BFC Kate sent us this message from the South Pole today.
She was the McMurdo support person who helped us set up
camp in Bull Pass last season. This season she is supporting
the South Pole Station. Click on the link included below to
see some of her fantastic photos.




Greetings family and friends,
A warm hello from the South Pole! Actually it has been warm
comparatively (it's been in the -teens lately). I have been meaning
to write an email and send pics for some time but the Internet is
super slow and times are limited so now as we get ready to leave I
finally have something to send along!
Kev and I have been at the Pole since Nov. 14th, and have been
enjoying an entirely different Antarctic experience from the previous
few seasons. The South Pole sits at 90 degrees south at about 9500
feet. Depending on the barometric pressure the altitude can feel up
to 10,600 ft. on some days. The average temp in the summer runs
somewhere around -20 to -30, yet there is always the wind chill to
factor in which makes walking between buildings a major event in which
much time is spent bundling up. But you get used to factoring in the
dressing time, and it's amazing how quickly your body adjusts to the
temps.
So, what are we doing here you may ask. Kev and I are working here
supporting a project called AGAP. Check out their website :
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/~mstuding/AGAP/. This is the last year
of a three year project in which they are studying a huge underground
mountain range. The field site is about 250 miles from Pole and sits
at about 11,500 (but can feel up to 14 or 15,000 ft again dependent on
pressure), so we are here at the pole to help folks acclimitize,
organize cargo, feed them and basically herd them to the plane when
the time comes. It is a nice short contract which will hopefully
enable us to be home by x-mas. All was looking good until a few days
ago when we started to get freezing fog and flights started to get
cancelled. So, currently, we have 8 scientists here waiting to get to
AGAP and the soonest they will leave will be Wednesday, so we just
take it day by day as that's the only way here on the harshest
continent.
Other than that, when we have not had people here to take care of we
have been able to plug in with other departments. We have spent loads
of time shoveling and more shoveling, doing inventory and just doing
whatever is asked of us. Not so bad for a short period of time and a
great way to get to know folks around station. South Pole station has
about 250 people here in the summer. Their summer season runs from
late October to early Feb. It's amazing that they even have a station
here as the conditions are so harsh and so much time each season is
spent digging out many structures. The current station is the third
one in the almost 60 years the US has had a station here. The first
one sits under about 30 feet of snow and is totally off limits after a
D-8 (big machine) punched through while driving around on top of the
old station. In the early 70's they built the Dome which housed close
to 120 people and the rest were housed outside the dome in Jamesways
(large heated tents). The dome worked well until it, too, succumbed
to the drifting and became mostly buried. The dome was connected to a
number of tunnels which are still in use today and are connected to
the new station. The new station was built in 2003 and is an elevated
station which will hopefully help it not fall prey to the huge amount
of drifting that happens every year. Yet, this year they have spent a
fair amount of time moving snow as it is already starting to build up.
Our tax dollars are hard at work here at the bottom of the earth for
sure!
All in all it's been a great experience to be here at the Pole. The
small station and close knit community makes it feel like a big field
camp. We do miss seeing penguins, seals and in general, some
topography (it's flat and white as far as the eye can see here), but
in many ways this feels more like the Antarctica I expected to
experience upon first coming to the continent.
Well, here are a bunch of photos from our last month.
http://picasaweb.google.com/katekoons/Antarctica09?feat=directlink
We wish you all a very happy holiday season and hope to see an of you
very soon!!!
Love,
Kate and Kev

Prince Albert II Trip Press Coverage

Ziggy sent me a link to the Monte Carlo Times coverage of Prince Albert II's trip to Dry Valleys and Bull Pass. He flew overhead, but did not stop at our camp because they were behind schedule. However, in the photos in the article, you can see ventifacts in the background which are in the same area we hiked. There is also a shot of Canada Glacier, which Pat and I hiked one day.

http://www.montecarlotime.com/en/Albert-II-anniversary.aspx

MPR

Minnesota Public Radio last night started airing Pat's "audio postcards". Not sure what type of introduction or background information they included on the air, but here is what they have on-line:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/02/03/antarcticapostcards/

Layout / Formatting

In the "Blog Archive" panel on the right, where all my entries are listed, I changed the chronological order to be oldest to newest. Lots of people are interested, and I'm pointing them to this blog, so I thought chronological order was best. The reverse order was the default, and I had not changed it until now. Hope this is not too confusing.......

To navigate the "Blog Archive", click on the year and month entries to expand the lists until you get the actual entries to click on.

Home

Arrived home about 1:30 am Thursday, about 34 hours after leaving my hotel in Christchurch. Trying to get back to Central Time. Thanks for all your comments and e-mails.

