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Week 1 - 0ctober 28, 2001 to November 3, 2001
Date:11/03/01
Latitude:77 degrees, 51 minutes South
Longitude:166 degrees 40 minutes East
Temperature:-7°C(19°F)
Wind speed:10 - 15 knots
Wind Chill:-15°C( 3°F)
Wind direction:Northwest
Meters of ice collected:0
Notes on daily life:
Dan, Susan, and Jan finished up labeling the boxes today by about 3:30 in the afternoon. Each box has 14 labels to be attached so it is a slow process. It was much colder and windier today, so it took us longer than we expected. Susan commented that it was cold today. I thought that was pretty funny because isn't it always cold in Antarctica? Brian Welsh and Markus Frey came in yesterday and were with us today checking on their equipment they had sent earlier. Brian is a post-doctoral fellow at St. Olaf College, Minnesota. He will be towing a radar system behind our train of sleds. The radar will directed down into the ice and send signals back that show the overall thickness of the ice, distribution of land below the ice, and the thickness of the individual layers of ice. He is hoping to be able to correlate these layers to what we find in the ice cores. Markus is German and is currently working on his doctoral degree from the University of Arizona. His project on the traverse is to study the chemistry of the trapped gases in the ice cores. He expects that the gases will indicate a change in the atmosphere due to human influence (i.e., pollution). I also would like to introduce Cobi Harris and Steve Niles. Cobi is our field mountaineer. She lives in Alaska and has led a number of expeditions in the mountains there. She is also an instructor for Outward Bound. Cobi was one of my instructors for snow camp and I have full confidence in her ability to keep us safe and sound. Steve is from Wyoming and this will be his 9th trip to Antarctica. He will be our camp manager and mechanic. I haven't met him yet because he is already at Byrd Camp getting the equipment and gear there ready to go.
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Date:11/02/01
Latitude:77 degrees, 51 minutes South
Longitude:166 degrees 40 minutes East
Temperature:-13°C( 9°F)
Wind speed:8 knots
Wind Chill:-22°C( -8°F)
Wind direction:North
Meters of ice collected:0
Notes on daily life:
Today was really cool (get it-cool?) because this morning Dan and I walked down to Hut Point about 1/2 mile from McMurdo. This is where Robert Scott and his crew built a hut in 1902. The hut is kept locked so that people can only go inside with a guide, but we did peak through the window and saw some of his supplies. They wintered there before trying to reach the South Pole. On this trip, they only made it to within 450 miles of the pole before turning back. Finally, in 1911 he made it to the pole only to find out that Roald Amundsen beat him to the pole by three weeks. Imagine his disappointment after that long, arduous trip only to find that he wasn't the first one to reach the pole. Scott found Amundsen's tent with a Norwegian flag flying from it. Scott wrote in his diary "This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have labored to without the reward of priority." Unfortunately, Scott's team was not in good shape. They didn't bring enough supplies for five people and they were badly frost bitten. On their return trip, they were stuck for 8 days in bad weather and unable to continue on. The group froze to death on the ice only 11 miles away from their stash of food they had left for the return trip. Even though the walk was short, it left us pretty tired. It is amazing how much the cold can take out of you. In the afternoon, Susan, Dan, and I were finally able to get some work done for our own expedition. We are taking boxes with us to store the ice cores that we'll be drilling and bringing back to the U.S. We have 100 boxes and each of them has to have a total of 9 labels put on them for shipping back to the states. It took us 4 hours to label fifty boxes, and again, although it was easy work, we were very tired from the cold when we were done (the boxes are stored outside). Tomorrow we will finish the second half of the boxes.
