Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving here is celebrated on Saturday, so today was just a normal day. The chef at the balloon base decided to cook a Thanksgiving meal for us tomorrow, but apparently the weather may worsen in which case we may not be able to go to the balloon base.

The weather has been deteriorating this evening, but it really isn't as bad as it looks in this photo.












That's my building. My room is on the first floor, probably the third window from the left.

Taylor Dome Part 1

Again, this will be a two post night. I say Part 1 because I hope to exchange pictures with people so that I may actually have photos of me to post. I have a few more photos that for some reason I can't post, so I'll work on that as well.

I just returned from a five day trip to Taylor Dome on Antarctica proper. Taylor Dome wasn't as much of a dome as I would have expected, but you could tell the horizon was nearer in certain directions, so there was some slope to the topography. Central Antarctica is a high plateau, while the coast is pretty rugged. Taylor Dome is at the beginning of the plateau. It's an amazingly desolate place. Roughly 700 miles of flat windswept snow stand between Taylor Dome and the South Pole.

We were at roughly 8500 feet, but because of the rotation of the earth, the atmosphere gets spun out towards the equator and gets thinner at the poles, so the physiological altitude was close to 10500.

The temperature was pretty moderate, only dropping to -30 degrees F or so, but the wind could be brutal. It didn't take long after I removed my gloves to tie a knot or work with connector for my hands to be pretty cold. For your information, toothpaste is still liquid at -30 F, but just about everything else freezes except for fuels. However, when you brush your teeth, the toothpaste you put in your mouth is at -30 F. Again it is always sunny here, the sun never sets, so it makes work easy as you don't have to worry about it being dark. You also don't have to worry about bears getting into your food or anything.

I traveled with two scientists and a mountaineer. The purpose was to set up a remote autonomous antenna that will broadcast a signal every second that can be used to calibrate the gondola when it is in flight. The antenna that is used to broadcast the radio signal, is down a 300 foot borehole in the ice. The ice is about half a mile thick where we were, but it doesn't become more comfortable the thicker it gets.

It was truly an amazing experience, I have a lot of stories about it, but it definitely had it's moments. There wasn't a time when I wanted out, but I definitely spent some time thinking about sitting on a beach in Hawaii.

I have done camping before, but I don't know this was definitely different. Melting snow for water took hours every day, everything freezes, high altitude, blowing snow, low visibility, total dependence on others for our survival as there was now way we could reasonably survive without a plane flight out, and the feeling of being the only people within a 150 mile radius are a few of the aspects of the adventure that stood out.

One short story I'll share now. I brought a pair of ski's along, as the mountaineer traveling with us spent 62 days skiing across Antarctica with her gear in the first all women's group to make it to the pole from the edge of the continent, and I felt that there wouldn't be a better place to learn to ski, or a better instructor. I won't say that I learned to cross country ski, but I didn't fall down, and was able to get around fairly well. I don't think there will be any photos of that, but it was a neat experience.

This most certainly was a trip of a lifetime, many people have come to Antarctica for years, and have never gotten to fly over the continent let alone camp with such an amazing mountaineer on the Antarctic Plateau. I have been very lucky, this whole trip has been pretty spectacular to say the least.




The Twin Otter we flew in. They are amazing planes that can take off at 45 knots. The pilots are also really impressive, but they probably have one of the greatest jobs in Antarctica, stunning scenery, minimal air traffic, and a good deal of appreciation by everyone they pick up.









The tracked vehicle in this photo is a Haglund, I've never ridden in one, but I can walk faster than them sometimes.












The outside of my window was icy, so these first few shots aren't too clear. In the background is Mt. Erebus, in the foreground you may see a big white circle on the right, that is the balloon launch pad. From this perspective, if the circle was a clock face, the balloon base buildings are sort of where the hour hand would be at 9:15. You can also see the runways for Willy Field, where I took off for this trip.







This is a shot of part of Ross Island. Mt. Erebus is in the background, McMurdo is sort of in the middle, you get points if you find it.















This is a close up of McMurdo. I apologize for not taking photos around base yet, but I'll work on getting that done.











These next few shots are from the window in front of me, the glass was cleaner, but I had to contort myself to get them. These are all above Antarctica proper.







































This is the bore hole that we were for, well at least the cover of it. It was left almost two years ago.











This is a shot of our camp.













This is looking out onto the Plateau.

Falling Snow

I saw falling snow for the first time last week, wasn't quite what I had imagined, but I know it varies. It started "glittering" on the way to the balloon base. A couple of hours later it started snowing, which I felt resembled falling ash from fires in Southern California.

Field Safety Training Program 1

This is a self shot of me at snow school. In this instance the lens had partially frozen over.

This past Tuesday and Wednesday I completed FTSP 1 aka "snow school" or "happy camper." It's a course that all those going in the field must complete. Raytheon employees are also allowed to take the course, and it is the high point of many of their seasons here, whereas many of the scientists are not as fond of happy camper.