I probably have to assemble a short presentation using full-resolution pictures. The ones I posted with the blog were substantially compressed. When I get something put together I'll probably put a link to it here.

Comments

I reset the blog to allow anonymous comment posting.
Now, when you click on "0 comments", you should get a dialogue
box to type in, and then select anonymous, enter the key and hit submit.
Sorry if you've tried in the past 3 weeks and were unable to
comment without an account.

This is the only reason I can think of that there are not a plethora
of comments to this sweet blog...............

Christchurch

The weather is cold, blustery, with light rain off and on. So, The mountains are even more overcast, so I would not have been able to see much from the train anyway until I got to the west coast. Perhaps for the best.

Walked around a bit, and thought I could relay some local info.

Pharmacies are "Chemist".

At major downtown intersections, when the pedestrian light and signal go on, you can walk every direction, even the two diagonals.

A light switch in the up position is off, down is on. And, the wall outlets each have 2 switches for on/off of the individual outlets. Took me a while to figure that one out...

Have seen only one American-made car so far, a Ford European fake SUV of some sort. Most are Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi.

The toilets have 2 buttons. One for a small flush, one for a large flush.

In the downtown area, there are electric trolleys like this one photographed from the sitting room of our B&B:


Christchurch has a very British look and feel, as intended, but in a strange sort of way, because nothing is much more than 100 years old - not much older than the towns in the Midwest of the U.S.

I'm packed and organized. I'm going to try to go out for a dinner at a nice restaurant, and then hit the hay. I start for the U.S. tomorrow morning, so you probably won't see a post from me until I'm home on Thursday.

Tuesday, January 27

Disapointment.

For my one free day in New Zealand, I had planned to take the Trans-Alpine train over the mountains to the west coast and back. It leaves daily at 8:15 am and returns about 7pm.

http://railnewzealand.com/Tranzalpine.html

I had no New Zealand cash, and couldn't get any last night at the airport, so I got up at 6:00, showered, called a cab to be at our B&B by 7, because it is about 15 min. cab ride to the train station, and you are supposed to be on board by 7:45, and I still had to figure out how to buy a ticket, where to go, etc. I could pay the train fare with plastic, but needed cash for food in the dining car along the way, and I needed some for the cab both ways anyway. I walked about 3 blocks to a corner where there are 3 different ATMs, stuck my card in, and the machine ate it. No message about anything, or any menus, just ate my card. There was an 800 number on the machine. So, I rushed back to the B&B, called and they said they could only cancel my card if it was of the bank of the ATM (Bank of New Zealand), and that I would have to call my own card company to cancel. Further, they were not sure if the bank would have access to the ATM to retrieve cards when it opened at 9. They were not sure if it was a different company or service that did that at this location.

By the time all this had happened, it was too late to walk 15 min. to the bus station (in the opposite direction of the train terminal) to catch a bus to the train station in time to buy a ticket and get on board (without any cash). And, I was nervous about what to do about my card. If they couldn't get it to me today, I would probably have to make an international call to get it canceled somehow, which I should probably do sooner instead of later. So, I canceled my day trip. I was really looking forward to it. I would have traveled through some of the locations used for scenes in the Lord of the Rings movies.

Instead, I had breakfast, did a little reading, and headed to the bank at 9. They had my card, along with about a dozen others, and the ATM machine now had an "out of order" sign on it. If I'd chosen either of the other 2 machines about a half-block further away, I'd be on a train right now.

That is the reason I'm able to make blog entries today. I'll probably take a nap after about only 4 hrs. sleep last night, and maybe try to find a touristy thing or two to do this afternoon. I start traveling back to the U.S. tomorrow. At least I saved about $150.00 U.S.

Ziggy took a bus this morning to go about half-way up the mountains and stay at a trampers lodge, and tramp (hike) around for a day and a night and a day. He's then coming back to Christchurch for a day and then heading down to the south part of the island to do the same for a few days before heading home. It is supposed to be very remote and beutiful, with glaciers and black sand beaches.

Monday, January 26

After an early lunch, we humped up to the Post office with all our gear on to begin our journey off the ice:


We are going to a different runway this time - "Pegasus", because were are flying on a C-17, a larger jet aircraft that needs a larger runway and cargo load/unload equipment. This runway is farther away from McMurdo nearer the mainland where the ice shelf is more stable. When we arrived 3 weeks ago, all 3 lanes were very soft, slushy, and bumpy. The "bad" weather we had in the field when we ground grounded and couldn't get helo support was actually good for the ice roads, colder and windier with snow freezes them up:


It was a bit cold and very windy. To get on the flight, you have to wear all of your ECW gear, but we actually needed it here. It was about a 45 min. ride to the terminal, we arrived about 20 min. before the aircraft, and it took about 1:30 to unload and load. While outside, you needed all your stuff on. Here's the terminal lounge:



The restrooms are the little red shack in the center:


Inside the terminal:


Looking the other way, Ziggy taking a picture of me taking a picture of him taking a............


