Last Day in McMurdo

I have made it successfully back to Christchurch and I am currently in Sydney en route to Colorado. I will be arriving in Colorado Friday afternoon. I was one of 37 passengers that made it northbound on an LC-130 (ski-equipped herc) Thursday afternoon. Fortunately, there was not much more on the herc than the passengers and bags so it wasn't nearly as cramped as I anticipated. The skis result in more air resistance and the LC-130 is not as fast as the C-17 that I took to go south. The result is that it was about a 7 1/2 hour flight as opposed to 5 1/2 hours on the C-17, and that was with a strong tailwind. I should add that the weather went bad at WAIS not long after our med evac flight left. It is not an exaggeration to conclude if it was not for the med evac flight, I would still be at WAIS.

My last day in McMurdo was a flurry of activities. The day started at 7:15 AM with a phone call asking me if I could get all of my gear together in 20 minutes so I could fly out that day on the med evac flight taking Jim to Christchurch. It took me a split second to answer with a "no". Much of the day was spent going around town and saying good-bye to, as well as thanking, people who were instrumental during the eight weeks of the field season. I also spent some time returning some of our gear, unpacking field equipment from WAIS, and organizing the lab. There are two additional co-workers that will be arriving in two weeks to continue the AWS field season. Lastly, it was unpacking my clothes, doing a little laundry, and then packing my gear to go back to Colorado. It was a very busy day and I was up late again making sure that everything was done. I also tried to slow down at the end to absorb some of my last few hours in McMurdo. Before going to bed, I took a picture of the sun at the same time as the last sunset that was seen on my second night in McMurdo. It has been amazing to see how much things have changed during my eight weeks in town.

A picture of the sun at 12:30 AM at approximately the lowest point in the sky on my last night in McMurdo, December 16th. 

This is approximately the same view as the above picture but on my second day in McMurdo, which was the night of the last sunset. The key is to notice the difference in the angle of the sun between arriving and leaving McMurdo.

I am flying "first available" back to Colorado, which means I was booked on the earliest flight back to Colorado leaving me only 12 hours in Christchurch.  One of the things that is always immediately noticeable are the colors, smells, and sounds that your experience in Christchurch after having been removed from so much while in Antarctica. I went for a long walk around town and I was able to spend some time in the Christchurch Botanical Gardens, which is a favorite thing for me to do after getting off of the ice. Then by mid-evening I saw a sunset for the first time in nearly two months. From this point forward I have two more flights to get back to Colorado. After over a dozen Twin Otter flights and five military cargo flights, the comfy airline seats are quite a luxury.

A stop at the Rose Garden at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens on my one night in Christchurch prior to returning to Colorado. I saw my first sunset in nearly two month about a half hour later.

Return to McMurdo

I have made it back to McMurdo Station from WAIS after a seven day delay from our originally scheduled flight. Unfortunately, it was not the flight that we were hoping for as it was a med evac flight for one of the heavy equipment operators. We were originally scheduled for a herc flight arriving at around 1:30 AM. There was some doubt in that flight due to a possible storm moving into WAIS. At around 10:30 AM there was a call on the radio by the operator calling for medical. When asked if he needed medical assistance he said yes. When asked what the PA should be bring he calmly said “I think it is a basic lower leg fracture”. The camp spun into rapid motion at that time and he was eventually brought to the medical tent. By 11:30 AM plans were being made for a med evac flight. An afternoon herc flight to another field camp was rescheduled for WAIS. The herc arrived at 4:30 PM. After transferring some fuel, loading the passengers and the med evac, we were on our way back to McMurdo, with a mostly empty herc. The herc landed at Willy Field and we were then transported to McMurdo arriving at 9:45 PM. The crazy part in this story is that yesterday this operator was commenting on the lack of herc flights to WAIS and joked “I’ll break my leg if I have to, to get a flight in”. In the end, I spent 14 days at WAIS.

The herc at WAIS Divide camp offloading fuel before loading the med evac and passengers to return to McMurdo. The camp manager is waiting for the completion of the fuel offload.

Jim on the stretcher waiting to be loaded onto the herc for his med evac flight.

Sleeping and reading on the herc on the med evac flight back to McMurdo.

