It is indeed Christmas Eve here. The big dinner celebration is tomorrow with a promised feast to rival Thanksgiving's blowout. Rumors include lobster tail and prime rib. The C-17 didn't make it in today (or yesterday, or the day before that), so fresh vegetables and salad will be missing. It will be the desserts to really look forward to it. "Life is short; eat dessert first."
The flight problems have all involved dense fog. As the open water gets closer, the air is able to pick up lots more moisture and as that moister air hits the ice, especially the much colder ice of the glaciers, it cools and condenses into fog. It swirls down from the heights and pools out on the sea ice and the Ross Ice shelf. A few days ago they called a Condition 2 out on the ice shelf and the road to it, while in McMurdo it was clear and balmy. You'd hit the fog just past Gas Pass on the way to Scott Base, which has had solid fog for days on end now. A few times you could see the fog swirling through Gas Pass and over Ob Hill.
The open water has meant that tour ships are starting to come closer. A Russian ship is the one that I'm aware of. It is said to be a converted icebreaker with passenger cabins added as an afterthought. The wild McMurdo rumor mill has it that they are paying $54,000 for a room with a view and $30,000 for a room without a view. Someone said they saw some of their passengers being escorted in a tight little knot around town, all clad in identical yellow cold weather gear (if only they knew what real cold weather was!).
I heard several Russians in Building 155, probably crew members, though sometimes Russians come in from their Vostok Station. Vostok is at an even higher elevation than the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and has had the coldest temperatures ever recorded on the planet, something like -102 degrees F. (Google it if you want the exact temperature.).
The biggest event for me was getting stuck in a Delta last night on the Pegasus Road. Things have been soft and squishy there for a few days in the warmth and Fleet Ops hasn't been able to do much to correct the condition in the warmth. I was driving back and in several places I could feel my wheels begin to bog down. In the rear view mirror I could see a small "bow wave" of snow develop, but I could always find a harder track and get out of it. This time I wasn't able to. My speed slowed down dangerously. The bow wave got bigger. My speed slowed some more. Eventually I was just plain stuck. Backing up and charging again didn't help. "Crabbing" the wheels had no effect. We were stuck. The hole I was in was huge--they always are with such huge tires. One of Canadian passengers got out and laid in it for a photo.
The passengers were amazingly cheerful and offered to help dig us out. There are 4 shovels in the passenger cabin of the Deltas, but no amount of digging was going to free the 54,000 pound beast. I had to call in Fleet Ops and they pulled me out. The operator took a quick photo, hooked up a chain, pulled us out easily, and said he'd bring his dragger to fill in the hole. Without a roller, the result of that will be a deceptively smooth road surface over a hidden "hole" of loose, uncompacted floury snow. Oh, my!
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| Skuas have this bad rep down here, but the ones I've seen have always been sort of gentle and non-aggressive. And if they can get aggressive, isn't that what you'd expect in a "Harsh Continent"? |
It is indeed Christmas Eve here. The big dinner celebration is tomorrow with a promised feast to rival Thanksgiving's blowout. Rumors include lobster tail and prime rib. The C-17 didn't make it in today (or yesterday, or the day before that), so fresh vegetables and salad will be missing. It will be the desserts to really look forward to it. "Life is short; eat dessert first."
The flight problems have all involved dense fog. As the open water gets closer, the air is able to pick up lots more moisture and as that moister air hits the ice, especially the much colder ice of the glaciers, it cools and condenses into fog. It swirls down from the heights and pools out on the sea ice and the Ross Ice shelf. A few days ago they called a Condition 2 out on the ice shelf and the road to it, while in McMurdo it was clear and balmy. You'd hit the fog just past Gas Pass on the way to Scott Base, which has had solid fog for days on end now. A few times you could see the fog swirling through Gas Pass and over Ob Hill.
I heard several Russians in Building 155, probably crew members, though sometimes Russians come in from their Vostok Station. Vostok is at an even higher elevation than the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station and has had the coldest temperatures ever recorded on the planet, something like -102 degrees F. (Google it if you want the exact temperature.).
The biggest event for me was getting stuck in a Delta last night on the Pegasus Road. Things have been soft and squishy there for a few days in the warmth and Fleet Ops hasn't been able to do much to correct the condition in the warmth. I was driving back and in several places I could feel my wheels begin to bog down. In the rear view mirror I could see a small "bow wave" of snow develop, but I could always find a harder track and get out of it. This time I wasn't able to. My speed slowed down dangerously. The bow wave got bigger. My speed slowed some more. Eventually I was just plain stuck. Backing up and charging again didn't help. "Crabbing" the wheels had no effect. We were stuck. The hole I was in was huge--they always are with such huge tires. One of Canadian passengers got out and laid in it for a photo.
The passengers were amazingly cheerful and offered to help dig us out. There are 4 shovels in the passenger cabin of the Deltas, but no amount of digging was going to free the 54,000 pound beast. I had to call in Fleet Ops and they pulled me out. The operator took a quick photo, hooked up a chain, pulled us out easily, and said he'd bring his dragger to fill in the hole. Without a roller, the result of that will be a deceptively smooth road surface over a hidden "hole" of loose, uncompacted floury snow. Oh, my!
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