Blues skies,
Nothing but blue skies,
Nothing but blue skies, do I see.
Wow! What a stellar day! For here it was darn right balmy and easy to get over-heated. Mercifully no wind to speak of. A day to have Big Red unzipped for part of the day, no neck gaiter, wear sunglasses underneath the Ozone Hole.
Managed to get 2 longer drives today. The first was back out to the Ice Runway, where I've been many times already, but this was for Airfield Operations, something much more complicated than you'd ever expect, even on this small runway/ski-way out on the Ice. At its peak, there may be 6 Hercules LC-130s (C-130s with skis, making the landing strip at ski-way in military parlance), several Twin Otters, and other planes. A very steep learning curve on this! But the views from the Ice Runway were to best yet of the mountains, of McMurdo, and of Mt. Erebus.
Later we got to go out to the LDB (Long Duration Balloon) site to see that and learn the road ut there. It's out past Happy Camp and the roadway to Pegasus Field (another field we'll be using when the Ice Runway starts getting too warm). On the way in to LDB there are a bunch of black flags, which normally mark danger zones. In this case they mark buried buildings, one of which you can still see the roof of. The accumulating snow buries them when they're no longer in use and the money hasn't come through yet to remove them as is required under the Antarctic Treaty. The LDB site sends up 4 or 5 balloons each year that circle Antarctica in 4 or 5 days and stay up for up to 47 days before they have the balloon jettison the 5,000 pound payload to retrieve its data. Physicists are the big users of the data generated.
The views of Mt. Erebus from the LDB site were stunning with clouds part-way up the massif and the ever-present steam cloud emanating from the summit. Again, wow! What a planet we live on!
Nothing but blue skies,
Nothing but blue skies, do I see.
Wow! What a stellar day! For here it was darn right balmy and easy to get over-heated. Mercifully no wind to speak of. A day to have Big Red unzipped for part of the day, no neck gaiter, wear sunglasses underneath the Ozone Hole.
Managed to get 2 longer drives today. The first was back out to the Ice Runway, where I've been many times already, but this was for Airfield Operations, something much more complicated than you'd ever expect, even on this small runway/ski-way out on the Ice. At its peak, there may be 6 Hercules LC-130s (C-130s with skis, making the landing strip at ski-way in military parlance), several Twin Otters, and other planes. A very steep learning curve on this! But the views from the Ice Runway were to best yet of the mountains, of McMurdo, and of Mt. Erebus.
Later we got to go out to the LDB (Long Duration Balloon) site to see that and learn the road ut there. It's out past Happy Camp and the roadway to Pegasus Field (another field we'll be using when the Ice Runway starts getting too warm). On the way in to LDB there are a bunch of black flags, which normally mark danger zones. In this case they mark buried buildings, one of which you can still see the roof of. The accumulating snow buries them when they're no longer in use and the money hasn't come through yet to remove them as is required under the Antarctic Treaty. The LDB site sends up 4 or 5 balloons each year that circle Antarctica in 4 or 5 days and stay up for up to 47 days before they have the balloon jettison the 5,000 pound payload to retrieve its data. Physicists are the big users of the data generated.
The views of Mt. Erebus from the LDB site were stunning with clouds part-way up the massif and the ever-present steam cloud emanating from the summit. Again, wow! What a planet we live on!
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| On the Ice Road from the Ice Runway to McMurdo Station |
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| Ice Runway with buildings for various offices, 3 towers, and a galley. |
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| Mount Erebus |
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| Ice Runway |
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| On the Ice Road back from Happy Camp |
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