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Date:11/01/01
Latitude:77 degrees, 51 minutes South
Longitude:166 degrees 40 minutes East
Temperature:-16°C( 4°F)
Wind speed:4 knots
Wind Chill:-18°C( 0°F)
Wind direction:North Northwest
Meters of ice collected:0
Notes on daily life:
Our workload was very light today. Dan, Susan, and I went to a class on the waste management system here. Because everything has to be shipped back to the U.S. for disposal, the station tries to recycle as much as possible in order to reduce waste. Every time I throw something away, I have to be sure it goes into the right bin. The bins are divided into food waste, glass, plastic, burnable things that aren't recyclable, paper, hazardous waste, and my favorite, skua. Skuas are very similar to sea gulls. They live on the coast and they are scavengers; they will eat just about anything. So our skua bin is for giving anything away that someone else in the station might be able to use. Then it is all collected and taken over to a store, and people can go and buy it. Right now there is a good pair of blue jeans in my dorm's skua bin.
We were supposed to label the boxes that we'll be shipping our ice cores in once we're done, but there was some confusion about it so we are waiting
for further orders. This gave us a chance to catch up on our individual work. Jan walked around town and took pictures. The view of McMurdo really
isn't very lovely. It looks like an industrial park with dirt roads, but the buildings on the inside are very nice. We hope you'll enjoy your tour
of McMurdo Station with the pictures. If you would like your own souvenir from McMurdo, you can send a self-addressed, stamped envelope to the postmaster
here. Both stamps are regular 34-cent stamps. The postmaster will then postmark your self-addressed envelope and send it back. Then you can say you
received mail from Antarctica! The address to do this is:
Philatelic Mail Clerk
McMurdo Station, Antarctica
PSC 469
APO AP 96599-5700
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Date:10/31/01
Latitude:77 degrees, 51 minutes South
Longitude:166 degrees 40 minutes East
Temperature:-15°C( 5°F)
Wind speed:5 knots
Wind Chill:-25°C( -13°F)
Wind direction:Northeast
Meters of ice collected:0
Notes on daily life:
Happy Halloween! No ghosts got us during the night, but I'll tell you, that wind howled like mad so I do think they were out there. By now you realize that we made it through the night safe and sound.
It's very strange to go to bed when the sun is still shining. We really had to keep tabs on our watches to know when to go to bed. By the time we did at 9:00, the sun was about like it is in the states at 3:00 in the afternoon. How wierd is that? We were so tired, though, it didn't keep us awake.
We got up about 7:00 in the morning and started up the stoves to get hot water for oatmeal. While it was heating, we took down the tents, which was a lot less work that putting them up. We were picked up by our instructors and taken back to the canvas hut for hot chocolate and to learn how to use the field radios. We called McMurdo, and Lynn was able to talk to a friend at the South Pole. That was pretty neat! Back at the ranch (McMurdo), Susan spent the day finding all of the equipment that had been shipped down ahead of time. It looks like everything is accounted for.
Date:10/30/01
Latitude:77 degrees, 51 minutes South
Longitude:166 degrees 40 minutes East
Temperature:-15°C( 5°F)
Wind speed:8 knots
Wind Chill:-30°C( -20°F)
Wind direction:Northeast
Meters of ice collected:0
Notes on daily life:
Dan and Jan were shipped off to snow school early this morning and met up with another ITASE team memeber, Lynn Peters. Cobi taught the course so we had a good time getting to know each other before we fly out to Byrd Station. Susan stayed in McMurdo and attended a review class of survival skills. Having been here four times before, she doesn't have to take the newcomers class.
We drove out onto the Ross Ice Shelf with 11 others and went into a canvas hut. The first thing we learned was how to recognize the early stages of hypothermia (dangerously low body temperature), frostbite, and dehydration. If you can prevent these three things, then you have a very good chance of survival in severe weather.
We were then showed the equipment that is supplied in our survival kit. If we are ever caught out in the bad weather away from camp, this kit will be very important to us. First we had to learn to light the stove. It is similar to a Coleman camping stove (if you've ever been camping) except it is much smaller.
Our next job was to go out on the ice and set up camp using our kit. We all pitched in to build an igloo for shelter. It was a lot of work, but it went fast with so many people. Then we had to pitch our tents, and yes, you can pitch a tent in hard packed snow. The tent stakes are iron spikes that can be pounded into the ice fairly easily.
