Going West?

We are currently scheduled to be transporting to West Antarctica tomorrow (Thursday). This has been somewhat of an experience weaving through unknowns and vague plans. We were unofficially told yesterday that we'd be going on Thursday. I say unofficially because they have not listed an actual passenger manifest. Instead, we heard from the person in charge of cargo transport that there is an LC-130 plane with passengers scheduled to go on Thursday, and it would be logical for us to be on it. Then this morning we were told that today's flight was cancelled and that we'd instead be going on Friday and have a bag drag tomorrow night. We then contacted helo ops and fixed wing ops and said we were available for a flight tomorrow. That didn't last long because around mid-afternoon today we received an email that they were hoping to get two flights out tomorrow and we'd be bag dragging this evening. "Bag drag" is when you check in all of your baggage, except for a carry on, and they are able to palletize it for the cargo plane. We will keep behind a trunk of tools and some equipment that we have been approved for excess carry-on. This is in case we get stuck behind multiple days due to weather delays and during that time there is the opportunity to do work locally. This is where looking back on the 14 days of delays from the WAIS camp put-in is an ugly example. In 16 hours I could be at WAIS or it could be days.

We were able to get in a visit to finish the work that we were doing on Linda AWS. This is the AWS site that we were working on when we experienced the ground blizzard 10 days ago. We had an evening flight to do the work. The helicopter schedule was filled during the day and we agreed to fly during the night shift so that we could get the work done. Keep in mind, with 24 hours of daylight it is easy to work around the clock. The work on the AWS site took longer than we anticipated but the site is now working and in good condition. We ended up getting back to McMurdo around midnight. It was nice to be out on the ice shelf at such a late hour to see the sun low in the horizon and coming from the south. 

Working on Linda AWS during out night flight out to the site. The conditions on this visit were significantly better than we were there for the ground blizzard.

Looking to the south from Linda AWS after finishing the station maintenance. The picture was taken at about 11:30 PM. The sun gets just a little bit lower in the horizon at hits lowest point at this time of year.

I am anticipating that when I get to West Antarctica I will be limited to only occasional email access and it will be through a USAP email account. The email messages that I have been sending are posted through a website. If this goes as I expect, I will be sending updates through a friend who will post them to the website to be distributed through this email list. If you don't hear from me for a couple weeks, it will be because things didn't come together as planned. If I do get a message out, I will include my USAP email address so you can send me messages and updates while I am in West Antarctica.

Aerial view of the McMurdo Station as we departed in the helicopter to Linda AWS.