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.