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Below the 40th latitude south, there is no law.
Below the 50th, no god.
And below the 60th, no common sense.
And below the 70th, no intelligence whatsoever.-Kim Stanley Robinson, Antarctica
I began this web journal with a quotation from Kim Stanley Robinson’s book Antarctica. This place has not (yet) broken my heart, but here is another one that is apropos as we have just celebrated Halloween at latitude 77.5 S.
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| From Antarctica |
We built a wind wall by cutting blocks of snow out of the ground. Antarctic snow is solid and dense and you can easily slice through it with a saw like a warm knife through butter. Stacking blocks into a wall is the first step, so that you have a wind shelter for your tent and cooking.
Next we set up 4 mountain tents, 2 Scott Tents, and built an igloo-like structure called a quinzee*. To build the quinzee we stacked all our gear in a pile, covered it with snow, dug a hole in the side, pulled all our bags out, then climbed in and hollowed out the inside some more.
Then we cooked dinner (collect snow, boil it, add to dehydrated food packs), took a walk, and went to bed.
I slept in an old quinzee built by a previous group with two other people. Others from our group slept in tents, and some just dug a trench in the ground. When we went to bed it was -25C outside and 2C inside. The low at night outside was around -27C and inside it cooled down to -10C. I slept well for nearly seven hours with lots of gear on and a good sleeping bag.
The whole time, both days and every time I woke up during the night, I was snacking because our bodies were burning so much energy building things and keeping warm.
All together we were very lucky. We had two warm days, a fairly warm night, and zero wind. It was fun and now I really would love to spend a few days or weeks in a deep field camp rather than McMurdo.
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| From Antarctica |
*QUINZEE could be a really good Scrabble(TM)(R) word, but is not in any dictionaries.
Tags: ANDRILL, AntarcticaI had this email in my inbox this morning:
You are scheduled to attend a 2-day Field Safety Training Program (FSTP) Snow School course tomorrow. You need to be at the FSTP classroom (upstairs in the SSC/Bldg 4) at 0900 with ECW gear. Please be on time!Part of this course is spending a night outdoors…getting a genuine taste of the Antarctic field. It is intended to better prepare you for working out in the environment…and the potential, unexpected experience of getting caught out in it.
I'll be back Saturday evening. Here is the weather report/forecast. Think warm thoughts for me…
Tags: ANDRILL, AntarcticaLife on this base is quite nice. For me the work is not physically challenging because I'm in an office, but for many support people here it is tough (there are nine support personnel to one scientist). My days are long and I get no days off until I'm back in New Zealand, but for all of us it is rewarding, and we are here because we want to be here. We play hard in what little free time we have (hiking and biking and skiing (downhill on the volcano Erebus and cross-country on the sea ice) and yoga and bars but I haven't had time to do most of that yet). The food is surprisingly good for a 1000 person cafeteria. I need to find whoever is in charge of desserts and give them a hug. The bedroom shades are thick enough and I'm tired each night so I sleep well even though it is light out.
A few days ago I heard a beeper go off, and it sounded really strange. Partially because beepers are very 1990-ish, but mostly because there are no cell phones down here. I have not heard a cell phone ring in about 10 days. There are TVs in the dorm lounges and I watch a movie sometimes, but there are no commercials. There are no ads, billboards, posters, magazines, for-sale signs. There is nothing commercial, on anything, anywhere on base.
I wish I could be down here through the north-American Christmas holiday season. Oh well. I'll just hide out in the woods for a few weeks when I get home. Although I plan on swinging by Times Square as soon as possible after landing at JFK, just to cover the spectrum and shock the system a bit.
Tags: ANDRILL, AntarcticaSent: Tuesday, October 23, 2007 4:57 PM
To: MCM-RPSC All
Subject: Kite FlyFolks,
Just a friendly reminder that there is a policy on Kite Flying. It is posted on the I:\Perm\Procedures. The only areas open for kite flying are Hut Point and the Wharf Area near the Ice Pier. All other areas are off limits for this activity. Maximum altitude is limited to 150 feet. Due to flight operations and the possibility of Helicopter Operations at unforeseen locations, kite flying in any area other than the two previously mentioned is not allowed.
There are a lot of rules here.
This is not a complaint (I didn't bring my kite), just an interesting email to receive. At the same time there is an incredible amount of freedom. For example, there are long hikes you can go on (when the weather rules allow it) that quite frankly scare me a bit because of how far away from base they take you.
Tags: ANDRILL, AntarcticaJust an FYI that there are a lot of other blogs being generated from down here. If you search for “Antarctica blog” I'm sure you'll find many.
I'd like to point out one in particular, the ANDRILL ARISE blog written by six teachers here with me. There are a lot of posts being generated by them on that blog, and the content is fairly educational for a middle school audience.
I've helped them with some of their posts. For example, here is a video of Kate demonstrating all our ECW gear. I know the video quality is not very good, but it is the first movie I've ever filmed, edited, and/or uploaded to youtube. So go make some popcorn and enjoy.
We have three weather states here: Condition 3 (normal), Condition 2 (right now) and Condition 1. For condition 1, nobody is allowed outside the building they are currently in. If the weather persists through a meal or sleep time, then the search and rescue team will set up ropes between buildings and escort people to the dining hall and back to the dorm rooms.
Here is a photo out my office window of the heli-pad. Compare and contrast to most of the other photos. It has been Condition 1 for the past 10 days, but today it is Condition 2.
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| From Antarctica |
Here is a video of Condition 1. I did not take this, nor have I experienced it yet, but I do hope we get a day or two of this while I'm down here.
This morning was the last sunrise and tonight is the last sunset I'll get to see until sometime in December when I fly north to New Zealand. Not that I was awake at 3AM-ish when it rose, nor will I see it when it sets because a) it is stormy and b) I'll be asleep.
I don't think much will change. While the Sun has been setting for a few hours each night, it has not been dark at all. Definitely not enough to see stars since I've been down here. I miss the stars.
And there is plenty of topographic relief in the area, so even when the sun is at the highest point December 21, it will still go behind various hills for a few hours during the day.
Tags: ANDRILL, Antarctica8.5 meters of sea ice?! Really!? I've heard that the sea ice is generally only 1 to 1.5 meters around Antarctica. Do you know if the region where they are drilling is multi-year ice?
We are drilling on multi year ice, but only because B-15 broke off a couple years ago and impacted the local ocean currents wind effects and essentially 'plugged up' McMurdo sound, allowing multi-year ice to form.
The drill is about 25km from McMurdo Station. The single year sea ice is right in front of the base where our runway is located. Right now it is 2.25m, and the minimum for the C-17 to land is (I think) 1.75m.
Tags: ANDRILL, AntarcticaI like my office, although sometimes it can be a bit distracting. Yesterday this took off outside my window:
And then a short while later this landed. The photo doesn't do the plane justice. This is a C-17 Globemaster III, an absolute beast. We got to ride one down here, and I previously saw one take off from this floating ice runway. Pics here.
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| From Antarctica |
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