Snow school is a course that is designed to familiarize people with basic cold weather snow survival. We also cover basic radio usage as well as search and rescue techniques. The majority of the class is spent constructing and sleeping in a snow camp in "snow mound village."


Here is our camp, I haven't yet stitched the photos together, but feel free to imagine it as a single panoramic photo.






























Our class of 20 built a camp of two Scott tents, four mountain tents, one quinzhee, and four trenches. I slept in the quinzhee with one other person. The tents are easy to set up, the trenches take some work, and the quinzhee takes a long time. We first made a mound of bags, covered them in a tarp, and then shoveled almost two feet of snow over the whole thing. After letting it refreeze for a few hours, we dug a tunnel coming up just on the inside wall of the quinzhee. It took two of us a good 2 hours just to build the tunnel. I stayed in the quinzhee for the night. It was a cold night as my mummy sleeping bag was too small and only made it to my shoulders. It is nicer than the tents in that it is the darkest (the sun is always up), and it generally is warmer than the trenches.

It also has a pretty neat interior.


















Here is a view from our camp out towards the balloon base. The two hangars are barely visible as two dark bumps on the left on the horizon ( I really mean barely visible, they are about a quarter of the width of the photo from the edge).










Here's a magnified view of Scott Base from Happy Camp. You can see the pressure ridges between my position and Scott Base. The pressure ridges form where sea ice hits the ice sheet. The sea ice is much thinner and is influenced by the tides and waves to a greater extent. The ice sheet is also moving out to see so that also contributes. Seal and sea lions like to hang out near the pressure ridges, as their predators don't usually venture so far under the ice. In this photo, I am standing on the Ross Ice Shelf, and the sea ice barely wraps around Ross Island to Scott Base. Most years the ice never clears in front of Scott Base, but on occasion they have true beach front property.

Here is half of the group attempting to find someone under white out conditions. It definitely is extremely difficult and makes you realize you shouldn't expect search and rescue to find you if you get lost. It is not unheard of for visibility to get so poor you can't see your hand in front of you, and the excercize made me realize just how vulnerable a person is out here. There have been cases of people walking around the perimeter of the building, and they lose contact with the building and become completely disoriented during hurbies(hurricane blizzards). My lens cover wouldn't open all the way because it was too cold.

11-16-08

This is a shot from the balloon base towards Willy Field. The building on the left was known as "the pig barn." It used to be where the gondola's were assembled, prior to having the new hangars. Workers used to spend weeks clearing the snow from around it each year to get it ready for use during the austral summer. The new buildings are on skis, so they get pulled off of the ice shelf at the end of the season and placed on a berm.






Here is a photo of the galley at the balloon base.













In this photo you can see a group of three people in the distance in the early stages of their attempt to walk to the South Pole. There's an interesting story behind their expedition in that they are relatives of Shackleton or his crew, I'm not sure, and they are attempting to complete his trek to the South Pole. Their group has a page at http://www.shackletoncentenary.org/ that may have more info.






Below is the daily progression of the gondola assembly over the last two days.












































As you may be able to tell, we are getting close to having it completed. Next, the instruments still need to go up on the deck, more cabling will need to be done, and then we have to work on getting the drop down antennas on. Other people are still working on calibrating the instrument, so we are in a bit of a holding pattern. Once the whole gondola is together, additional work will need to be done to calibrate the whole thing. We then have to wait for the vortex to set up over Antarctica before we can launch it. The earliest they have ever launched a balloon is December 10. We also will be the second payload to launch, so it may be a bit.

In the mean time I will be going to a field camp to set up a remote station that will be used to calibrate the gondola once it is in flight. Basically it will send a signal to the gondola ever second, and because we know what the signal is, we can calibrate the antennas based upon what they perceive the signal to be.

I will be flying to the field camp with two scientists and one mountaineer. The camp is at 8500 feet or so, but because the atmosphere is thinner at the poles, it's the equivalent to about 10,000 feet at lower latitudes. We will be there for five days, if the weather allows us to be picked up on schedule. While there we will have to find a cable that was attached to an antenna lowered down a 300 foot bore hole in the ice two years ago. It should be interesting. I don't know when I'm leaving, it's been a bit ridiculous. Budget cuts and the fact that the support company's contract is nearing completion means that there have been substantial cuts in support. Over the past couple weeks we've been told we weren't going, and then we were going, then we weren't going, and now we're going again. It is possible that I will only have an hour's notice or so, so it please understand any delay in communication.



Miscellaneous


I learned(not from firsthand experience) that you can burn the roof of your mouth here. The snow reflects UV well enough and the ozone hole allows enough UV in that if you breath through your mouth, you can get a sunburn on the roof.

