Since my last post...

So it has been a while since my last post, over a month in fact, and lots of things have happened since the end of January.
The cargo vessel came and went, though not without some drama. While it was here we had a big storm blow in, which kicked up a lot of waves and caused the ship to early. All there cargo made it off, though a lot of stuff that was supposed to get back to the States is stuck in McMurdo for another year, including some science samples.

Big waves crashing into Hut Point during vessel

The next day, Hut Point covered in frost and spray

After that the summer season was more or less over, so people began trickling out and heading for warmer climes. I definitely had a rough time with all the goodbyes, so by the time last flight came I was ready for winter to start.

Waiting for the last flight to take off on a blustery Sunday morning

Sharing the sparkling wine/cider toast with Admiral Byrd. Winter has officially begun!

Sometime in there we also had our first sunset. At this point we are well on our way to Antarctic night, with 13 hours between sunset and sunrise. We should be up to 24-hour darkness in a few weeks.

First sunset!

In the meantime, we’ve had some beautiful weather, with steam rising off the water as the air temperature drops. We’ve also had some pretty windy, overcast weather. No Con 1 weather yet, but I’m hoping for some of that later in the season.

A beautiful (if windy) day at Arrival Heights, with mist rising from the water below.

And a blustery day at Arrival Heights. The winds were at about 30kt here.

Also, with that big storm back in February, we had some pretty heavy erosion and undercutting of the shoreline. Right now we’re not suppose to go within 10 ft of the water and Hut Point has lost its point.

Hut Point is falling apart! It kind of looks like a fish.

Other than that, things have started to settle into a winter routine. The station is much quieter, which makes sense since we're down to 142 people, compared to 800+ for most of the season. The family table has returned to the galley, so while meals usually seem pretty empty, there is usually a "big" group eating there, with a scattering of others elsewhere in the galley and a lot of people eating in their rooms. I'm still getting used to the change in energy around station, but I've got a couple of things to keep me active. A group of us are doing strength training after work. I'm volunteering in the craft room, and today I'm getting orientated to the espresso machine, so that I can be a barista one evening a week. Then there is the usually soccer night, and SAR training once or twice a week. I'll be putting up some more about that in a future post.

Mini-post: Antarctic Birkie, 2014 edition

A short post about my second Antarctic Birkie.

For those of you who weren't following me on my last adventure in the Antarctic, here is the link to my first Antarctic Birkie experience.

The morning of my Birkie (the day after the Birkie at home, since I have to work Saturdays), the weather was actually pretty similar to what was going on in Cable, WI on race day. Single digit temps and a nice wind.

Getting ready to go in my office at Crary

Racing suits aren't really made to stand up to 20 knot winds, so I dressed a little warmer than I normally would have for a race.
This close to winter, the only trails open for skiing are Castle Rock and the road to LDB, both of which are a hike from station, which means that my Birkie this year was more of a duathlon. I ran about four miles out to the snow road with my skis and poles in hand, boots in a pack on my back.

The one photo I was able to get before my camera died. Taken on the road to Scott base, during my run out to snow.

Once I got to snow, I traded my running shoes for my ski gear. The snow was okay for skiing, not great,  but not nearly the slog that it sounds like the real thing was back home. Most of the road was pretty icy or windblown, but if I stayed to the sides I could usually find some decent snow. Most of the way out to LDB was very slow since I was fighting the wind, but I flew on the way back. I kind of wish I'd had a kite or a sail. That would have been a lot of fun.
I got back to the gravel road and switched back to my running stuff and headed back to McMurdo. I will say that running with skis and poles is not my favorite thing, but it was definitely worth it to get to ski on Birkie day.

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

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

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