Then came the really hard work: cutting out blocks of snow and building a wind break for the kitchen area and some smaller tents. We used snow saws to cut the blocks and stack them like legos to make a wall. It is exhausting work, but well worth it if it's going to save your life. Everyone chipped in whole-heartedly. As we built the ice-block wall, we fired up the stove and started heating water for our dehydrated dinner. Next we had to learn how to set up the tents. It is not very hard, but by the time we were done, it was 7:00 PM, and we had been out in the cold for 6 hours without a break.
Dinner was not very good, but again, in a survival situation, it was good enough. Our instructors said good night and left for the canvas hut for the night. We were left to finish the wall and set up our sleeping bags in the tents. We were given two thin cushions, a very warm sleeping bag, and a sleeping bag liner made out of fleece for extra warmth. Did I make it through the night???? Stay tuned......
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Date:10/29/01
Latitude:77 degrees, 51 minutes South
Longitude:166 degrees 40 minutes East
Temperature:-15°C( 5°F)
Wind speed:8 knots
Wind Chill:-30°C( -20°F)
Wind direction:West
Meters of ice collected:0
Notes on daily life:
Hurrah! We're here!! What a day. So many things happened today that it feels like it's been two days instead of just one. We got up bright and early to be out at the airport at 6 AM. It was easy to get up because the excitement made it hard to sleep anyway. We changed into our cold weather gear, had breakfast, and then had a quick briefing on what to expect. Then we went through securityand boarded the plane. We lucked out today because we flew in a C-141, which is much faster than a C-130. So instead of an eight hour flight, we only had a 5 hour flight. We were packed in pretty tightly on this cargo plane, but it still seemed better than the sardine feeling you get on a fully-loaded commercial plane. The weather was fairly clear, so we knew we would make it into McMurdo and not have to turn back because of bad weather. Most of the flight was spent dozing and reading. We had to stay pretty bundled up because it was cold, although they did have the heat on.
And then...we landed! You can imagine what a thrill it was for Dan and me, who've never been here before. After stepping off the plane we just stood in awe and immersed ourselves in the scenery. We were out in the middle of a sheet of ice (McMurdo Sound), surrounded by snow-covered mountains. Just spectacular! We boarded a bus called Ivan the Terrible and headed into town. We llearned later that the ice was only 12-feet thick, which seems awful thin when you think of landing an airplane on it.
Ivan brought us safely into McMurdo Station right up to the National Science Foundations's building. We had another briefing about our schedules for the first few days and then we were off to our rooms--a very welcomed site after the long trip. McMurdo is on a volcanic island called Ross Island. It doesn't seem like an island, though, because it's surrounded by ice instead of water and it seems like you're on land. The town is not the least bit fancy--mostly aluminum and wood buildings and dirt roads. It was surprising that the snow had melted enough already to expose the dirt. The town has it's own little chapel, a firehouse, dorms (where we sleep), a dining hall that serves cafeteria style, a big building of offices and labs for the scientists, and various other buildings that are needed to run a town. There is even a little coffee house and a gym were they hold exercise classes. We'll be in McMurdo for about 10 days just getting all our food and equipment organized and packed up. Tomorrow--snow school for Dan and Jan.
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Date:10/28/01
Latitude:43 degrees, 5 minutes South
Longitude:172 degrees 6 minutes East
Temperature:17°C( 62°F)
Wind speed:9.8 mph
Wind Chill:Not Given
Wind direction:Southwest
Meters of ice collected:0
Notes on daily life:
Dan Dixon, Susan Kaspari, and Jan French arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand yesterday. The day was spent relaxing, doing a little sightseeing, and trying to adjust to the time change.
Today the three of us went to the Clothing Distribution Center at the International Antarctic Center to try on all our cold weather gear for the trip out on the 29th. We will dress in multiple layers of long underwear, fleece pants and jacket, wind pants, and parka. It is important to dress in layers so that if you get too warm, you can take something off. You don't want to sweat while you're working because that can make you feel even colder. If all goes as expected, then it's off to the ice tomorrow!
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