The highlight of the day for me was driving Ivan down to pickup passengers from yesterday's cancelled C-17 flight on the Ice Runway. It's so big! 55 feet or so and weighing 67,000 pounds. To make a turn you start turning, and turning, and turning, and turning, and finally you start to see some progress. Such a wide turning radius means that some areas are just off-limits to Ivan. Word has it that there are only 10 or 11 of them in the world. They're Canadian made by Foremost, who also makes the Deltas. It must be a Canadian thing with their Great White North.The other Terra Buses are reportedly all in the Hudson's Bay and Canadian Rockies areas. At Hudson's Bay they are used for the Winter polar bear viewing trips/ The Deltas are Navy surplus and around 37 years old while Ivan is 14 or 15 years old and would cost an estimated $1 million to replace. (Incidentally, the legendary and best snow cat is the Tucker, made in Medford, Oregon, of all places.)
The weather was good--for Antarctica--right up until 15 minutes before the plan landed. The wind came up and it tried to blow me over when I was outside of Ivan. Necessary even with the full ECW gear to have your back to the wind to keep the wind from penetrating every little chink in our clothing--but way better to be inside. The ground blizzard made seeing next to impossible. It made we wonder what the pilot was sensing. When he taxied back to the apron, he was all but invisible until he was perhaps 150 yards from where we parked. A looming gray mass in the grayish-white, impenetrable sky. It makes for a very unimpressive photo! But the storm left as quickly as it came in and so they were able to fly out an hour or so later with 8 or 9 people. He had brought in 27, many of them scientists. We are probably up to around 800 people at this point, with an ultimate population in December of 1,286.
The normal routine when they fly in is for them to carry their kangaroo bags with them off the plane. Their baggage is later off-loaded and brought up to our building. After they go through an orientation, they come up to get their bags and we are available to drive them and their bags to their dormitories, a process we term bell-hopping.
The weather was good--for Antarctica--right up until 15 minutes before the plan landed. The wind came up and it tried to blow me over when I was outside of Ivan. Necessary even with the full ECW gear to have your back to the wind to keep the wind from penetrating every little chink in our clothing--but way better to be inside. The ground blizzard made seeing next to impossible. It made we wonder what the pilot was sensing. When he taxied back to the apron, he was all but invisible until he was perhaps 150 yards from where we parked. A looming gray mass in the grayish-white, impenetrable sky. It makes for a very unimpressive photo! But the storm left as quickly as it came in and so they were able to fly out an hour or so later with 8 or 9 people. He had brought in 27, many of them scientists. We are probably up to around 800 people at this point, with an ultimate population in December of 1,286.
The normal routine when they fly in is for them to carry their kangaroo bags with them off the plane. Their baggage is later off-loaded and brought up to our building. After they go through an orientation, they come up to get their bags and we are available to drive them and their bags to their dormitories, a process we term bell-hopping.
Ivan is awesome! I've never seen anything like that before! Probably because they are all in Alaska and Antarctica..haha! What I thought is funny is a few blogs ago you were talking about all the gear you have to wear and how cold it is, but in some of your pictures your not wearing gloves! Burrr!!! Keep those fingers warm! -Sarah
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