2 October--First Condition 1 Day

Today dawned windy and cloudy with light snow.  With the wind, visibility was sometimes reduced considerably and dramatically.  Out on the frozen Sound you could see bands of blowing snow, a sort of ground blizzard.  Sometimes you could see the Royal Society Range above the low lying blowing snow.  It was gratifying to go out on some trips by myself unaccompanied.  Perhaps I've become an adult around here and not just a trainee! 

After lunch we had to go out on the Long Duration Balloon (LDB) Road to pick up a group of people from the outdoor survival class ("Happy Camper Camp").  They'd been out there for 2 days in pretty harsh weather and wanted an earlier than normal pickup.  Shortly before I left the office, the radio announced that a Condition 1 had been declared out at the Pegasus landing strip, though not elsewhere.  Condition 1 can be announced if the wind is above 100 miles an hour or if the windchill is greater than -100 degrees, or if visibility is below 100 feet.  Things weren't anywhere near that bad along the LDB Road, but nevertheless things weren't exactly balmy.  When a Condition 1 is called, everything comes to a halt.  If you're in a building, you must stay in it until conditions improve to either a Condition 2 or 3.  If you're in a vehicle you must stop right where you are and wait until conditions change or until you get specific approval from management via the Fire House to move and that's dependent on visibility.  Along the roads, there are flags every 50 feet.  If you can see 2 of them (not counting the one beside you), then you can probably get permission to go forward.

I was following a Delta in a 4-wheel drive Ford van and just above Scott Base, the New Zealand station, the Delta stalled and failed to restart.  It was a fortuitous place to fail because if it had happened on a steep slope--either uphill or downhill-- the Delta would have also lost its braking system and could have started a rapid, uncontrolled run if the driver didn't act immediately.  I went on to get at least some of the people so they could be out of the wind and as I descended a particularly steep section along the cliff slope I got stuck twice in the drifted snow.  Luckily I was able to dig my way out relatively easily.  This is exactly why we carry our ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear bags with us most of the time.  We're required to carry them all of the time out on the ice roads to the landing strips, but are encouraged to carry them most of the time.  In town it's OK not to have them.  But if one were to be stranded for several days you can understand the need to have all that gear, water, and snacks.  Luckily things worked out just fine.

Tomorrow is my day off and I'm a bit of a loss as what to do.  One project is to see if I can get the net book hooked up and to upload some photos to the blog.  I imagine that might make it much more interesting.  A second possibility is to take a hike--weather permitting--up Observation Hill ("Ob Hill"), a steep but easy climb with good views of town and the surroundings.