From this point forward we are in pack and go mode. First on the list for the morning is to shower and do a load of laundry for the first time in two weeks. We are scheduled for a northbound flight to Christchurch for Thursday afternoon. We will “bag drag”, when we check our bags for the northbound flight, this (Wednesday) evening. In between now and then it is unpacking from WAIS and then packing for the return to Colorado. I will also do what I can to sift through email messages and internet sites after now having regular internet access, albeit super slow, for the first time in two weeks. Thursday will be a fairly quiet day until it comes time to transport to Pegasus Runway sometime in the mid-afternoon. The last tasks that need to be completed will be walking around McMurdo saying good-byes and thank yous to many of the people that we have worked with over the last eight weeks.

One last item from WAIS that I forgot to describe is the plumbing, or limited amount of plumbing overall. The bathrooms are handled by a row of outhouses between the tents and the cargo lines. As far as running water, there is running water only in the “Wash Mod” and in the “Kitchen Mod”. Keep in mind, access to liquid water is fairly non-existent. In order to get water, snow has to be melted. Outside of the Wash Mod and Kitchen Mod is a plastic barrel and shovel dedicated to snow melting. Throughout the day, anybody and everybody, at the camp is filling a barrel with snow and then dumping it into the snow melter. The snow melter gradually melts the snow and the water is eventually transferred to a holding tank for use in the Wash Mod or Kitchen Mod. I didn’t keep track of how many barrels it takes a day to keep the camp going, but I would estimate it on the range of 10-15 for each snow melter. Because of this limited resource of water, water conservation is essential. Showers are suggested to only be once a week and even then lasting for only two minutes of running water. It is suggested that you dump one barrel of snow if you want to take a shower and two barrels of snow if you want to wash your clothes.

Clearly, my trip to Antarctica is starting to come to a close. I hope to update the blog with all of the posts from WAIS as well as including pictures with each post. If all goes well, I’ll get that done prior to my northbound flight.

Trifecta

The delays in getting out of WAIS, returning to McMurdo, and onward back to Colorado continue. The last time I sent a message, there was a primary and backup flight scheduled for Friday. That morning the primary was switched to a backup and then a couple hours later it was switched back to primary. The roller coaster continues. Finally, late in the afternoon, all flights were cancelled due to the weather in McMurdo. On Saturday there were no herc flights scheduled to WAIS so a plan was set in motion to bring four of us back to McMurdo by Twin Otter (airplane) with two or three refueling stops along the way. That plan was scrapped due to weather in McMurdo and at least one additional stop. That brings us to Sunday. Once again, the plan was to bring us back to McMurdo with the Twin Otter. After a two-hour delay, to wait for an updated forecast, the decision was made to transport six of us to McMurdo. That flight lasted 25 minutes as we had a quick boomerang due to deteriorating weather at McMurdo/Willie Field. I have now had boomerangs on this trip with a helicopter, herc, and Twin Otter. I have completed a trifecta.

The WAIS camp staff waving good-bye to us as we left on the Twin Otter for McMurdo Station. Unfortunately, we were back on the ground 30 minutes later and having lunch again at WAIS.

Naturally, the plan from this point forward remains uncertain. Officially, we have been told that we have been placed on the Thursday, December 17th flight from McMurdo to Christchurch. That means I would have a departure to Colorado on the 18th and arrive Friday the 18th (crossing over the International Dateline). The scheduling is starting to get tight as I will be going to Minnesota on December 24th for Christmas. Obviously, this plan is contingent on us getting out of WAIS sometime during the next three days. The herc schedule remains murky. They have lost two full days of flights in the past week putting things even further behind with WAIS, South Pole, and several field camps. Typically, by mid-evening the day before, we find out if WAIS is scheduled for any herc flights. Complicating things even more is that there is another storm that is forecast to move through WAIS early this week. At this point, I am anticipating that we will somehow make it back to McMurdo in time for the flight on the 17th. Then again, I didn’t really anticipate being here this long.

