying to be very aware of that so not surprised and wondering where the season went. When I’m shoveling and shoveling and inventorying stuff at the AGO sites in very cold and heinous wind chill, I’ll remind myself to enjoy it as the season is about to end. Then I’ll have to go to NZ to climb peaks and then to Australia to climb rock in a t-shirt in the sun. Darn.
Later: Mission Accomplished! I did it! Phew. Managed the headstand at the Ceremonial South Pole. Having reached my goal for my Antarctica Adventure, I am now free to leave (bummer). Must say I was a bit nervous about it because of the minor stink I’ve been making about it for 4 months now. Pressure was on. I knew if I failed in my attempt, I’d never get sponsorship again* and would lose all my friends.
I almost feel like I cheated because I didn’t do it in my big boots (not that that was the goal). I had assumed I’d need to wear them to stay warm enough here (with the blood all going to my head!), not realizing that the ceremonial pole is close to the buildings. I practiced in them and had figured out another way to get up, but hadn’t wired it yet. But I did it well enough. The crux was finding a flat spot near the pole. Got some help finding my balance when I got up, but was able to hold it for awhile and come down smoothly. Joe has a good digital camera and took a d-photo which he’ll send to me so I can clog your inbox with it.
Gotta have goals.
Well, I’m starting to get cold feet about sending off this excessive and elongated blabbering. But as usual I’ll send it anyway. Have a wonderful holiday season; be sure to get outside a lot!
Love and the sun circling high overhead like a buzzard, Susan
*Yet more bs from sd
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