Time in the Field

The last several days have been one of those stretches of time in Antarctica where things are happening at a fairly fast pace and yet there are also quiet times interspersed throughout. This is a common place to be as the field season comes to a close. It is a confluence of events of pressure to get as much done as possible, the work you've done to prep equipment for the field has been completed, and with your field time coming to a close you are more likely to be a priority for resources. We have spent three of the last four days in the field with a day trip by Mattrack truck to the Willie Field site on Sunday, a day trip by truck to the Phoenix Airfield site on Tuesday, and a day trip by Twin Otter airplane on Wednesday to the Tall Tower site. Instruments are installed and recording data at the two local sites, Willie Field and Phoenix, although more work needs to be done with the wind shields and a final survey of the installation. Today, we installed the instrument towers and power system for the Tall Tower site. We will need one more flight to Tall Tower to complete that installation. In the middle of all of the above we were chased out of the field on Sunday when a ground blizzard hit us as we were working. We were seeing it coming in the distance for awhile and as it got closer we packed up as quickly as possible and got in the truck to get back to town. That evening we also gave the Sunday Science Lecture, which is a presentation in the galley with a cross section of people attendees representing most everybody in McMurdo Station. The poor weather, starting with the ground blizzard on Sunday on the ice shelf, continued through Tuesday morning with Condition 2 weather at the nearby locations on the ice shelf. We have two more days until our Thanksgiving "weekend", which is a rare two day weekend starting on Saturday. The weather is forecast to be questionable over these next two days but we'll see what we can get done. I have also requested that our project be able to extend the time in McMurdo in the range of an additional four days to a week. There has been an indication that the request is reasonable but I have not received verification that it has been granted. If not, we are supposed to be leaving on Monday. Hopefully, with things starting to wind down I'll have a little more time to provide some more updates in the coming days. I am also officially really far behind in my photos so I am going to pass on including any photos in this post. I hope that everybody is able to have a nice end to your short week and safe travels for your Thanksgiving festivities and weekend.