Overall, I think I am handling things fairly well and in stride with the realization that these things happen with remote field work in Antarctica. Boomerangs are always tough because you mentally and physically check yourself out of one location and start transitioning to the next. I was able to have nice good-byes with a number of great people on the camp staff. The heated tent, where we have worked and slept at WAIS, was all cleaned and vacated. Then 45 minutes later we are back at WAIS greeting the camp staff again and moving back into the tent. Oftentimes, in Antarctica the final good-bye to friends is anti-climatic after several false alarms. A classic example is one of the friends who is on a project that arrived at WAIS with us. He said good-bye to me the night we were originally supposed to leave on Wednesday, even though by the end of the night he was doubtful we’d actually leave. Then over the next three days there was talk of their project traveling to their remote field camp. It was uncertain who’d be leaving first. On Friday it was finally looking like he was going to leave to their remote camp, but there was a weather delay in the morning. The decision was eventually made to go, things were quickly packed, and soon this new friend was gone.

We did a new AWS installation at Austin site. The pile of equipment in the picture shows everything that is used to set up a new AWS site.

The two tower sections were bolted together and most all of the AWS instruments and equipment was bolted onto the tower prior to raising the tower vertically and anchoring in the snow.

The finished installation for Austin AWS with the Twin Otter in the background. The wind picked up as we were working and there was a layer of blowing snow near the surface by the time we left.

The upside in all of this is that we continue to complete field work with more Twin Otter flights. The Twin Otter was dedicated to another project on Friday (that project waited 9 days at WAIS for the flight/weather to put in their camp). On Saturday, after determining that we’d not be able to take the Twin Otter to McMurdo, a flight was scheduled to do an AWS installation at a new site, Austin AWS. We brought a boondoggler, Catherine, with us from the camp staff and she was a huge help in installing the new site. Overall, the installation of Austin AWS went very smoothly and we made it back to WAIS by early evening. For Sunday, not long after we arrived back on the Twin Otter boomerang, the decision was made to visit Evans Knoll AWS to re-install the datalogger and replace the solar panel. For this flight, we had even less cargo so we brought three boondogglers (Kristen, Anne, and Kevin) to give them a chance to spend some time away from the camp. The flight to Evans Knoll AWS went very well and included flying around massive icebergs as well as seeing penguins and seals from the Twin Otter. The weather was great at Evans Knoll, the servicing of the AWS went fast, and the boondogglers appreciate the chance to get away from WAIS. We have been able to complete work at six AWS sites from WAIS in our 11 days, which is a productive run.

It was a beautiful day at Evans Knoll. Two of the three boondogglers and the two pilots are in this picture hanging out while we worked on the AWS at Evans Knoll.

Flying along the coast near Evans Knoll.

That is the latest from WAIS. Things should be rather quiet around here until we leave, whenever that will be. The Twin Otter crew is on rest for the next two days and we have done about all that we can from WAIS. Hopefully, my next message will be from McMurdo but I have thought that before.

Still at WAIS

We are now in our third attempt at leaving at WAIS. The originally scheduled departure flight was for Wednesday evening, leaving on a flight arriving at 8:30 PM. By late afternoon we were notified that it would instead be about 12:30 AM. Around late evening we were told they were having mechanical issues on the herc and it would be more like 2:15 AM. Finally, at around 11:30 PM we were notified that the flight was cancelled. On Thursday, there was another scheduled flight arriving at WAIS around 8:30. This time around they took out the drama and by mid-afternoon the flight was cancelled due to “crew availability”. That leaves us with today (Friday) evening and two possible flights, a primary and a backup.

Our turn-around time in McMurdo, if we get out on the next flight, is roughly 2 1/2 days. We had hoped to get in another helo flight or two in between returning from WAIS and heading north off-continent. Those flights are now no longer doable. We can handle one more day of delays and still make our scheduled flight to Christchurch for Monday. If we don’t get out by Saturday then my return to Colorado will also be delayed.

The good news is that we have been able to get in two Twin Otter flights the last two days as we wait. On Wednesday we went to Brianna AWS where we removed the AWS installation. The overall AWS network is capped at around 60 sites. In order for a new site to be installed an old site has to be removed. This site, Brianna AWS, was determined to no longer be necessary. It was a fairly quick removal and we were on to Erin AWS. The plan was for us to “raise the station” at Erin. However, when we arrived we saw the site was still about 16 feet in height and there was no need to add another tower section. We moved around some of the equipment and then called it a day. The plan was to get back to WAIS for our flight to McMurdo. Clearly, that was not necessary.

