Thanksgiving

The two-day Thanksgiving weekend in McMurdo is coming to a close. Saturday was the day for celebrating Thanksgiving. Most everything was shutdown for the day with only the bare essential personnel working. Today, Sunday, was a bit more like a normal Sunday but a little more quiet. Given that I had spent the two days prior to the weekend on the edge of uncertainty involving transitioning to WAIS, I really enjoyed the opportunity to slow down and enjoy the long weekend.

One of the big activities for the Thanksgiving weekend was the Turkey Trot run. There were two version of the race, the first was called the "Turducken" and it took place Friday evening at 9:00 PM for those that would be working during the larger Turkey Trot. The second was Saturday morning at 10:00 AM and there were about 100 participants. The race was a 5K run. I had done a similar race on my first trip to Antarctica and I remembered it being miserable and that was when I was a much stronger runner. Meanwhile, this time I am no longer as fast as I used to be and I've run once on a treadmill since arriving on continent. The race is on the roads of McMurdo, which are made up of crushed volcanic rock. More significantly, the first half is basically all uphill and the second half is all downhill. I had a great time doing the Turkey Trot, despite the running being slow and difficult. The atmosphere was festive with a number of people in fun costumes as well as numerous colorful running outfits. I was definitely happy to have been able to experience this Antarctic Thanksgiving tradition.

The start and finish of the Turkey Trot were at the Chapel of Snows. While McMurdo doesn't look much like Antarctica, you can see the sea ice, Mount Discovery, and the Transantarctic Mountains in the background that are much more representative of Antarctica.

My roommate and another friend at the starting line of the Turkey Trot 5K at McMurdo Station.

The start of the Turkey Trot. I am on the far right edge of the photo. 

Finishing the Turkey Trot 5K.

The big event for the Thanksgiving in McMurdo is the Thanksgiving dinner in the Galley. The meal is divided into three separate dinners at 3:00, 5:00, and 7:00. We had to sign-up beforehand for reservations for our dinnertime. Some of the people that I worked with and I agreed on the 7:00 PM dinner. The Thanksgiving Dinner is also one of the few times that people in McMurdo all get cleaned up at the same time and wear their best clothes that they have brought with them to Antarctica. We arrived to Building 155, which includes the Galley, at 6:30 to get in line for the meal. Apparently, sometimes the seating can get filled towards the end so it may not work to get your family of friends and coworkers to sit together. We waited in line with anticipation of the big meal and shortly after 7:00 the doors opened and we were able to gradually work the line through everybody picking up their food. Overall, the food was very good and had all of the basics that are expected with a classic American Thanksgiving meal. The normal Saturday night rules applied so that people could bring wine into the Galley to go along with the dinner. The one downside is that at about 8:45 we needed to leave the Galley as there was another dinner for people who were working the night shift. Once leaving the Galley there were a number of gatherings at various dorm lounges, the coffee house, and the two bars.

Waiting in line outside of the Galley for the 7:00 Thanksgiving dinner.

Waiting with some friends for the Thanksgiving dinner.

Serving lines for the Thanksgiving dinner. The dinner had all of the fixing and then some that would be expected for Thanksgiving.

Sitting down at the Galley to enjoy the Thanksgiving dinner.

The remainder of my Saturday afternoon was spent taking a nap to recover from the late night and early mornings with the attempts to fly to WAIS. Then it was also laundry time as a large percentage of my clothes are checked for the flight to WAIS. After dinner in the evening I went to the coffee house to hang out with some friends there for several more hours. Overall, it was a fun and relaxing Thanksgiving, even if it was on a Saturday.

We are on the schedule to go to WAIS in the morning. The weather is looking rather bleak right now, although that might change and the logistics people might try to take a chance if there is hope for a window of good weather. If not traveling to WAIS, we are also on the schedule for another Twin Otter flight, which of course, is also weather dependent.

Still Around

We did not make it to WAIS camp for the second straight day. The upside is that this time the decision was made before having to get ready. I woke up at 5:20 AM and I immediately checked the flight status and it was delayed two hours. I went back to bed and repeated the process at 7:20 AM. This time the flight status was updated to cancelled due to weather. The next scheduled date for the flight is Monday, although no details have been provided to this point. Most all of the operations are shutdown the next two days for the Thanksgiving weekend. I'll be doing a Turkey Trot 5K in the morning and then a Thanksgiving dinner in the evening. I'll write more about that later in the weekend.

