30 January--Castle Rock

This was the second of my 2 consecutive days off and a welcome break it was.  I finally hiked the Castle Rock Trail and ascended Castle Rock itself.  Jerry Perkins and I left soon after dinner and were back by Mid-Rats.  To hike outside of town any distance, you have to file a plan with the Fire House, have at least 2 people and a radio, have attended the Outdoor Safety lecture, and must check in afterwards.  The trail begins outside of town, up by Arrival Heights, and goes for several miles out to Castle Rock.  Most of it is over hard-packed snow and because of visibility issues, there are flags on bamboo wands every 30 feet or so.  For variety, you can link into a trail that goes back via Scott Base.

 Along the way there are two survival huts called Apples, stocked with sleeping bags and pads; a stove, fuel, and pot; and emergency food.  The second one has a telephone back to base.  I called the Shuttles Office to see if it worked, but was thinking how cool it would be to call Flagstaff.

The Castle is an old volcanic neck made up of basalt and a basalt conglomerate from what must have been a later eruption.  There are lots and lots of basalt pieces included in the reddish brown matrix.  In places there are fixed ropes up the steeper sections of the route.

It's been known as Castle Rock since Robert Falcon Scott's first expedition.  Early in that expedition, a party came up into this area and were hit by a blizzard.  The group had done no prior practice or training--that was pretty standard practice for Scott--and were unable to set up their tent.  Some people tried to make their way back to the nearby Discovery Bay and Hut Point.  One man, George Vince, fell off a steep slope, slid into the water, and drowned.  That's the origin of the cross on the low hill above the hut at Hut Point.  Interestingly, another man knew to burrow a bit into a snow bank and let the storm cover him.  He slept out the storm snugly and walked back to Hut Point the next day, none the worse for wear.

Ice crystals growing inside my water bottle.

The open water meets the sea ice.  A few icebergs, calved off from the Erebus Glacier were visible.

Glaciers flowing out of the Royal Society Range across McMurdo Sound

A Skua doing what it does best.

Tri-walls of food waste awaiting retrograde to Port Heuneme for composting.  MREs for Skuas.  Each is about 1 cubic meter.  (Tri-walls are triple thickness cardboard boxes--just the thing for home storage.)

29 January--One Month to Go

The break in posting here may be the best evidence of the exhaustion setting in.  Long hours of generally routine work, sleep at what used to be a foreign hour, and not as many peak experiences; that about sums it up.  I have just less than a month to go on the Ice.  I'm due to fly out on a Boeing 757 on February 23rd, weather willing.  As the season proceeds, the weather gets chancier.  Iffiier.  Dicier.  Kathi is to fly into Cheech on March 1st, giving us a cushion in case the weather proves to be antarctic.

Almost a week ago I was driving an Airfield Shuttle from McMurdo to Pegasus when I came across 3 Emperors standing in the middle of the road.  The middle of the road!  And they were none too eager to move.  It actually gave me a wonderful excuse to stop and photograph from the van window.  In a few minutes they moved a bit out of the lane and towards the adjacent one where the Galley truck was coming up.  (The Galley truck carries out food to the Galley at Pegasus for those folks who are working out there during meal times.)  The Emperors waddled up fairly close to the Galley workers who had spilled out of the truck to take photos.  When I could no longer keep my passengers waiting, off I drive.

My favorite photo.

Note the tire marks.

The weather whipsaws back and forth and there's no way yet to know from day to day what it will be or how to dress.  Weather forecasts?  Nah, the best they seem to be able to do is to tell you what it is outside at the moment.  "You don't need a weather man to know which way the wind blows."  But it has presented some interesting situations. 

Last night I was working as airfield taxi, which means I was there all night waiting for LC-130s to come in so that I could transport the flight crews from their planes to the airfield shuttle, who would take them in the almost hour-long trip back to McMurdo.  Only the taxi can come on the apron and approach the plane, after clearance from MC1.  It's usually a great place to get a lot of reading done for the 7 hours out there.  While out retrieving a flight crew back from the South Pole, a tendril of fog came in and visibility went to near zero in minutes.  If I didn't have a good sense of direction, it would have been impossible to move and get back to the  Galley area.  After it had mostly cleared, Mac-Ops called a Condition 2 for the area, restricting movement.

Makes me think of the closing scene in "Casablanca."

I'm left wondering how they can take off and land in this sort of fog.  And this was the 146th flight that they've done this year to the Pole, their busiest destination.

After work I volunteered to take a group of people half way back on the Pegasus Road to Half Way House to see the group of molting Emperor penguins.  An exceptionally nice group of people, including 2 Chinese scientists, Zhibin Yu and Weitao Hunag, that I've become friends with.  The temperature difference between McMurdo and the ice shelf was dramatically extreme.  People who had asked me about having to take their ECW gear were glad they had it.  Some retreated to the van fairly quickly.  But the experience was wonderful.  Consider that this is only a few hours after the pea soup fog at Pegasus.  The views were startlingly clear, diamond clarity.

When their feathers molt, they need to avoid swimming until the new feathers come and get coated with a waterproof layer.  That allows the feathers to insulate them when they go diving.  For Emperors the process can take 34 days.  Not being able to swim means not being able to eat and they rely on their blubber reserves.  They seem to like this particular spot because Fuels has built a large berm to hold an intermediate pump, which the penguins use to get out of the wind with their diminished insulation.

Emperors with Ob Hill in the left background.  McMurdo is on the far side of that ridge.

Emperors with Mt. Erebus in the background.  Almost no steaming from the crater.

When they spread their wings and stretch out their necks, you almost expect them to burst into spontaneous song and dance.  An Antarctic Bollywood.  Silly.  I know.

Weddells basking.

Weddell surfacing in an open water break.

