Sunday, January 26, 2014

Penguins and Boats and Crevasses, Oh My!


The Polar Star in McMurdo Sound
Exciting happenings this week. We had the US Coast Guard icebreaker, the Polar Star, make its way to McMurdo this week. They left this morning, and we’ll be getting the fuel tanker in this afternoon. And the cargo vessel is scheduled to arrive on  the 31st. We also had a private yacht visit station with tourists, and there should be one more cruise ship stopping by in the next couple of weeks. Things are about to get very busy around here.
The Polar Star broke up some of the ice in the bay near station, but by the time they got here, a lot of the ice further out was already clear. Some of the folks who’ve been down here many seasons have said that they’ve never seen so much open water. And it happened fast. It seems like things were still pretty closed in less than two weeks ago, but this week there is open water in pretty much every direction.
And with open water has come penguins. During the marathon there was a group of Emperor penguins hanging around aid station #2. And closer to station we’ve had a ton of Adelies playing in the water. We got what might be the last nice weather of the season early in the week, and a lot of people took advantage, taking the short hike down to Hut Point to watch the Adelies and get a little bit of sun.
Adelies hanging out at Hut Point
The Adelies were very funny to watch. Where the Emperors are stand-offish and a little grumpy seeming, the Adelies are gregarious and curios. If there were folks sitting close to shore, one Adelie would walk up to them and check things out, and suddenly there’d be four or five standing around the person, almost close enough to touch.
I didn’t get that close to them, but spectated for about an hour, watching the penguins make their clumsy way across the rocks and ice, and then jump into the water and porpoise out to some other piece of ice.

My own work has been variable the last couple of weeks. I had a grantee in town last week, and then another in town this week, so that has given me some extra things to do. I’ve also been working on swapping in new computers for CosRay, since the station is finally upgrading operating systems on the network computers. It has been interesting working with IT to get IP addresses assigned with all the right permissions and such. Facilities has been working on rerunning a lot of the power lines around station and they are to the lines running between station and Scott Base, which means that CosRay is also facing a short power outage in the next few weeks, so I also learned how to run a UPS backup battery test in order to make sure that the system would remain powered and continue transmitting data during the power outage. Everything went well there, so now I am just waiting on word for when the outage will happen, so I can keep an eye on things.
Earlier in the season I applied to be part of the winter Search and Rescue team. Initially, Loomy, the guy in charge of SAR, put me in as the first alternate, but one of his team members failed the PQ and I officially joined the team and started training with my new teammates. So far it has mostly been classroom/indoor training on pulley systems, knots, self-belaying, etc, but every other Thursday we head out into the field for some more practical experience. For our first outing we spent the morning at the crevasse simulator not too far from Happy Camper. We got introduced to the various anchoring systems, and then set up a main line, belay line and two edge kits.
Jamie doing edge duty
Then we started putting people over the edge and into the “crevasse”, which was a large pit that’s been dug out by Fleet Ops just for the US and Kiwi SAR teams to practice on.
Looking up at my edge crew from the bottom of the "crevasse".
 We had lunch out there and then packed up our gear, hopped back in the Hagglund and found a real crevasse to play in. This time Loomy treated it like an actual response, told us what he wanted and expected us to get things set up. We actually got things set up pretty quickly, although we had to redo the anchors on the belay line so that they would pull evenly, but Loomy was pretty pleased with us. Once everything was set up, we started dropping people into the crevasse.
Jonathan tying in to the main and belay lines



Chris, Gavin and Jamie hauling someone out of the crevasse on the main line

Rebecca holding the main line
Going down into the crevasse was very cool. The ceiling was covered in huge ice crystals. I grabbed a couple on my way back up to the surface for a closer look. The crevasse itself was a few hundred meters deep, and we were able to get lowered most of the way to the bottom before it got too narrow. All in all, it was a pretty awesome day, and we’ll be heading out for another adventure this Thursday, so I’m looking forward to that.


Looking up out of the crevasse

Ice crystals growing on the ceiling of the crevasse.

The same ice crystals up close. They were huge!