The good news is that we were still able to get out and have a productive day. I woke up to a phone call from the fixed wing at about 8:00 AM. They noticed that our WAIS flight was cancelled and wanted to know if we wanted to do a Twin Otter flight today. We had kept our tools and some field equipment as a carry-on for the WAIS flight, just in case something like this happened. We jumped at the opportunity. By 8:45 we were being picked up by Shuttles and by 9:35 AM we were in the air heading to the southern end of the Ross Ice Shelf to work on Elaine AWS. The site needed to be raised due to annual snow accumulation. We ended up having to do a fair amount of digging as well as doing the raise. Overall, it was a fairly difficult job requiring 4 1/2 hours in the field, but it went well and the AWS should be good for another 2-3 years. It felt great to get out in the field today and end the work with at least something productive done late in the week.

Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving. I will still be in email contact until at least around 10 AM on Sunday US time. Feel free to send me any updates and news, if you got it.

Elaine AWS at the time we arrived. I originally installed this AWS site in January 2005. The station was subsequently raise since that time. There is approximately 15 feet of tower buried beneath the surface.

Elaine AWS after the completion of the station raise. The Transantarctic Mountains are in the background.

Minna Bluff and Mount Discovery as seen from the Twin Otter on the flight back after completing the station raise at Elaine AWS.

WAIS Boomerang

A "boomerang" flight is a flight that leaves for its destination and then returns back to where you started. Naturally, boomerang flights are never fun because you spend hours in a plane only to have made no progress. Earlier today, on my initial attempt for transport to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) camp, I had a boomerang flight.

The day started by getting up at 5:15 AM, with a short night of sleep after trying to get as much done as possible before leaving. I fit in a shower, small packing, and breakfast to check-in at transit by 6:15 AM. I checked in and they said our flight was good to go but we now had a new check-in at 8:15 AM. Then it was back to the room for an hour and a half. We were transported by Shuttle to Willie Field, which is where the LC-130 (ski-equipped 'hercules' cargo aircraft) take-off and land. We spent about 45 minutes at the Willie Field Galley waiting for our flight and then we were transported to the 'herc', boarded the plane, and we were ready to go. We took off nearly right on time at 10:00 AM.

The seating on the LC-130 is that of a cargo plane where it is simple canvas seats. The LC-130 is loud enough that most of the flight is spent in silence either reading or napping.

Our boomerang flight to WAIS had five passengers and the rest of was filled with cargo. This pallet of SkiDoos was more towards the back of the plane.

About 20 minutes into the flight, the load master sitting next to me tells me that the latest weather observations at WAIS were below their minimums for landing and trending worse. The flight crew was talking with Mac Weather to make a decision on continuing or not. Eventually, after a little reading, I fell asleep and by the time I woke up we were two hours into about a 3 1/2 hour flight. That told me that the decision was made to keep going to WAIS. At three hours and 15 minutes I felt the plane banking but nobody was making preparations for landing. That told me that things were not looking good.  After about 20 minutes of circling, we got the thumbs-down signal from the load masters indicating that we were heading back to McMurdo Station. Apparently, the visibility and cloud ceiling conditions were nowhere near good enough to land.

The "herc" on the ground at Willie Field after completing the WAIS boomerang flight.

We made it back to Willie Field by 4:30 PM, which meant a 6 1/2 hour roundtrip flight without accomplishing anything. We arrived back at McMurdo by 5:00 PM, about 12 hours after the day started. We are on the schedule again for a 6:15 AM for tomorrow (Friday). Currently, the weather is looking more iffy for this flight but things are marginal enough that it would not take much to change to the positive. I am a little worn out but that is how it goes sometimes. If you don't hear from me in the next 24 hours then that means I'll have made it to WAIS. Otherwise, I will be in McMurdo for Thanksgiving and the two-day weekend.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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.

Quiet Week

We have had a very quiet week as we were shutout for field work. The last time we were in the field was the abbreviated visit with the ground blizzard. We have been on the flight schedule for the twin otter for the past eight work days to visit either of two sites. The first five of those eight days we were primary, meaning all we needed good weather at either site, but no such luck. Twice we were on the helo schedule but were cancelled due to weather. All of the bad weather has been due to a large low pressure system that has been dominating the weather over much of the Ross Ice Shelf for the past week. In McMurdo, we had strong winds on Wednesday and Thursday. There was a bit of a reprieve on Friday and then we have had snow the last two days. There was about 3" of snow on the ground this morning and that is a significant snowfall for McMurdo, especially for late spring and early summer.

McMurdo Station during the snow storm last weekend. The snow was fairly light during the entire event with light winds.

Looking out onto the sea ice from McMurdo Station during the snow storm. The Chapel of the Snows is the white building in the distance.

Looking at Observation Hill the evening after the snow storm ended. 

Looking out onto the Ross Ice Shelf between the NSF Chalet and the Crary Science Lab the evening after the snow storm.

You might recall that I was supposed to be in West Antarctica by now. The original plans for the field season had us getting into the West Antarctica Ice Sheet (WAIS) Camp by the end of this past week (yesterday). That schedule was put in doubt earlier this month when the camp staff was delayed two weeks due to weather and airplane mechanical problems. The storm that created problems on the Ross Ice Shelf this past week was even more significant for WAIS. The severity of the weather for the US Antarctic Program is guided by three conditions, with Condition 1 being the most severe. Condition 1 weather has sustained winds greater than 55 knots, visibility less than 100 feet, or wind chill greater than -100F. The visibility less than 100 feet is often times the criteria that triggers Condition 1 the most. The WAIS camp rules for Condition 1 is that all people are to remain in the main camp structures, which are not many. If they have Condition 1 "lockdown" then they setup ropes between buildings, flag routes to major destinations, and setup water jugs and temporary bathroom facilities in the Galley and Rec tents. We were notified on Friday that WAIS Camp had received a Condition 1 storm over several days this past week. The storm has subsided but it has set the camp even further back in setup and preparations for science. They will need to dig themselves out from this storm, continue the construction of the camp, re-set up the skiway so planes can land again, and make additional preparations for the start of science. The latest that we have been told is that they hope to get us there by Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving in the US Antarctic Program is typically celebrated on Saturday to provide for a two-day weekend (some camps/locations choose to celebrate it on the traditional Thursday). Thanksgiving at McMurdo Station will be on Saturday. The day is marked by a traditional Thanksgiving meal. They try to make this meal a little more special including requesting reservations for one of four different time slots during the day. I have heard that it is a pretty good meal and a fun day. In truly traditional Thanksgiving form, there is also a Turkey Trot 5K race that morning. Given the uncertainty for getting to WAIS Camp, we have signed up for a Thanksgiving reservation in McMurdo and I have registered for the turkey trot.

I have big plans for field work for the week ahead. It is very likely that I am being overly optimistic. With the weather delays from this past week, helo ops and fixed wing are slightly behind and that makes the chances of us getting flights even more slim. At a minimum we are on a 5-day work week this week (Thanksgiving) and our time available for field work might be even shorter if we transition to WAIS later in the week. The weather should be clearing later today and things look good over much of the Ross Ice Shelf for the next few days. My general opinion is that it is key to be prepared in case you get a good run of days to get into the field. That is my hope for the week.

Lastly, because we are 18-20 hours ahead of the United States, all of the weekly NFL games take place on Monday during the work day. The live TV that we get in McMurdo is from the American Forces Network, which includes a channel focused on sports. Some of the NFL games are live and some are on tape delay spread out over a few days. The result of this is that I have been paying little attention to the NFL. The good news is that it has helped by fantasy football as I am 3-1 while in Antarctica after starting the season 0-6. The Packers-Vikings game is one of the live games for tomorrow morning (10:00 AM local time) and the plan is to watch the game if we do not get out into the field.

Isolation

It is not a stretch, nor a surprise, to say that when you are in Antarctica you can develop a feeling of being isolated. There are different levels to which you are isolated but in every case it is very different from when you are at home and have full access to the internet, television, radio, phone, friends, and family. My first trip to Antarctica was with limited internet connective but before web browsers. For example, there were a few text-based sources of information. I can remember that McMurdo Station had a method to access the AP newswire allowing us to follow the news in the United States. The two noteworthy items that I remember following through the newsfeed were the Northridge, California earthquake and the Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan drama leading up to the Lillehammer Olympics. Beyond that newsfeed, I also remember having countless email exchanges with friends and those friends keeping me up to date on the latest events. In particular, there was an extreme cold outbreak in the upper midwest that year and I had friends and family living in temperatures 30-40F colder than what I experiencing in Antarctica. The most extreme isolation I have experienced was my four weeks at Summit Camp on the Greenland ice cap, which was about six months after my initial Antarctic experience. For that trip there were 22 of us with minimal to no contact with the outside world for the four weeks I was there. There were no planes in or out. The only source of news came from one person at the camp who would tune in to the BBC using ham radio. This was when OJ Simpson, the Ford Bronco chase, and the events following his arrest were consuming the news. All of those news stories remain fairly unknown to me because I learned about them six weeks later.

