I took Ivan the Terra Bus and a load of Polies down to the Ice Runway. Being as this was at least their third attempt to fly to the Pole, they were getting frustrated and a few were slightly abusive. Some have been waiting for at least 2 or 3 weeks for the weather to clear. I remember some of them from a few days ago. We had had to wait on the apron for a long time and then I moved them to the Ice Runway Galley to wait some more. After that we went back to the apron for yet more waiting. A few were whining that they shouldn't have to stay out here and that I should take them back to the better meals at the Galley in town. While they had been issued box lunches, things were not helped when it came over the radio that they couldn't actually eat in the Ice Runway Galley since the Galley staff had not prepared food for so many people, but that I, as the vehicle operator, could eat there. Definite bad vibes! After an interminable wait, that flight was also cancelled.
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| Ice Runway Galley |
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| Ice Runway Galley |
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| Ice Runway sewage outfall empties into the Sound. |
So on the first I was again taking these people out again for the third try. We waited again on the apron and
the flight was yet again cancelled and had to take them back to town yet again. Only this time I was to also pick up a group of Australians that had just arrived on the Airbus and whose conecting flight out to the Australian Casey base was also cancelled. They were to be delivered to the Big Gym to sleep on the basketball court. And yet their attitude was uniformly positive and upbeat. Contrasts!
The afternoon was perfectly calm and almost balmy by Antarctic standards. The Royal Society Mountains across the sound were perfectly and sharply focused. Razor sharp focus. Talking to a weather guy on the shuttle, he was mentioning that something strong was coming in later in the afternoon, something with strong winds and a slight chance of snow. Almost like clockwork I noticed out the van window thin streaks of snow snaking and meandering across the ice road. Not too bad and visibility not reduced at all. But over the next few hours it went from fingers of snow blowing along the surface to a layer of blowing snow several feet deep. If you were to have been standing in it, you would probably not seen your boots. Looking out over the Sound from town it eventually became so deep that the vehicles out at the Ice Runway were obscured and then--as the layer became thicker--the huts and towers. MacOps announced that weather conditions were Condition 2 in most areas and deteriorating. The radio began to crackle with orders to evacuate all personnel from the Ice Runway before it went to Condition 1 and all personnel were to be confined to whatever building they were in at the time. The wind--like you've read so many times before in this blog--became cutting and penetrated almost anything you could wear. People were leaning heavily into the wind as they walked and would be thrown around slightly by the gusts. And yet this morning, the day after, it is again clear and not so windy, though still much colder.
http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmWebCam.cfm
If you'd like to see the criteria for what cosntitutes Conditions 1, 2, and 3, follow this link:
http://intranet.mcmurdo.usap.gov/documents/WeatherConditions.pdf
Errata: I earlier said that penguin has its origin in Latin for fat. I just finished a book on Antarctic exploration and that's just one of 4 explanations for the origin. Still, I like that one the best.
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