18 January--Emperors Rule! The Ships Arrive!

For the last few days there have been a group of 3 Emperor penguins hanging out at Half Way House on the road out to Pegasus Field.  I'm told it's common for molting penguins to stay in one place during the molting season.  I was able to get within 5 or 6 meters of them without causing them any anxiety, but I think if I had had more time and could have gone down on my knees or--better yet--slithered along the snow, I could have gotten within 2 or 3 meters. 

There are stories going around about how to get close to penguins by arousing their natural curiosity, which they are are full of.  One reputed way is to waddle about on your knees.  Depending on your height, this might just put you at about eye level for an Emperor penguin.  A second way is to slither along on your belly the way Adelies and perhaps Emperors do.  Another way is to wave your arms like they flap their stubby little wings.  There is one story of a person who was able to get so close to an unidentified penguin that he reached his hand out to touch the penguin's wing.  The penguin swatted it away so forcefully that it broke his hand.  Don't mess with a penguin!

The two expected ships also came in a few days ago.  The Swedish icebreaker/research vessel Oden arrived first, forcing a way through the thicker than expected sea ice.  The Nathaniel B. Palmer, a NSF chartered ship, was not far behind  The Oden continues to keep the way open and the Palmer is docked at the floating ice pier.  Many of the scientists aboard both vessels flew out early this morning for Christchurch and are being replaced by others who flew in yesterday.  The Oden will be around until after the tanker and the freighter arrive in two weeks or so.  The Palmer will be leaving tomorrow at some time for a 2 week research trip, then return to McMurdo for refueling, and go immediately out for another two weeks.



The Oden rounding Hut Point and coming in to the floating ice pier.



The Oden further out in the Sound.



The Oden.



The most pleasant thing about getting the ships here was getting to see my good friend George Aukon.  He's been working on the ships for the last 3 years, but has worked for Raytheon now for 6 or 7 years as an electronics technician. George and I met down in Costa Rica in 1991 at a Project R.A.F.T. ("Russians and Americans for Teamwork") international whitewater competition.  We helped him and his family move to Flagstaff and they all became American citizens.  One of the years down here, the American icebreaker apparently broke a prop and couldn't continue.  A Russian icebreaker was hurriedly contracted to clear the way.  George was lateraled over to be the Russian and English speaking liaison aboard the ship.  On board were a number of people that he knew from his Arctic service in the Soviet navy. 

The Nathaniel B. Palmer docked at the ice pier, McMurdo station.

Here are a few more miscellaneous photos that I did not take, but wish I had:



A launch from the Long Duration Balloon facility on the way to Pegasus Field.  An aerial jelly fish?



16 January--Icebreaker in Sight; the Adelie Lives!

The last few days have been a blur, filled with rumors of the icebreaker coming, forecasts for a Herbie, and the reappearance of that Adelie penguin.

If you have followed this from the beginning, you may recall that a Herbie is a blizzard with hurricane force winds.  They blow in from the South and can be tracked as they come over White and Black Islands.  By the time they are upon those islands we have only a few hours until they hit here.   Some people say only 45 minutes.  They can bump the condition from the normal Condition 3 (travel unrestricted) to Condition 2 (travel must be coordinated with the Fire House) or even Condition 1.  Condition 1 means that if you are in a building, you are restricted from leaving it until the All Clear is given.  If you are in a vehicle, say out on the Ice Shelf, you must stop where you are and report in to the Fire House, waiting either for it to clear or for the Search and Rescue Squad to come to your aid.  So a Herbie is a big deal and a forecast for one is not taken lightly.  We carry our complete ECW bag (extreme cold weather) on every run out to Pegasus.

In this picture you can see 6 flags out ahead of you (there are also others from adjoining lanes).  When you can see only two, you must stop, even if a Condition 1 has not been declared.

We haven't had one since I've been here, so I was feeling a bit of both excitement and concern.  It was supposed to be hitting at around midnight, the middle of my shift, during a run out to Pegasus field.  The weather was very dramatic with wind, snow, fog, wonderful breaks in the clouds. The road became difficult with drifts that threatened to bog us down or rocked and rolled us.  But the timing of the Herbie kept getting pushed further and further back to 0200, to 0600, and finally to 0800 before it was cancelled entirely.  It had swerved and mostly missed us.

The icebreaker was one of the other big deals of the last few days.  There is an excitement about it that's hard to explain.  If you've read Jurassic Park, at the end the surviving velociraptors congregate on the beach looking for the ship (I don't remember if that is in the movie).  The road down to Hut Point has taken on that quality.  Lots of people have been walking down there to see if they can see the icebreaker, the penguin and the seals.  I've been part of that pilgrimage myself.

The floating ice pier for the icebreaker Oden, the Nathaniel B. Palmer research vessel, the tanker and the freighter.

Four days days ago there were rumors that you could see the Oden.  Nothing.  Three days ago someone had seen it briefly from Ob Hill before the clouds swirled in and hid it again.  Another person saw it from Arrival Heights at about the same time.  Then nothing as the storm blew through.  I walked down to Hut Point twice two days ago and again twice yesterday and was finally rewarded with a good view of it in the far distance.  By the early evening yesterday it was visibly closer, but you could see them going forward and then back, widening the channel and pulverizing the ice.  I'm up for the night and will check it in the morning before going to bed.  I think it'll be here by early morning, maybe by 0800.  It might even be docked at the floating Ice Pier.

The other excitement was seeing the solitary Adelie pinguino back at its accustomed spot on the new sea ice.  Yesterday I got within 40 feet of it, sitting there preening its new feathers, completely oblivious of my presence.  How do I know it was the same one?  Because it had the same sort of banding on its left wing as the other.  It seems unlikely to be a coincidence.

I never realized what beautiful eyes and plumage they have.