Fast forward to my current trip and things are different and yet they are also the same in being in a far more isolated experience than when I am at home. We have what is best referred to as limited internet access. There is full internet access, however most of the time it is extremely slow and is often not worth the effort. For example, I can go on facebook about once a day or so but scrolling through posts for more than 30 seconds is oftentimes painfully slow. Keeping up with local and national news sites is a similar experience and fairly limiting. Because facebook is so slow, sending messages to friends through facebook has mixed results. There were a couple days where I gave up trying, and other days it has not been so bad. Email connectivity is great. However, I have realized something lately, especially over the last few weeks, we don't email much between friends anymore. Even in my trip to Africa six years ago, it was oftentimes the email updates from friends, especially when they included quick summaries on some of the latest events in the lives of my friends and family, that was appreciated the most. I feel this is another example of how facebook is tremendous in connecting us more closely with distant and rarely seen friends, yet I frequently wonder what it has done with close friendships. Lastly, there is iMessage. They do not allow mobile devices (phones, iPads, etc.) on the internet network. Yet, I can use iMessage and communicate with people who have an iPhone. This has been helpful. There are a few friends that I've had an occasional iMessage chat and that allowed things to feel a little more normal. Oddly enough, there is free local calling to the Denver area from McMurdo (the primary support contractor is based in Denver), yet it has gotten to the point where I rarely talk with friends on the phone, although I am not real excited about that development either. All of this is going to go to another level when I go to West Antarctica. I am anticipating that experience will be more like Summit Camp in Greenland, with little to no connection to the outside world. I have been told I'll have limited email access through a USAP email account.

This feeling of being isolated from family, friends, and the news of the day has been highlighted over the last several days with the attacks in Paris. I know the very basics of what happened and I know there has been a huge rally of support. However, the details of the attacks and the nuances of the debates that are being had amongst people is all foreign to me. It is this feeling of isolation that is one of the biggest challenges I face when I do field work in Antarctica. That feeling of being out of touch with family and friends and not knowing the details of their lives slowly wears on me. Please, do not hesitate to pass along any information that you have, interesting or not, to me during my remaining time in Antarctica.

I have reached the approximate half-way point in my time on the ice. I have been here for four weeks and I am scheduled to head north in four weeks. The next few days to a week will be very interesting as we are both on edge in terms of the weather and logistics for our move to West Antarctica. Most of our cargo, including sleep kits, are in the cargo system for the flight to WAIS Camp. We could be traveling in two days or it could be over a week. At this point, it is rather difficult to plan our events over the upcoming days. Today was also our fifth day in a row where we were scheduled to fly by twin otter to one of two AWS sites and the flights were cancelled because of bad weather at both sites. The weather is looking even more uncertain the next 2-3 days.

Ground Blizzard

On Saturday, we had another visit to do work on an AWS site. The site was Linda AWS, which is located about 40 miles to the southeast of McMurdo Station on the Ross Ice Shelf. The work to be done was to raise the station, similar to what I described in an earlier post for Ferrell AWS. The flight was by a Kiwi (New Zealand) helicopter. The New Zealand base (Scott Base) is about 3 km from McMurdo. Their helicopter operations are based out of McMurdo and their helos are used by the US Antarctic Program when not being used by the Antarctic New Zealand program. The flight to Linda AWS was fairly routine and it took about a half hour. While flying we could see blowing snow on the surface and that it was likely very windy.

When we got out of the helicopter the wind speed was measured at about 20-23 mph and the temperature was 3F. The snow was blowing at the surface. These were much different conditions than what we had the last two days out in the field where the wind was basically calm. One of the big advantages of having calm to light winds is you don't have to worry about blowing snow. The tool bags, orange duffel bags, and other equipment are quickly filled with snow as the wind finds any cracks and openings. The annoying part is that once the snow gets in, then things get wet and staying warm is much more difficult when things are wet. Whenever you are placed in the field, without the helicopter/airplane staying with on site, you are required to have a "survival bag", VHF radio for local radio comms, and a satellite phone. The survival bag is a large duffel bag with a tent, two sleeping bags, food, and other supplies to live for three days in the field. Before the helicopter departs, we are supposed to establish radio communication with the helicopter and Mac Ops (the radio operations center in McMurdo). It took awhile to establish the radio comms, but once we did communicate with Mac Ops, the helicopter left and it was time to start the field work.

Linda AWS shortly after we arrived. The blowing snow at the surface can be seen with the "fuzzy" conditions near the ground. The solar panel had become unattached during the past year and was hanging by the cable.

The first decision that was made was that there was no need to raise the AWS equipment. The current site had the wind instrument 10 feet above the surface and that is still at a reasonable height. This was also a good thing because adding an additional 7 foot tower section in 20+ mph winds would have been challenging. We also needed to do some maintenance work in remounting the solar panel, which had become undone since the last visit, and to troubleshoot a problem with the pressure sensor. After working for about an hour, we realized that the winds had increased. The winds were now about 30 mph and the depth of the blowing snow had increased substantially. When we landed we were able to see the landmarks Minna Bluff and White Island in the distance. Those sites were no longer able to be seen. Without the necessary time for the station raise, the work that we had finished, and the deteriorating conditions, we decided it would be wise to radio Mac Ops and request that the helicopter return early to pick us up. Besides, the 30 mph winds were making doing anything to the AWS very difficult. 30 minutes later we heard back from Mac Ops and the Kiwi helicopter would soon be launching to pick us up.

Dave calling to Mac Ops using the VHF radio requesting that the helicopter pick us up earlier than planned.

While waiting for the helicopter, the decision was made to do some small tasks to make things a little safer. The winds were now 30-32 mph with gusts to 35. We collected all of the gear and bags together to ensure that if the conditions got worse we would still be able to find everything. This was especially true with the survival bag. We then piled all of the gear into a wall to serve as a wind barrier. I figured since we'd be waiting for awhile, there was no reason to stand around in the wind. Such a strong wind can oftentimes cut through your clothing and is not the best condition to stand around in if you can avoid it. The pile of gear made a great wind barrier and we settled down by sitting on the snow, out of the wind, waiting for the helicopter.

Looking downwind as the survival bag about 100 feet from the AWS. The survival bag was where the helicopter landed to drop us off for the work on Linda AWS.

Dave waiting behind the wind barrier as we waited for the helicopter to pick us up after serving Linda AWS. Notice the depth of the blowing snow as well as the limited horizontal visibility.

There was one other time where I was dropped off by a helicopter and the conditions deteriorated from a perfect day to light snow. Shortly after we were picked up the helicopter pilot said another 30 minutes and we might not have been picked up and we would have had to use the survival bag. Given the poor conditions that we were experiencing on Saturday, the thought of the helicopter not being able to pick us up was real. It is hard to say what the visibility was because there were no landmarks to see, except for 10+ miles away, which were definitely not visible. I would estimate the visibility at the surface was around 100-200 m. However, this was a ground blizzard caused by blowing snow at the surface. Above the surface, it was blue skies. The key is that the helicopter pilot needs to be able to make out the horizon and roughly identify the surface. The same Kiwi pilot that dropped us off is the pilot that came to pick us up, which means he knew exactly where we were and what we looked like. Fortunately, there were no problems with the helicopter landing. The helicopter landed, kept the blades running, and we broke down our wind barrier and loaded everything into the helicopter. I was amused that before the pilot got back into this seat, he took out his camera to get a few photos. Naturally, I had even more respect for the pilot as he clearly realized this was some great weather and it was worthy to capture in pictures. In the end, we were on the ground for about an hour and a half after we called Mac Ops to send the helicopter. Once back in the air it was a fairly routine flight back to McMurdo.

Picture of the horizon during the ground blizzard at Linda AWS. The discernible surface at the center of the picture is the result of the wake zone due to my wind block. Similarly, the line on the left side of the picture is the downwind calm zone from the wind barrier.

One of the upsides to this experience is that the winds that I experienced can be loosely defined as a part of the Ross Ice Shelf air stream, or the RAS. My PhD dissertation was an observation and modeling study of the RAS. I now have firsthand experience of what I studied for years while working on my PhD. From my research, I also know that what I experienced is very tame, especially in comparison to the conditions during the winter months.