Brianna AWS when we arrived at the site. The AWS was originally installed 21 years ago.

The hole left behind after the removal of Brianna AWS.

The delays in getting back to McMurdo have thus far been taken in stride. The WAIS camp is a very nice deep field camp and I have been having a good time getting to know many of the 29 people at the camp. A science lecture was given by another science group Tuesday evening and Wednesday evening another person at camp shared a “travel log” where they share pictures and stories from a recent travel adventure. For all of these activities, around 20-22 people of the 29 at the camp have been attending. WAIS is definitely a much closer community than McMurdo. The delay is starting to wear on me with my hope to get back to at least limited internet connectivity.

One of the advantages of being at WAIS is the occurrence of some very impressive atmospheric optical phenomena. In this picture is a sun pillar, extending downward from the sun. Two sun dogs are located at the same height as the sun and on both sides of the sun. 

Waiting at WAIS

Our time at WAIS camp is slowly coming to a close. The storm tapered off Monday morning and it left drifts about 3 feet high around the camp. The camp staff did a great job in recovering from the storm and by the end of the day all of the drifts were broken up and the snow was groomed throughout the camp. Unfortunately for us, the weather was still poor on Monday at all of our AWS locations that need to be serviced. The end result was another quiet day at WAIS. Dave and I did give the inaugural WAIS science lecture for this season and it was a modified presentation from that which we gave a month ago in McMurdo. The presentation went well, which is a good thing as the cold I have been fighting for the last week or two has descended into my lungs and it was a struggle to not cough at times. Once again today, the weather was not good at all of the AWS sites and there was no flying. We are scheduled for a herc flight back to McMurdo tomorrow (Wednesday) late evening. In the meantime, another storm, although less intense as the past, is forecast to pass through our area late this afternoon through tomorrow afternoon. Feel free to go ahead and start making side bets on how long it will take us to get out of WAIS and back to McMurdo.

Digging out from the storm over the weekend. There were approximately 3 foot drifts between most of the tents.

Grooming equipment is used throughout the camp to make the snow surface smooth between the tents and along the cargo lines. The grooming is especially critical after storms producing drifting throughout the camp. A bulldozer needs to go through the camp after more significant storms to break up the drifts..

I am currently almost completely removed from Christmas festivities and excitement. That is somewhat odd considering I am fully surrounded by and living amongst snow. I was able to see friends posting pictures of their Christmas trees on Facebook before leaving McMurdo a week ago. Without any internet at WAIS, I am disconnected from that reminder that it is the Christmas season. The lab staff at McMurdo were planning to put up Christmas decorations around the lab the day that we left. We do not have any holiday decorations set up at WAIS. I am guessing that it will be an intense immersion into Christmas festivities as I travel north through Christchurch and then back to Colorado. I have not decided yet if I will put up my Christmas tree this year. It would only be up for about nine days before I leave for Christmas in Minnesota.

WAIS Storm

We are in the midst of a fairly strong storm at WAIS. The storm started late Saturday night and continued through all day Sunday. The current forecast has the significant part of the storm continuing into the afternoon hours on Monday and with impacts from the storm potentially extending through Wednesday. The winds have been consistently around 30+ mph throughout the day with considerable blowing snow and I would estimate the visibility at a few hundred feet. We were notified of the impending storm early in the day on Saturday and much of the day was spent going around to make sure everything was tied down and able to survive the storm. Since the storm has occurred on a Sunday, the one off day of the week, it has been a very quiet day throughout WAIS camp. The Rec tent and Galley tent have been common spots for everybody to spend the day waiting out the storm. Tomorrow will be a little more difficult if the storm continues for the camp staff to return to action. Once the storm weakens, their job will switch to surveying the drifting and checking to see if everything survived the storm. Already, there are drifts 3+ feet high all around the camp between the tents. The skiway will also need to be groomed before any new LC-130 flights can arrive from McMurdo. All of this is fairly standard operating procedure as storms will happen during the field season. Overall, this storm is fairly mild compared to the 3 1/2 day storm that the camp staff endured a couple weeks ago.

