Date: December 24, 2006
Latitude: 78 degrees, 38 minutes, 45
seconds South
Longitude: 150 degrees, 55 minutes,
56 seconds East
Temperature: −20°C (−4°F)
Wind Speed: 8 knots
Wind Chill: −29°C (−20°F)
Elevation: 2,300 meters (7,546 feet)
Written by: Joe
Kilometers Traveled 240
Meters of core drilled: 240
Notes on Daily Life:
Our Christmas Eve on the ice was spent as another driving day, and quite an exciting day at that. Not far outside of our last stop we encountered a particularly nasty sastrugi field that we spent the majority of our day navigating through. Cathy volunteered to take her first shot at driving the fork Cat train, not knowing the conditions that lay ahead. Rick took care of duties behind the dozer Cat, Josh drove the Pisten Bully and Andrei and Paul split the crevasse detector post. Not too far into the sastrugi field, the fork Cat got stuck and needed the dozer to turn around and pull it out. This was the first of three stuck trains throughout the course of the day. The fork Cat got stuck a second time needing the same assistance as before, and finally the dozer got high centered on a large mound. It is quite impressive to see a 12-ton machine stuck on a pile of snow. Cathy had had enough and let Dan D., a more experienced sastrugi captain.
Brian had to deal with the worst of the conditions out in the radar sled. As we navigated “S” turns through the large lumps of ice, Brian’s sled on a rope 200 feet behind, went straight down the middle taking the sastrugi head on. At one point he slid down the side of a particularly large sastrugi and needed the Pisten Bully to come over and pull him out with a set of chains. At the end of the day we set up camp 40 km from where we started, not quite as far as we had hoped, but safe and sound with nothing broken and despite the rough terrain, both radars collected data the entire time!
Date: December 25, 2006
Latitude: 78 degrees, 38 minutes, 45
seconds South
Longitude: 150 degrees, 55 minutes,
56 seconds East
Temperature: −23°C (−9°F)
Wind Speed: 6 knots
Wind Chill: −31°C (−24°F)
Elevation: 2,300 meters (7,546 feet)
Written by: Lora
Kilometers Traveled 290
Meters of core drilled: 240
Merry Christmas! Christmas Day on the ice started an hour late with breakfast at 9:00 am. The extra hour of sleep was a nice treat since we had stayed up watching the movie ìSpaceballsî the night before. At breakfast we all found gifts under our homemade Christmas Tree. The University of Maine Santa Claus had brought us all a new pair of warm socks, games and some food treats. We also received candy bars, chocolates and zipper-pulls that Josh had made for all of us. Rick, who has a white beard, donned a Santa hat for a group Christmas photo. We had a fun morning and were still ready to get the trains rolling by 10:30 am.
After 50 km, the deep and shallow radar data was analyzed and Paul decided that we were at a good site for the second 100-meter ice core. We plan to stay here for 3 to 4 days while we drill the core and conduct several other science projects. This site is short of where we originally planned but it looks promising for a good quality core
Cathy made us an abbreviated Christmas dinner of turkey, stuffing, mash potatoes, brie cheese and fresh vegetables. Brain brought out his computer with the Charlie Brown Christmas sound track on it for some holiday cheer.