Extreme Kool Z (Ziggy) wanting a close up of our aircraft landing:


It was quite a sight to see the huge thing land, kicking up snow behind it. Here it is taxi-ing up:


About three truckloads of cargo like this got off-loaded, and headed for McMurdo:


After the return cargo is loaded, we were run out there 10 at a time in a van. Here is Ryan boarding:


The good news is, the jet means a 5 hour flight instead of the 11-hour flight we arrived on in a C-130. Even better news, it was very roomy. There were 30+ jump seats on each side, plus some airline seats mounted in the front center, and only 40-some passengers. We chose side seats because you could stretch out as far as you like, and we only had to sit in every other seat. That, and we figured we'd be stuck in airline seats soon enough. Also, the high ceiling (15-20') made it feel so wide open, like you were in a large room, not an aircraft. And, there was much better lighting. I read 1 book:






A view out the window:


A wonderful flight. Most leg-room I've ever had. We received a box lunch before we left, and there was water on-board. The only down side was that we arrived in CHC after 9:30, then had to get our bags, which takes a while because it is all palletized as cargo. Then go through customs. Then go to the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) and check in all our issued gear. Then take a shuttle/van to the B&B, and it was after midnight. I have 1 free day tomorrow in CHC to be a tourist, and begin the flight home Wed.

Open Gym

Sunday night is open gym night in the "Big Gym":



After 49+ years and 5 knee surgeries, this is what happens to a gym rat: pick-up games in Antarctica. These guys were playing a game of 21, and asked if I wanted in. In sandals and jeans, I finished, 4th of 5. Scores were 21, 18, 16, 13, 4.



We got our bags checked in this evening, and are scheduled for an afternoon flight tomorrow. The good news is it is a C-17 (jet) so a 5 hour flight instead of 11-hour C-130 (prop) military flight. We may have more room also, but not sure how much more cargo they will have.

This will probably be it from Antarctica, I'm heading for bed. Signing off, I guess I could show you the view out my window I've had the past 2 days, similar to the one we had before we deployed. We across the hall from the rooms that have a view of Ross Sea and the Mountains.

Sunday, January 25

Last night was fun. Porn Spill was the band, mostly disco-era funk stuff. A band called Swing D’s played a short set, because one of their members recently was injured, so they borrowed a couple of Porn Spill’s. It was in the Waste Barn. It is called the Waste Barn Party. At end of season, they empty the recycling center and put up a stage, lights, sound, and sell beer. It is a way for all the support staff to blow off steam and the end of supporting us “beakers”.











All of our group wimped out on doing the Antarctic Plunge yesterday. We did talk to one guy, though, that did it and said it was great, much less shockingly cold than he would have thought.

Breakfast today was Sunday brunch. Fresh fruit brought in by C-17 aircraft because they need more flights to get all of us out of here the next two weeks. So, everyone was piling up on fruit, making huge bowls to take back to their rooms for later in the week.

I finally got caught up on e-mail today, both personal and work, after about 3 hours.

Now, Pat and I are going through videos I’ve made because he wants to send a few clips to MPR. At 3:00 is the end-of-year film festival, 4:00 is open gym, 8:00 is bag drag, which means I have to be all packed by then, because they take our bags at that time. All you keep behind is what we'll be wearing (our ECW gear), and a carry on bag.

For Kent Huwe, here is how they maintain the roads:


Here's a view of the hospital:

MPR

so far, only the piece Pat did before we left is on-line:

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/01/02/antarctica_trip/

Saturday Night Update

Sahweeeeeeeeet!!!! We have not been here for meals on the weekend before. I just found out that on Sat. night you can bring alcohol into the galley for dinner. I'm going to stop the by the "Store" and see if there is bottle of red wine to go with Italian night.

Also, Sunday is "Sunday Brunch Day". 10-1, with fresh fruit, which never is available the other days of the week.

Also, check out Minnesota public radio for segment on our group. If you miss it live, they will post it to their website.

Saturday, January 24

Winding down. I am sitting in Crary lab again, like I did before we left for the field, making blog entries. I am finally caught up. I am entering this post on the date in the title.

I slept really well last night, just not enough.