Looking towards the Science tent and the Twin Otter during the weekend storm with strong winds, blowing snow, and limited visibility.

The best way to understand the facilities at WAIS is to think of it as a “camp”. There are no permanent buildings here other than the arch, which was a dome shaped building for the ice core drilling operations. There are two primary mods, which are almost permanent buildings, as one houses the kitchen and the other is a wash mod with sinks, showers, and washer/dryer. The wash-mod is connected to an insulated tent that serves as the “Rec” tent, a place for people to hang out and relax. The kitchen-mod is connected to another insulated tent that is the Galley, or the dining area and a place for people to work in a heated environment with tables. There is an additional mod that is used by the mechanics. There are five additional insulated tents with stoves that include two for science, one for comms/camp staff, medical, and one for the Twin Otter flight crew. That is it for insulated tents that have any resemblance of “buildings”. There is also “tent city”, which is where the camp personnel set up their individual camping tents for sleeping quarters. The most common tent here is called the “Arctic Oven” and I have been told that it can be quite nice. Since we are here for such a short period of time, as well as that there are no other science groups in our science tent, we are spending the nights in one of the two heated science tents. Beyond the row of tents/mods, there is a row of outhouses followed by four rows of cargo. Near the skiway there are two fuel bladders which hold all of the fuel for the planes, stoves, generators, etc. That is about all there is for the camp facilities at WAIS. 

An aerial view of the WAIS camp. The row of tents comprising the core of the camp in a line along the left. At the bottom of the picture is "tent city" were most people live. The four lines to the right of the tents is the line of outhouses and four cargo lines.

The row of tents at WAIS. From left to right: the Rec tent with the Wash Mod in the back, the Galley tent with the Kitchen Mod in the back, the Polenet tent (where I worked and slept), and the Science tent. There are three additional tents that are not shown in this picture.

The cargo lines at WAIS.

"Tent city" at WAIS where most of the people at WAIS camp sleep.

There is a good chance that we are finished with our field work out of WAIS. If the storm continues for another day or two we will not be able to fly. There is also another science group that has priority to fly in the Twin Otter ahead of us, if they have good weather at their site. The end result is that we may be on the next LC-130 flight back to McMurdo after the storm ends.

Life at WAIS

I am at the end of my fourth day at WAIS camp. The time here thus far has been very productive and without any setbacks. The first full day, Wednesday, was spent gaining a better understanding of the ins and outs of the camp operation and being further prepared for field work. A large amount of communication is done over radio with most everybody having a radio. At times there are general announcements that are made, such as notification of an incoming flight, and other times they are more of recreational interest, such as there is a great photo opportunity outside. The high priority AWS sites had bad weather on Thursday, so we instead took care of an AWS site that is only 85 miles from WAIS, or about 40 minutes by Twin Otter. That site, Byrd AWS, was one of the sites that I also visited on my first trip to Antarctica. On Friday, we had two sites to service near the coast by Twin Otter. There was flat light at the first site making it difficult to land, so we did not. The second site was a beautiful location and we were able to fix two sensors that had stopped working on the AWS. Getting out into the field by Twin Otter on two of our first three full days at WAIS is a big success. We'll see what the next few days have in store.

Standing next to Byrd AWS after "raising" the station by adding a new tower section. The original Byrd AWS tower section is seen to the left of the current tower section.

We had a mountaineer with us for three AWS visits to ensure that the snow was safe to walk on and free of crevasses. This is Paul poking into the snow to verify the safety of our walk to the AWS located on the rocks in the distance.

Walking back to the Twin Otter after completing the repair of the Thurston Island AWS.

The WAIS Divide field camp was established around 11 years ago. The key reason for the camp was to drill an ice core to better understand the climate and structure of the West Antarctic ice sheet. The drilling was completed about two years ago. WAIS became one of the primary logistics points for West Antarctica during the time that it was fully operating. The result is that a large number of other field projects were all run through WAIS. I seem to recall at its peak, the camp population at WAIS was around 60. We currently have 32 people in the camp. The primary goals of WAIS for this year include hosting four or five science projects, including the servicing of the automatic weather stations, and working on sending large amounts of cargo back to McMurdo in an attempt to slowly work towards shutting down WAIS camp in the future. The expectation is that Byrd Camp, where I was at on Thursday, will become the hub of logistics for West Antarctica in the near future. There is also a long history of science and support done from Byrd Camp.

