7 February--Almost in a Condition 1

The other evening began so startlingly beautifully and by the early morning had gone through Condition 1 and back to Condition 3, the normal situation.  I was driving back from Pegasus Field and the first indication I had that something was coming was a bank of low-lying clouds under a line of higher clouds.  The wind picked up and the low-lying clouds were skimming the surface with drifting snow blowing in front of them.  The snow appeared first like tendrils of some sort of white vegetable matter, hugging the snow and ice surface blowing across the ice road and searching out its preferred route.  At first you could see over the ground clinging tentacles to the nearby mountains, but it got thicker and the topography became obscured.  Soon you could only see 10, then 7 and finally I could only make out 4 or 5.

The roads have flags every 50 feet or less to help with navigation in conditions like this.  Normally you can see at least 20 or so, more if you were to stop driving.  When visibility goes down to 3 flags or less, the rule is to stop where you are, call in your position,  and remain where you are until either the situation clears and MAC-Ops downgrades the condition or Search and Rescue comes out to retrieve you. This is precisely the reason we only go out on the Ice Shelf with a full tank of gas and our full ECW bag.
I was able to continue on and get off the Ice Shelf, but a later shuttle driver was out there and a Condition 1 was called and he and his passengers had to hole up in the Galley out at the airfield.   Luckily, things cleared within an hour.  This was only the second Condition 1 we've had this season, something returnees say happens much more commonly.

"Who's the joker who put this on my head while I slept?  Is there someone with opposable thumbs who can get this off ?"



This is Building 155, where I live.  It's a combination dorm, kitchen, dining hall, offices, barber shop, laundry, library, weight room, television and radio studio, ATMs, and computer commons.  During the summer, it's where all the newbies have to live; during the winter, it's the high value real estate.  Overwintering returnees with lots of points fight to live here so they don't have to bundle up to get to meals.





Snout of a glacier near the CTAM camp (not one of my pics).

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.

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.

7 January--Penguins

Emperor penguins

A group of 7 emperor penguins was along the sea ice/land margin down by Hut Point yesterday. Cavorting. waddling, sliding around.

I talked to Mandy Freylich, the physical therapist down here.  She goes on periodic clinical visits to the South Pole to treat people there.  A few days before New Year's she was down there and was expected to fly back to McMurdo in time for New Year's festivities here.  The weather turned and she was stranded for a few extra days.  But this allowed her to see them move the red and white barber pole with silver sphere on top the grand distance of 33 feet to show the change in the actual position of the geographic South Pole.  This is done every January 1st to reflect the slight wobbles in the Earth's spinning.  The magnetic South Pole is considerably further north than this and presumably wanders around as drunkenly as the magnetic North Pole.

Interesting things to ponder: When they move the marker for the South Pole, in whatever direction they move it, they will always be moving it south and when you are standing on the exact South Pole, every direction you can conceivably face is always north.

Fata Morgana.  The cliffs are all mirages.