And another look

Wednesday, January 22, 2014

McMurdo Marathon Recap

Looking out from the starting line

So, this past weekend I participated in the McMurdo Marathon, one of many event put on my the McMurdo Rec department for the folks down here. It was a great experience and the volunteers  and organizers were awesome. Saturday (the day before the marathon) was had high winds (up to 30 knots out at Pegasus) and was on the chilly side, so a number of people ended up backing out. About 70 of us stuck it out, and Sunday ended up having some pretty beautiful weather.

To start, we dropped off gear for the half way point out at Pegasus Air Field and then loaded up three Deltas to get out to the start, at the 1 Mile marker of the white road out to Pegasus.
Getting ready to go in the Delta
Once we got to the start, we had about ten minutes to get ready and lined up. They gave the runners who were going for time the front line, and put the skiers on the outside, with everyone else lined up behind.
Kiwis and Americans toeing the line.
The course followed the snow road from mile 1 out the Pegasus at mile 14 and then turned around. The half marathoners turned around just after the second aid station out at mile 7.5. I started off a little fast, but after two days of not running at all I was feeling good and wanted to run with other people for as long as I could.
Skiers head out under cloudy skies.
I ended up running most of the first half with a group of guys. One of the guys, Martin, had planned on just doing the half, but got to the turn around, felt good and just kept going. We had two aid stations on the way out, which included the usual granola bars and Gatorade, along with PB&Js, burgers, candy bars, hand warmers, pee bottles (no restrooms out on the ice), and shots of whiskey and rum.
A few of the awesome volunteers, at Aid Station #2 (mile 7)
The road itself was in pretty good condition. You definitely had to watch your step and choose your path, but for the most part it was possible to find good footing. The last mile to and from Pegasus was in rough shape, though. It was either very soft, or glare ice, which made things interesting. As I said earlier, the weather on Sunday was pretty beautiful, to the point that I actually started to get hot the last couple of miles out to Pegasus. As my group was coming in to the turnaround, we started to see the skiers on the way back in, and later the leaders in the running race.
Will, a fellow Minnesotan down here with one of the science groups, won the skier division of the marathon

Duggan, one of the men's leaders
 My group ended up making it to the halfway mark at just under 1:50.
fueling up at the halfway mark
I ended up dropping off my gloves and buff, which I'd been carrying along since about the second mile. Of course, once I turned around I realize how much of a tail wind we'd had and got a little chilled. I still had my headband, so once I put that back on I was pretty comfortable. Unfortunately, that was also about the time that I dropped the guys I'd been running with for the first half.
Turning around and lookin' fast
So, by myself and against the wind. Needless to say, parts of the second half were a struggle, especially after about mile 18. Sometime in here running on the snow also started to bug my toes (as I write this, it looks like I'll be losing one or two toe nails). I started talking to myself, and making goals about when I needed to reach the next mile marker, usually giving myself about 9 minutes. For most of the way back I made my little goals. At about mile 21 I started to flag and missed goals twice, but then I hit the final aid station with 3 miles left, chatted with Annie, one of the volunteers, for a few seconds, and was able to pick it up again.At about mile two, after passing the Wissard travers equipment, I could see the finish line very clearly getting closer, along with another racer not too far ahead, so I tried to pick it up a little bit more. I don't think I did a whole lot, but I gained on the guy ahead of me and was able to put in a good finishing kick the last 100 meters. And I finished in 3:55:56, a personal best, in Antarctica.
After getting a little bit to ear, I switched to my ski gear and went back out to cheer other finishers in. At about the 3 mile mark, I ran into my friend Beth and skied with her back to the finish.
Beth, somewhere on the way back in.
Once in, we waited for the last of the finishers and for our ride back in to town.
John (left) and Danny Gregory
Awesome story time: So, Danny Gregory was having trouble and thinking about quitting at the second to last aid station at mile 19, and John talked with him and then started running with him to keep Danny going. He ended up running the last 7 miles with Danny, in snow boots and Carhartts, and a little drunk (he'd been taking shots with all the runners who took shots). What an awesome guy.

And now some more pictures:
On my way back in

Laura running her first half marathon

Chris (in black) and Jonas running the half marathon

Paige and Megan, two of our awesome volunteers, out at mile 11/16

Getting close to the turn around

My Kiwi friend, Isaac, skiing the marathon. He learned to ski here on the ice!

Looking towards Pegasus from the turn around

Volunteer Gaelyn posing at the turn around.


And now we have to run all the way back...

We also had some natives join the race