Here are two videos I've heard about while I've been here(the weather has been pretty mild).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8CAcKw5808

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qz2SeEzxMuE

11-14-08

Here is the gondola as it was when I started work this morning. It was 20 below or so this morning, but warmed up a bit by the afternoon.


















In this photo you can see the balloon facility. We are in the closer of the two hangars. All the buildings at the balloon facility are on skis so they can be pulled off of the ice during the off season.











This is a shot looking from the balloon base back towards McMurdo.














This shot is from the same vantage point but I zoomed in a little bit. McMurdo is actually on the other side of the hill, but you can make out some green buidlings that comprise Scott Base which is the Kiwi base. It houses about 65 people when full, and most of the support is provided by McMurdo. The base looks like somebody spent some time to design the layout and not just thrown together like McMurdo.

Vehicles

Here are some of the transport vehicles around McMurdo and the balloon facility

The Delta(really slow)














The Airporter













The Terrabus (painfully slow)













A van (at the balloon base). In the background is Willy Field, the airfield where most of the flights to other bases in Antarctica are based out of. All the planes have skis attached to the landing gear. C-130's, Twin Otters, and DC-3's. When I first flew into Antarctica, I landed at a different airfield on a C-17













A pickup














The Boss(only used to hold the gondola during launch).













And here is the gondola as it was when I went in to work this morning

Cape Evan's Hut and an ice cave

I hope the photos make up for the poor formatting.


Here's a photo of when I first arrived in Antarctica. No, I'm not the one with facial hair.













I've been having some computer and camera issues. This is my second attempt at a post tonight and it seems all the photos on my camera have been deleted. Luckily, I had already transferred most onto my computer, but I found out when I was looking for a particular photo.

Today the weather was supposed to be pretty warm, high's at +18 degrees F. Ice on any dark surface melts during the day and the roads get pretty wet as a result. At night the water freezes back.

Today I was able to visit Scott's hut at Cape Evans. It's an amazingly well preserved hut built in the early 1900's as part of an expedition. Slabs of seal blubber, food, and a penguin are in pristine condition. The hut also contains anthrax and asbestos. You can also still smell the smells of the barn. It was a pretty neat trip that involved riding on a "Delta". I intentionally took a photo of Delta today, but it was my search for that photo that made me realize all the photos on my camera have been deleted. It was about an hour ride over sea ice. I'm still very new to all this so my explanations may be wrong, but bear with me. Sea ice is seasonal, it forms over the ocean in the winter and melts during the summer. The ice shelves are not seasonal. The balloon base is on an ice shelf which is apparently nearly 90 feet thick where the balloon base is located. However, under both sea ice and the ice shelves is ocean. Really neat pressure ridges from where the sea ice rams into the ice shelf. In the coming weeks, they may allow tours of the pressure ridges nearby which I would hope to go on. Dangerous cracks can be found on sea ice, ice shelves, glaciers, and snow packs here, so you're best bet is to stay on the marked paths. Snow often times covers up these chasms, which makes things even more interesting.


This is a photo of the actual hut. Just outside of this photo on the left is an anchor from one of the ships that from my understanding was there one night when they went to bed, but gone in the morning. Mount Erebus is in the background on the left.







Apparently it was important to have a bicycle here. (I haven't quite gotten the image stabilization feature on my camera figured out as you can see in this photo and the photos of the ice cave)



















































I saw my first animals today. There was a Weddell seal on the ice near the hut and a skua, a large gray seagull-like bird, at the base. Skua's apparently have learned to swarm anybody walking out of the galley with food, which is an entertaining spectacle to anyone but the person with the food.












On the way back we stopped at an ice cave at the edge of a glacier on the side of Mount Erebus. The cave was pretty spectacular, I wish my photos had come out better. If you use the flash, you lose the blue color of the ice, but the lighting was dim in there and my image stabilization didn't seem to work.


























This is a good photo of the caves, and that is my backside.
























Apparently there is some program where elementary school students make paper figurines and mail them to various far off locations. Included is letter from the student telling the recipient what the student would like Stanley to do and some information about the student. A student from near Port Hueneme mailed a flat Stanley too the "Science Center" in Antarctica and so various groups have taken him around. He's been to a penguin rookery, went on a helicopter flight, went ice diving and seen the sea floor, travelled to the South pole, and today came with us to the hut and the cave. He has seen more of Antarctica than just about anyone, and each group that takes him is apparently quite enthusiastic about getting comedic and/or amazing photos of Stanley. This clearly won't be one of those photos, but I thought it was a neat story.

It looks like I will be camping for five days or so out on an ice shelf with two scientists and a guide. I'm really looking forward to it as I've done car camping before, but never plane camping. We will be all alone out there though, so that should be interesting. I don't know when I leave, but it will likely be sometime next week. I'll keep you all informed, but it will mean I will be out of contact for some time.