We took down the kitchen tent right after breakfast, and when we returned it learned our sling load was already on the way. So, we headed down to the helo pad to help unload onto a truck for delivery back to a few buildings:




It contained our Scott tents, a couple more sleep kits, the human feces buckets, the grey water barrel, generator, gas, propane, all the hazardous stuff they don't want to load inside the helo. Also inside were the rest of our left over food supplies, boxes of rock samples, empty water jugs, and just all the leftover miscellaneous stuff. We got everything washed up and returned at the BFC by lunch. All that was left was to return some electronics and a few other items to other buildings.

On the way to lunch I grabbed a shot of the Hospital:


Here are Pat, Ryan, and Ziggy heading into the Galley:



Lunch today was hamburgers. Not very good as hamburgers go, but I started thinking that I hadn't had a hamburger in at least 4 weeks.........I also noticed that there is never any deep fried food. The Chicken dinner last night was roasted/broiled, not fried.

While catching up on my blog this afternoon, I noticed the ice-cutter is making a sweep through the bay to keep the ice loose. Probably easier than waiting for it to freeze over hard again. It probably does this every few days while waiting until it can leave.


It's after 5 and I'm heading for dinner. The activity tonight will be the waste barn party. The waste barn is the largest building they can clear out. All the local bands come and perform. It is the last big bash of the season. People start leaving at end of Jan., for example us on Monday. Everyone is gone by the second week of Feb. except those that are wintering over. Tomorrow at 3 in the galley is the annual film festival. Anyone who has put a movie together can show it, it is supposed to be hilarious, poking fun at life and people at McMurdo.

All of our group, however, wimped out on the Antarctic Plunge. They put a hole in the ice at Scott Base, the New Zealand base, and anyone who wants to jump in, can. The water is 29 degrees Fahrenheit. Women at 2:30, men at 3:00, co-ed at 3:30. The government (NSF) and the contractor which employs all the support people here (Raytheon) discourage this. That is why is is no longer done here, only at Scott. Actually we were busy up until that time, and even if one of us was brave/crazy enough, we might not have made it over there. And, I didn't bring a swim suit, so I would have had to go "au nateural".

I'll try to make a post tomorrow to confirm we're flying out the next morning. If so, I'll be out of contact all day Mon. during the 11 hour flight. I won't be able to post until Tues. morning my time, Mon. afternoon CST. However, Ziggy and I might take a train trip early in the morning, so it might be later.

Scheduled to fly from NZ to LA on Wed., but by crossing the international date line, it will only take a few hours, and I'll be back in the US Wed. afternoon, and spend the rest of the day flying back to SD. I think I have the last NW flight of the night from Minneapolis to Sioux Falls.

Friday, January 23

It was a crazy morning. We got up at 6:30 to tear down the tents, but it was still so windy we were afraid we couldn't, or if we did the helo would get cancelled. So, we waited until 8:00, which is when the helo flight ops meeting of the day is, and called in to find out they were launching at 8:15 to come and get us at 9. It would just pick us 6 passengers plus any cargo they could fit in, and then do the other cargo later as they could. The sling-load may have to wait.

So, we went crazy tearing down 5 tents in less than 1 hour, and finished preparing everything for shipment. For example, sealing up the last poop bucket. That is a sure sign you have reached a point of no return. We were completely ready about 90 seconds before the helo was in sight. We were able to fit in quite a bit of cargo along with us, and stacked the rest for a second helo that would arrive later that day, and tied up the 2 sling loads in case, but the pilot agreed it was too windy and said it may have to wait.

Not a word was spoken the entire way back to McMurdo by us. Usually there is a lot of chatter over the headseats. Everyone was contemplating the bittersweet experience of leaving Bull Pass and the Dry Valleys. Back to civilization, but away from an unforgettable landscape.

When we got back, the helo techs unloaded our stuff, and said they would take it up to the BFC for us, where we have to unload and clean and go through it. This gave us enough time to get checked into new dorm rooms, take a shower, and have lunch.

This didn't turn out to well, thankfully. This is my hairdo after 15 days without a shower. What a relief to have a toilet, shower, bed sheets, and pillow. Even though my shampoo instructions say "lather, rinse, repeat", the first lather didn't really take. Much grease and sand......




I went downstairs to do some laundry, because I either had to wash my socks and underwear, or throw them away. From out the balcony near the laundry room, I noticed a tanker for re-fueling had followed in the ice-breaker that arrived the day we left for the field:



The best ice-breakerrs are all from Norway, of course!




The tanker:


Another view:


After the tanker is done, a cargo vessel is scheduled to arrive. Sadly, no penguins followed the open water in. We have only 2 days left to sight penguins.


