A month of updates

So, I just looked at my blog and realized that it has been about a month since I last posted. Between work and the holidays and activities outside of work it's been a very busy month. Probably the biggest news in my work category is that one of my projects, SuperDARN (which I talked a little bit about in my last post), suffered some pretty serious damage after Arrival Heights had some Condition 1 weather last weekend.

Those lines that angle towards the ground aren't supposed to do that

Lines dragging on the ground. In the distance, you can see that a pipe is laying on the ground.

On Saturday and Sunday, we were in and out of Con 1 (sever) weather up at Arrival, mostly due to severely reduced visibility. The fog left everything rimed with frost (which you can still see some of on the first picture), including SuperDARN. On Saturday, when I checked on things, everything was obviously still standing. On Monday, I came back up and decided to do a walking inspection and found a big mess. Several of the anchor lines had failed, and a pipe at the end of the array had bent over to the ground, all of which combined to bring down a number of the antenna cables. My best guess is that the frost got too heavy, and a couple of the anchor lines, which were already weakened and going to be replaced in the next couple of weeks, just gave out. At this point, I've let the group know what has happened and now it is up to people who get paid a lot more than me to figure out how to deal with this sort of loss.
Other than that, work has been fairly quiet. Last week I got the chance to head to the Dry Valleys with AFTAC, one of the groups I support. Actually, until last week, I hadn't done much of anything with them except chat with the guys who were down here. That project suffered some pretty major losses of its own over the winter. The guys, William and Eric, spent most of there month and half down here flying back and forth from their sites, replacing battery banks and repairing generators. I came along for their last trip out to "help" with the last of the generator maintenance. I did actually help some, but they mostly brought me out to show me the sites at Mt. Newell and Bull Pass, and to let me explore some off station. It was pretty awesome.

Draining coolant, in preparation for replacing coolant lines

The helo dropping us off at Mt. Newell

Looking down into Wright Valley from Mt. Newell

We spent the morning at the AFTAC Mt. Newell site. Most of the morning was taken up with replacing coolant lines on the generator that keeps the building warm and battery banks charges. I did get about 45 minutes to hike around and got a good look at where we'd be heading next, just below Bull Pass in Wright Valley.

The helo dropping us off at Bull Pass

Wright Valley was completely different from Mt. Newell, and it was easy to see where the Dry Valleys get there name. The floor of Wright Valley is clear of snow and is a mix of gravel and sand leftover from when the glaciers moved through and pulverized all the large rocks that used to be here. While there were two generators to work on at the Bull Pass site, we got things done quicker, and had a fair amount of time to explore.

First Eric took me out to the Onyx River, a glacially fed stream that is the largest in Antarctica. It also flows "backwards" in that it flows away from the sea and towards Lake Vanda which is about 2 miles further down the valley. Since the water is pretty much untouched, we filled our water bottles straight from the river. It was very good water. After that, Eric and I hiked up into Bull Pass. Much of the rock in the area is a black shale, I think. Anyways, it all looks like the kind of rock that should break off in sharp pieces, but due to centuries of wind and sand, the rocks have become ventifacts, or wind-carved rocks. It was very cool and a little strange to climb around in them, since many looked like faces staring out of the mountain.

Standing on someone's head in Bull Pass

After coming back from the Dry Valleys, I spent a day in town working and then headed out for Happy Camper, an overnight snow-craft and survival class. It used to be required for pretty much everyone on station to take it, but now the only people required to take it are those heading out into the field for extended periods of time. It's a boondoggle for everyone else, and it was a blast. We spent the first couple of hours in town, talking about hypothermia and frostbite and those sorts of things. Then we piled into a Hagglund with all our gear and headed out to the ice shelf where we spent the night. After getting an intro to the WhisperLite stoves that everyone uses down here, we put together sleep kits (two mats, a -20F bag, and a fleece liner), and grabbed tents to set up.

Gear drag out to our site

Sleep kits!

The standard mountain tent that gets used out in the field.

After setting up tents, we got a quick tutorial in how to cut snow blocks and set up wind walls. Then we were basically free to do what we wanted. Some folk set up the kitchen:

Our kitchen, complete with stove-top, seats and a wind wall

A lot of us took the nice weather as an opportunity to dig out snow trenches to spend the night in.

My snow trench, all set up for the night.

Todd, coming out of his snow mansion.

The entire thing was a blast, and I slept warm all night. I got a chance to go skiing in the evening. I even planned on skiing in the morning, but I woke up to barely being able to see the tent next to my hole and decided to go back to bed for a while. This was the first camping trip in a couple of years that I haven't been the first one up and cooking, so that was a pretty nice experience all by itself.

Once I got back in to town, I found out that Arrival Heights had been in and out of Con 1  and went up to check on things. That night we had a masquerade, complete with home-made masks made earlier in the week.

My favorite photo from the evening, with Debb, Megan, and Bev. This is the only one where I am not completely cracking up.

On Monday I lead what I though was going to be the last pressure ridge tour of the season (although it now looks like I've got at least one more), and I got my friend Erin out for the first time. She was very excited to see seals.

Erin, extremely excited

Seal tail! With a tag from one of the seal groups

Snow-eating seal

A pretty cool picture of the pressure ridges

Christmas down here was wonderful. There was a station-wide Christmas party Tuesday evening, Christmas dinner, live music and dancing on Wednesday, and relaxing and hanging out with friends on Thursday. Part of the festivities on Wednesday was the Ob Hill Uphill, a half mile race to the top of Ob Hill.

The group racing to the top

Near the top