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Date: 01/01/04
Latitude: 81.65 degrees South
Longitude: 122.60 degrees East
Temperature:−12°C( 10°F)
Wind speed: 12 knots
Wind Chill:−21°C(−5°F)
Wind direction: not given
Elevation: 9,722 feet
Kilometers traveled: 1510

Notes on daily life:
By Dan

New Years Day
Had a bit of a late start today thanks to last night’s revelry. Everyone just pottered around before lunch and discussed the plan of action for the afternoon. During the afternoon Matt, John, Andrea, Lynn and James spent several hours shoveling out the fuel bladder. The bladder can hold up to 10,000 gallons of fuel and it is used as a fuelling station for passing Twin–Otter aircraft. The bladder was buried under more than three feet of snow and contained around 4,000 gallons of fuel. After clearing the snow from the bladder the fuel had to be pumped into the empty barrels that were left over from our trip from the South Pole. When all the fuel had been pumped out, the bladder was lifted out of its hole using the forks, rolled up to the size of two large suitcases and strapped onto a retro pallet.

Later in the evening preparations for the removal of the rest of TAMCAMP continued and a survey of the skiway was conducted.
After lunch, Tom and I drove out to the original TAMCAMP snowpit site (2.5 miles north of camp) and set up the PICO hand auger and a core processing line. We proceeded to drill an 11m ice core before dinner. Drilling that deep with a hand auger is very hard work, towards the bottom of the hole the drill was only bringing up 20–25cm of ice core at a time. Fortunately for us the weather was perfect and we ate dinner feeling worn out but not frozen.

The weather was so good that everyone decided to take advantage of the shower tent (which was still standing!)  what better way to celebrate the New Year?

Date: 01/02/04
Latitude: 81.65 degrees South
Longitude: 122.60 degrees East
Temperature:−12°C( 10°F)
Wind speed: 8 knots
Wind Chill:−19°C(−2°F)
Wind direction: not given
Elevation: 9,722 feet
Kilometers traveled: 1510

Notes on daily life:
By Dan

Today was a rather laid back day; my whole body ached after drilling the 11m PICO core yesterday but I also felt really good after my shower. I spent the day fixing and fine–tuning both of our drills. I sharpened all the cutters from the 2–inch drill and the PICO hand auger. I fixed the cutter pin on the 2–inch drill that had snapped during disassembly at Megadunes. I also had to re–adjust one of the core dogs from the 2–inch drill because it had worn down its limiting pin and was swiveling down past90 degrees.

Tom spent the day digging and sampling a snowpit for isotopes and stratigraphy. James, John, Andrea and Matt built four retro pallets and removed the rest of TAMCAMP. Lynn spent the day grooming the skiway in preparation for the upcoming Herc retro flight.