When the Arch was initially built at WAIS it was at the snow surface. The years of accumulation have progressively buried the Arch. On this evening we went into the arch for a quick tour of the former ice core drilling facility.

A view inside of the now vacant arch. In between the wooden railing is a trench that goes down to the ice core bore hole. The ice core reached a final depth of 3405 meters (11,171 feet; over 2 miles) in December 2011. The WAIS ice core is the longest U.S. ice core to date retrieved from the polar regions

The WAIS Divide Camp is at approximately center of the West Antarctic Plateau. As far as you can see in every direction is flat white, snow, and ice.

To no surprise, life at a camp with 32 people is considerably different than life in McMurdo with close to 1000. The hours for the meals are less than half that of McMurdo and the food has been quite good (there is a chef and souz chef for the camp). Every day after breakfast the camp manager holds a briefing updating everybody on the latest events and activities around the camp. Clearly, this can create much more of a community atmosphere. There is also a single "rec" tent where there is a computer attached to a projector to watch movies. That rec area can also be a meeting place for people to hang out during the off-hours.

After breakfast each morning there is a meeting led by the camp manager. The meeting covers a review of the activities from the previous day and any news and plans for that day. This picture shows the inside of the Galley tent with the Kitchen Mod in the background.

After the meeting there is a morning stretch session led by one of the camp staff.

I am scheduled to be at WAIS for at least another four days. In a future post I'll try to describe more of the layout of the camp and facilities that are provided. Feel free to send me (seefelma@imcs1.usap.gov) any questions that you might have.

Welcome to WAIS!

The Galley tent at WAIS. The Galley tent is the primary meeting place at WAIS as well as the most likely spot to find people.

We have made it to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) Divide field camp. Tuesday was our fourth day of trying. When I went to bed Sunday evening I was fairly confident in the forecast that the flight would likely be cancelled on Monday. I was packed and ready to go but I didn't make any other final preparations and good-byes Sunday evening. The initial transport time was 7:15. I woke up at 6:15 AM to check the status of the flight. The flight was on a weather delay until transport at 3:15 PM. I went back to bed but quickly got up as fixed wing asked us to switch our afternoon Twin Otter flight to a morning flight. We had quick return visits to Vito AWS and Emilia AWS and we made it back in time for lunch. Shortly thereafter we were notified that our WAIS flight was cancelled. It was once again not too disheartening given that we were able to get out into the field and finish two more AWS sites that day.

Tuesday was set as the last day we would attempt to make it to WAIS. If not Tuesday, we felt it was getting too late in the field season for all of the effort to get to WAIS, nevertheless the potential of being stuck at WAIS for an extended period of time. I felt the forecast for Tuesday was borderline. It was not a given that we'd fly but it was also reasonable that we would be able to land. Add all of that up and for the first time since the initial attempt, five days earlier, I treated last night as if it would be my last night in McMurdo for awhile. This came in handy as I woke up at 5:15 AM for the 6:15 AM transport. The flight was still scheduled and on time. I cleaned, dressed in my cold weather gear, had a quick breakfast, and made it to the transport location by 6:15. Basically, everything from there went like clock work and we were on the 'herc' and in the air by 8:00 AM. We arrived at WAIS by 11:45 AM and the weather was great, albeit back to colder temperatures. One extra bonus is that I had a great time hanging out with friends late Monday night with an unplanned and unintentional sendoff party.

We are scheduled to be at WAIS for the next week to week and a half to finish our field season. I will do my best in the next week to describe what life is like at WAIS. To put it simply, it is truly Antarctica here. None of that McMurdo stuff.

The LC-130 "herc" ski-equipped military cargo plane that is the primary transport method for passengers and cargo around Antarctica. The LC-130 fleet is operation by the New York 109th Air Guard.

Being greeted by the WAIS camp staff immediately after arriving at WAIS and getting off of the herc.