We headed over to the BFC, and found our second load of cargo was arriving, so we had our work cut out for us. That's was ok with us, because the more we did today (Fri.) the less we would have to do Sat. And, we have to pack our bags for loading by Sat. night, because we are scheduled to fly out to NZ Monday morning.

We broke out our sleep kits so they could send necessary parts to laundry, store cots, etc. We had to wash all of our kitchen kit equipment, stoves, coolers etc. That took over an hour. We washed pee bottles in bleach, an interesting experience.....We had to haul our recyclables to the correct dumpsters, return electronic, solar, GPS, and other various things to other buildings. There's just always a lot more stuff than you think. Ziggy took one last chance to enjoy his sleeping bag before it was taken away from him:



The last thing was to set up the Kitchen tent inside a building and scrub the flooors and walls for the next occupants. After drying out overnight, we have to pack it up and return to the BFC. I am standing in the place we are going to set up, but first took a photo of a mini-bike that is in this building for some reason.....



We were finally done with everything that was brought in shortly after 5.

Fortunately, we didn't have to use dog sleds this year. No one knew the last time these were used:


I spent part of the evening after dinner getting caught up on these blog entries, since I hadn't made one in two weeks. I should get caught up tomorrow. All we have to do is deal with the sligh-load, which is mostly big stuff that we don't have to deal with.

Thursday, January 22

Ryan and I got up at 6:30 and made Mac Muffins for breakfast. Everyone was glad to have a hot breakfast that was not oatmeal, but the ham we used was salty and made everyone thirsty.

No photos the past 2 days. Tuesday was the death march, as it is now being referred to, and I didn’t have a camera battery that day anyway. Yesterday was a rest day for me, so nothing to photo. Functioning fairly well, considering, but resting up was the correct decision. Michelle, Pat and I flew with Helo Jack to 5 more points today. We got the Kuckery Hills, but it was a bit dodgey. Jack apologized for his curtness on our first day of flights last week when he was the pilot doing our leapfrogging. He did 37 landings that day, and 20 were in poor visibility. So, no down time, and difficult conditions. When we have close support, he shuts down and has down time while we collect data. He was very pleasant today. We agreed to get him a satellite image of the retirement log house he is building in Colorado.

When first flying out of Bull Pass camp, we had a good view of Lake Vanda, the destination of the Onyx river:


This is our first location of the day. Very cold and snowy. We needed our ECW here. We even walked around a snow field to avoid a possible hidden cravass:


ANd of course, here is where Michelle had planned for us to land. Doesn't it look like the tip of Mt. Crumpet? She looks at images and maps and tries to find peaks that are accessible, and then the pilots adjust off of that when we get there and see it is impossible, but try to land as close and as high as possible:


Here is our second location:



Very near a tall peak. I was wrong about our first location being cold. It was so cold here than any exposed skin would be frostbitten in a few minutes:


From the air, just an interesting tiny glacier that had escaped from its parent:


You can see our helo shadow in the snow below:


Here's our next location, you can barely make out the helo in the upper right, sitting in a saddleback about 10 feet square:


Though that sounded dangerous, much safer than where Michelle had picked out for us to land, maybe this is Mt. Crumpet?:


At this point, Jack said we were 3 for 3 taking him places he'd never been before, and he's been flying here for 20 years.

While we were collecting data, a few photos. That is Farrar Glacier below Michelle, which is a few miles wide:



On the way back to camp, we stopped above Commonwealth Glacier, because it was on the way. This point was not critical, merely a "nice-to-have", but Jack said we had time, and it was our last day. Looking up at the helo, which landed below Michelle's target again:



Looking down:


When we got back, Paul was cleaning up camp a bit. We haul out tomorrow. BFC Kate did not arrive today, though. Hopefully in the morning.



Pat made chicken and ground beef tacos. Michelle called at 7:00 to find out our first helo for pullout tomorrow is at 9 am not at end of the day as originally scheduled, so we are now scrambling instead of relaxing. We have to pack up the whole camp tonight except tents, and without BFC Kate. And, we had to get rid of all the consumables we possibly could:




We packed up everything we could except our sleeping tents and the Kitchen. We packed up the computer tent and all the electronic gear, the solar panel and batteries, all the food, supplies, everything. We packed up our one spare alpine sleeping tent we had been saving for Kate. The Kitchen tent was completely empty. We left it up because it was very windy, and if the morning flights were canceled we might not get it back up. We estimated gusts during the night at 40-50+ mph. No one slept much. We kept getting up to check to make sure nothing was blowing away. In the middle of the night, I took this from out of our tent door. Bizarre lenticular clouds formed by wind sheer, where strong winds in opposite directions meet. Duh.