Thursday, January 15

Oatmeal with dried pineapple for breakfast, with English muffin with coffee and juice. Prince of Monaco scheduled to visit camp today, and Paul has to stay in camp for that. However, we had a helo scheduled, so it was decided Michelle, Pat and I would collect as many nearby peaks as the 3 hrs would get us. Helo arrived about 45 min. early, scrambled to get dressed, and forgot one FDX boot liner. Packed lunch of granola, tea, and turkey/swiss/mustard on bagel.

Collected 4 great points on very high peaks, Pilot Paul Murphy from Great Britain was great, climbed around and took photos of a WWII british action figure for his nephew. He was very active in participating where to land. He was looking for features in addition to landings sites. A couple of the places were very tiny, 3 of 4 actually, no idea why he thought he could land there. Also, while in the air, spent most of the time at one 45 degree angle or another. Pat was able to get a hold of MPR on the Sat phone, and left more “audio postcards”. He did a good job recording a couple, and is planning to do so whenever he has a story to tell.

Here's the first place we landed today. That line of snow marks the drop-off of the ridge to the right:


Pat trying to get MPR on the Sat Phone:


Pilot Paul and Michelle:


The valley below:



Here's where we landed for our second point, Paul worked hard to find a place here:




Paul was very adventurous, getting one of his photos here:



Here's the next place Michelle had picked out to land:


We settled for this instead, fortunately, just below:


An interesting rock we used as the feature for this point:





Got back to camp and Paul was alone. The prince was a no show. Too busy and behind schedule. We had heard a little of it on the radio traffic, but weren’t sure. Michelle is now ingesting data, and she and paul are trying to go through what’s been collected, so we can plan subsequent flight days. Fairly sure none tomorrow, so Fri/Sat are still TBD.

Ryan and Ziggy hiked up to Ryan’s research area, so a long day for them.

We’re going to try to set up LiDAR for the first time this afternoon. A DV – artist – Udit somebody is schedule to come in tonight.

Received word we will do a drop-off, hike, pick-up tomorrow, and another flight like today’s on Saturday. Weather permitting, of course.

Today is much clearer, a little colder, and windier. Wind switched directions. Ziggy says it is now from the continent, so colder and drier and clearer. It had bee from the east so cloudier with more chance of snow or unstable weather.

Re-fueled the generator.

Charging things again…

Pat’s making chili for dinner.

He also made us mai-tai, with a chunk of dried pineapple that was quite tasty.

And of course, every day begins and ends with a view like this: