Life at WAIS

I am back in McMurdo now, so I will post some notes I wrote when I was living at WAIS without internet:

I have been at the West Antarctic Ice Station (WAIS) for the last couple of weeks. Life in the deep field is very different from life in McMurdo. The camp is set up for the summer season only – the main purpose of the camp is to support the drilling operations. However, since the camp is there several programs share its resource to support their activities as well. There are a number of AWS stations on the West Antarctic ice sheet and we’re staying at WAIS camp while servicing them.

There about 40 people at the camp right now, the population is rather dynamic and people are coming and going – passing through and rotating jobs. As in McMurdo the population is divided into “camp staff” and “scientists”, but since it’s fewer people we actually get to interact with everyone, which is really nice.

The camp consists of a few “Jamesway” tents – long structure for multiple people to use. The biggest Jamesway is the Galley , there is another large one for washing/laundry and recreation. There’s a communications tent, tent for temp visitors, tent for medical, tent for pilots and several science “office” tents. Jamesway tents have stoves inside them, so they are comfortable to stay in for the day.

Jamesway "buidlings" are the darkest vertical row in the picture. 

The four semi continuous vertical lines parallel to the Jamesway row are cargo lines - this is where we stored some of our equipment, and all of the camp stuff is stored there as well.

In the upper left corner you can see a couple buildings that are isolated from the camp - this is drilling offices. The main drilling arch is buried under 50m of snow. I went to tour the arch and their operations, so I will try to post about them separately.

At about a hundred yards away there is a tent city (dots in the upper right corner)- sleeping quarters for the WAIS camp.

***
First thing first - I had to find a place to sleep. I came to WAIS with a "sleeping kit", which included a tent, a couple of tents, a sleeping bag, small camping pillow and last but not least - a pee bottle. The camp had a spare tent, so I did not need to put up my own (mountain tent), and had a luxury of living in an "Arctic oven":

It is really warm and bright inside. The coldest it got inside my tent was -14C and the warmest temperature was +11C. Having a shield from the wind really makes a difference! My last week at WAIS a big storm came through - high winds, low visibility and cold temperatures prevented us from going outside unless we absolutely had to. Yet, it was really warm and cozy inside the tent (although quite loud).

Second most important thing in a camp - food ;) Here's a closer look at the largest communal Jamesway tent - the Galley. This is were we ate, socialized, and relaxed.

Here's the entrance to the Galley closer - as indicated by the WAIS sign - the Galley is the most important building of the camp. 

Here's how the Galley looks like inside. Note that there's no light bulbs - just windows in the roof of the James way tent. There is power in the Galley as well - so you can bring your laptop and work. The galley is also the place where we held camp meetings and science talks.

to be continued...

R.I.P.

As many of you probably heard by now our tight Antarctic community has suffered a loss.

A Twin Otter plane, operated by the Canadian crew of three men was en route from South Pole station to the Italian base in Terra Nova bay, when an emergency beacon got activated. They encountered bad weather when flying over the mountains and their last known location was at ~13000 feet above sea level. It happened late on Wednesday, January 23.

For the next five days all of us were anxiously waiting for the search and rescue (SAR) team to get to the site and praying for the best.  Every plane in Antartica carries "survival bags" with food, fuel, sleeping bags and tents - enough for the crew to last for 3-5 days in the cold weather. We were all hoping that the crew managed to survive the crash and will last for several days till the SAR team comes. The weather was really bad for quite a few days, preventing the SAR planes on obtaining a visual on the last recorded coordinates of the plane. On Saturday night a visual was obtained. The crash scene was brutal and the accident was presumed unsurvivable. Due to avalanche risk and crevasses in the area the SAR team on the ground was not able to get to the front of the plane and recover the crew members from the crash site.

Our thoughts and prayers go to friends and families of Bob Heath, Mike Denton and Perry Andersen.

What I am doing in Antarctica

A couple of people asked me to talk more about my project in Antarctica. So here you go:

I came here with the AWS group from Wisconsin - supporting the Automated Weather Stations (AWS) network. The AWS project was taken over by Wisconsin several decades ago and it has been expanding ever since. Every summer season a couple of members of the team go to the field and service weather stations. This year I am lucky enough to be a part of the team.

Here's how an AWS looks like:

(Kominko-Slade station near WAIS camp)

Each weather station is equipped with a temperature sensor, humidity sensor, pressure sensor, aerovane measuring direction and speed of the wind and acoustic gauge to measure distance to the ground (i.e.. snow accumulation). Some stations have additional sensors, such as radiation measurements.  Stations are powered by solar panels and batteries, which provide energy to the station during polar night. Each station is also equipped with an antenna and transmits all the data in real time via satellite.

The data from each station are available on the University of Wisconsin site and are used by various research communities. The data are also utilized in Antarctic forecast model, making it really useful for broader Antarctic community.

The network is quite elaborate with over 60 stations throughout the continent:

The red triangles on the map above are the station that University of Wisconsin group put up and maintain. The stations are autonomous for the most part, but every now and again they need a new battery or an instrument replacement. Also stations get buried under the snow in areas of high accumulation and need to be raised. The AWS network is also quite active, so every year we remove stations that are not needed and put up new station in new locations.

Some station are close to where we stay, so visiting them involves a short snow mobile ride:

 (Masha and Zozo by the Kominko-Slade station - a short snowmobile ride away from the WAIS camp)

However, most of the stations are located far away and visiting a station usually involves flying to a site in a helicopter or in a small Twin otter plane. The majority of stations are serviced from McMurdo, but there are a few that we service from "deep field" camp such as WAIS. Due to weather delays that I talked about before my first Twin Otter flight of the season was out of WAIS station:

(Emily and Zozo are about to get on their first plane ride of the season - visiting Janet station in West Antarctica).

Flying is a lot of fun! 

(This is our pilot Lindsey hanging out with Zozo in the cockpit)

If we can, we try to take other people from town/camp when we fly. Usually people really want to get out and we get help shoveling the snow - it's a win-win situation!

For example this station, Janet, needed to be completely reinstalled - we had to take all the instruments off, dig out the tower completely, secure the tower again and install all instruments back on it.

 

(Janet before and after)

We had three "moral" people on this trip, which actually resulted in Lee and I mostly working on the station and instruments, while our helpers shoveled the snow. Thank you!

(Janet in progress - the tower is completely disassembled. Lee and I are trying to connect two tower sections together properly. The old section that we are reusing was a little bent, so we straightened it out... mainly with the with the help of curse words and a hammer. Zozo had an important job as well - he was marking "due South" direction. We need this direction to align the aerovane properly - to make sure our wind direction measurements are correct).

(The tower is up again and Lee is installing the instruments back on it)

Janet was the first station we did and Lee was showing me a lot of his tricks. The next station, Erin, I got to work on myself, although Lee had to help me quite a bit ;). It was much colder and windier and I was wearing my "big red" jacket. I looked ridiculous, but I was warm, so that's what matters. Since I was mainly working on the tower I did not get as many pictures of it.

(Erin before and after)

(Lee and I are happy after Erin is done)

(Me, posing for camera after completing all the measurements. Lee is chatting with our pilots Lindsey and Mike)

Back from the West Antarctica

Hello!
I am back from West Antarctic Ice Station (WAIS). It was the most awesome experience so far - I got to experience real "deep field" of Antarctica. We even got a storm passing by with strong winds, blowing snow, low temperatures and poor visibility. Besides giving me a flavor of the "other kind of weather" the storm delayed my return back to McMurdo by a few days.

We did not get many sunny days at WAIS, but the once the sun did come out it was just spectacular! Here's a picture of our "great white" with a couple of sun dogs and the low hanging sun circling around the sky.

Leaving for West Antarctica

Hello!
I am a little backed up on posts, mainly because it takes forever to sort out pictures and also a long time to download them. I have a lot of pictures, they are not of perfect quality, but I really want to share some of them, so please bare with me.

 We have had bad weather for the last couple of days, it's snowy and windy and we're not flying. Aside from being a little frustrated, I am doing really well. I have explored a lot of things around McMurdo. I found a "crafts" room where I could borrow yarn and most importantly some patterns. This would be handy for my upcoming trip to WAIS - West Antarctic Ice Station. I will not have internet access there, so I will not update for a while. I will try to keep notes on my computer though, so I can post them when I get back.

Also, there's a "work" blog that I writing now. Unfortunately there hasn't been much to report, but I am hoping it will get better soon: amrc.ssec.wisc.edu/blog/

I have visited New Zealand's Scott base, found a bike to bike around, did most of the hikes in the area, saw penguins and seals and even went to a yoga class. Zozo continues to be a very recognizable penguin on the station. In fact I lost him once and my colleague Lee found him, so I continue to introduce Zozo to everyone ;) I hope Zozo will not try to run away from me again.

 Here's Zozo having a glass of NZ sauvignon blanc at Scott base.

Cheers, Masha

January 2-3, 2013: snow training

Everyone involved in field work in Antarctica need to go through a "happy camper" school - a snow survival training. A group of us (eight total) were taken to the Ross ice shelf and left there overnight. Well, first our instructor told us what to do ;)

The weather was magnificent both days and it felt like an incredibly fun hiking trip. Before we went to the field we talked in the classroom about the importance to be prepared for unexpected weather changes. Our instructor, Alasdair, worked as a tour guide and in search and rescue in many different places all over the world and he had many stories to share.

The first thing we needed to do - mark a path from our "camp central" to the outhouses. Since US Antarctic program continuously brings people out to the ice shelf - an "permanent" outhouses were installed. And what a view they have - Mt Erebus in the background.

The Sun was bright and the idea of putting flag every meter or so to mark the path seemed like an overkill. However, in the morning we woke up to a foggy weather, and couldn't see beyond several meters (only for a short time though) and flags were there to help orient us around.

Our camp consisted of two Scott tents, two different kinds of mountain tents, a kitchen and a few snow trenches people dug out. Here's how it looked from the distance:

 A Scott tent is the same design as used by Scott's expeditions in earl 1900s. It is amazingly sturdy and can sustain crazy Antarctic winds. The floor of the tent is a separate piece of material, which I have never seen before, but it seems practical. The only disadvantage of a Scott tent - it is not particularly well isolated and it is colder then a mountain tent.

First we put up two Scott tents, making sure to secure them in the snow. A short bamboo stack is all we used, Alasdair showed us a couple of knots and taught us how to dig a hole to put the anchor in. Sides of Scott tent were also heaved down with snow.

After we were done with Scott tents we build a snow wall to protect smaller mountain tents from being blown away. We started a quarry and then used a "snow saw" (a regular saw actually) to cut out blocks. We managed to put up a wall really fast. Although not perfectly aligned, it was solid.

(April, Zozo, Masha, Mitch and Jenny by the newly constructed snow wall)

Here's a picture of our snow quarry - you can see shovels and saws we used and can sort off guess how/where the cutting was done. It is important to cut out through pristine part of the snow, so the area behind the quarry was off limits.

Upon completing a snow wall we put up a mountain tent behind it:

(Jeff in front of his tent, which is behind a snow wall)

The next task was to dig out a kitchen. We decided to do an island table in the middle first (and dig around it to allow us to stand up around it, While working on this design we thought it would be fun to carve sitting area out in the snow - so we ended up with three 2/3 seater benches around the table. We put the stove on the table and managed to have a great dinner as group. (A few hours later once we melted the snow for food!)

(April and Danette were working on getting the snow melted, while others worked on snow trenches)

(Water finally boiled! At this point we are almost done with snow trenches and are quite tired. We had dehydrated dinner available in our green "kitchen" bag)

Digging a snow trench was a lot of fun. Here's Zozo - picking out a spot to dig:

I have to admit though I did a rookie mistake and dug a really wide trench. You are supposed to completely cover the trench up with snow (or whatever material you can find. It is wise to dig a hole as narrow as possible - it will be easier to close it. You can later on widen your trench, a friend of mine actually dug a 2-person trench once, so your sleeping quarters can be as luxurious as you have energy for them to be! At the same time it will be really hard to get in and out. 

Since the Sun was up and it was really warm, the snow started to melt and to fall apart. Cutting blocks wide enough for my trench was impossible, in fact even more narrow trenches had issues. Zozo and I decided to improvise and used banana sleds over the top:

(also mainly sitting in my pocket or on the snow, Zozo got really tired digging the trench and couldn't even stand up when I asked him to pose)

(Almost finished trench)

Now I have to admit defeat. Although I finished my trench and even brought my stuff inside and layed it out I decided not to sleep in there. I could get good sleep in, but the idea of waking up and going to the bathroom in the middle of the night freaked me out. In the hindsight, I probably should have made my trench a bit roomier, wider and deeper - maybe moving inside would be a little easier then. But from what I hear it was quite awkward to move around.

(My post somehow turns to the bathroom topic over and over, but here we go again. We were given pee bootles - regular water bottles designated for this purpose. The idea is to use it in the field if you don't have an outhouse to preserve the landscape as much as possible. Pee bootles also come handy  if you are too lazy to get up and go to the camp outhouse in the middle of the night.  Since my trench was somewhat narrow and unlike Zozo I'm not a boy, I doubted my ability to use the pee bottle inside a trench "without accidents" and opted out to sleep in a tent.)

Here's a photo of Mitch's trench - His entrance was actually really nice and narrow and he managed to be able to cut snow blocks wide enough (some block did collapse in the process since the snow was too warm):

(Zozo by Mitch's trench. Every trench was also designated by flags to make 

sure people do not walk over it)

Sleeping in a mountain tent was warm. No, VERY WARM! The Sun is always out and the tent basically acts as a greenhouse. I opened all windows and left the door open and I was still rather warm in my super-warm sleeping bag. Which makes me feel so good about my upcoming trip to West Antarctica - I will likely be sleeping in a tent there as well. 

In the morning we woke up around 6:30 am or so, boiled snow again for some oatmeal and tea and started disassembling our camp. We had to be ready by 8:30 am, when Alasdair came to pick us up and continue the survival training. All the trenches, the kitchen, and the quarry needed to be leveled up, the tents put away and all our stuff collected. The site looked like we were never there!

The rest of the morning we spent talking about snow survival. One of the exercises was scenario simulation. A scenario was - a member of our team went to the bathroom (about 50m away from the house we were in, marked by flags every meter or so). Bad weather came suddenly and we are now in a complete white out situation and our team member has not come back. What shall we do?

We started a rescue operation. 

To simulate the complete white out conditions nobody could leave the house without a white bucket on their head. It is amazing  how easy it is to loose the sense of direction once you can not see where you are going. The white bucket also prevents you from hearing well, so you can only talk to a person standing right next to you.

Our team failed to rescue the missing team member. It was only eight of us and we did not have a strong leader. We were also quite clueless about how to proceed and what technique would work best. Here's a picture of me being quite clueless:

I managed to find the first flag (thanks to the broom!), but went way of course in search for the second one.  My partner Andy actually tried to steer me back – he could feel that I went in the wrong direction, but it was hard to understand his signals via rope  and I couldn’t hear him at all.  I eventually corrected myself (with a lot of help from Andy), but we ran out of time and got pulled back in by other team members, who were worried that we will get hypothermia (whiteout conditions are associated with high winds and low wind chill temperatures). I had a lot of ideas on what to do once I got back, but we ran out of time and had to go back to McMurdo.

What can I say - all in all I am a happy camper ;)

And so is Zozo:

Short Sunday update

Hello!
I have a lot of things to write about and not enough time to sit down and write it all up.
I went to snow school for two days (January 2-3), where we learned the basic survival skills and I am not allowed to actually go to stations and do field work, Yay! I am also preparing to go West Antarctica on January 9th, so Lee and I processed some cargo shipments for that.

The weather has been continuously warm, so we are still having troubles with the runway. Planes are taking off and landing now (mainly because we can not afford so many people being backed up), but it is a pain to get to the runway as the road is in the really bad condition. As a result we are also canceled even more often then "usually" for our day trips to visit the AWS stations - it takes us so long to get to the runway and back that unless we start first thing in the morning we can not return on time for the pilots to have their rest.

Yesterday (Saturday, January 5) was one of those days, when we were supposed to fly, got all ready and did not have a "go".  We were scheduled to go to one of the most magnificent AWS sites - the Alexander Tall Tower!, but a combination of bad weather on site in the morning and a long drive out to Pegasus runway resulted in us being stuck in McMurdo.
 
This is my photo-response to the situation:

(I just wanna fly already. I am proud to say that I took this picture myself - on a timer. 

Granted it took be about  twenty tries to get the jump somewhat right ;) Well, my flight was canceled, so I had some time ;)

I am really hoping not to get canceled again tomorrow, but if I am - I promise to write another post.
Thanks for reading!
Masha

PS Zozo says hi. He's happy to report he saw some penguins today (Sunday, January, 6). I will have to sort through pictures and hopefully post some of them here!

January 1st Castle Rock hike

Hello all my devoted readers!

Thank you very much for letting me know you exist ;)

I have been busy with getting my trainings done and I haven’t updated for a while. I will try to catch up now.

The last thing I mentioned was the New Years celebration, which was a lot of fun. The Icestock concert lasted till 1 am, and afterwards people were still celebrating for a few more hours – parties here and there ;) Waking up the next morning was a little painful, but I had a big day planned ahead – a hike to Castle Rock.

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This is one of the most spectacular hikes in McMurdo (and the only long one that is open so late in the season, since other long ones involve going on sea ice). Castle Rock is a relatively small (~200m high?) piece of volcanic rock with really steep slopes, sitting on top of the glacier. It is an easy climb, and there are ropes to help you in steeper parts, which become especially useful during the descent. The top provides breathtaking 360-degree view of the mountains surrounding us: Mt Erebus, Mt Terra Nova and Mt Terror on Ross Island; White island and Black island with Minna Bluff in the middle (that’s where we get the nasty weather from, so everyone is always on a look out for those islands) and the Royal Society range.

January 1^st was an amazing day weather wise – it was sunny, clear and the visibility was the best I’ve seen so far. We planned to meet at 11am for breakfast – it was six of us going on the trail (not counting Zozo ;).  After a leisurely breakfast, we packed some snacks + water for the road and checked out radios from the fire station at about quarter to 1pm.

(McMurdo and Ob hill are behind me. You can also see Mt discovery in the distance)

To get to Castle rock you need to hike for about 3.5 away from McMurdo. First you hike about half a mile up dirt road and then the snow trail starts.  All snow trails are marked with flags – red and green colors are used to designate a trail. There are also black flags you sometimes see along the way (off the trail) – these mean danger – a cravas in the glacier or some other type of unsafe terrain.

(Royal Society range from the Castle Rock trail)

(Obs hill is now much smaller - rock triangle on the photo. Mt Discovery and Black island are in the background. You can also see the trail - marked with flags)

(View of Castle rock from the trail. Mt Erebus is on the left and Mt Terror is on the right)

(Jenny, Mitch, Masha and Zozo posing with Royal society range in the background)

The hike goes uphill, so it usually takes about ~1.5-2 hours to get to bottom of the rock, the climb takes about 20 minutes or so. Since the weather can change fast there are two emergency shelters on the trail.

(Zozo sitting in the snow with the red apple - emergency shelter - in the background)

These red capsules remind me of TV series “Lost”. Inside the red capsule you can find everything you need to survive for a few days in a white out conditions – food, stove, sleeping bags, covers. There is also a telephone to call McMurdo and let them know you are stuck.

As we were curious to see how it actually looks from the inside, we used the second apple as a shelter for our snack stop.

(Zozo and Devin inside the shelter)

We were told that McMurdo takes their rescue operations seriously – at check out you give an estimated time of arrival (ETA). Rescue mission will launch within minutes of you missing your ETA – so radios are there for you to call in and let the fire station know you’re safe, just running late. I have to admit all these precautions seem a little overboard on a gorgeous day like January 1^st, but in remote and dangerous places like Antarctica one should always prepare for the worst.

Finally we made it to the bottom of the rock. Although by that time my hiking boots got soaked, I was really happy I was wearing them once we got to steep rocky part – cold weather boots would have been painful to climb in.

Ross Island is made of volcanic rock – highly porous and somewhat crumbly pieces are found all over McMurdo. Castle Rock is steeper and in general easy to climb – there are good natural “handles” and “steps” everywhere.  However, wet shoes do become slippery and the ropes that are available along the trail are quite handy.

After a short and fun climb you get to the top – and if you lucked out with the weather like we did – it just takes you breath away.

(Mt Erebus)

 (Zozo and I on top of Castle Rock with Royal Society range in the background)

(All of us: Masha, Jenny, Eric, Kevin, Devin, Mitch on top of Castle rock with Mt Erebus in the background)

On the way down we were going against the sun, but still couldn’t help but pose for more pictures. Here’s me with Mt Erebus in the background.

(Devin posing with Mt Erebus)

(Masha hanging on the rope)

(Mitch is really happy. The Royal Society range is in the background.)

And now we are getting to the most exciting part of the hike. There is a steep snow-covered slope off Castle Rock that is really fun to slide down. I was wearing snow pants, so I did not even need any special equipment. We have also met a couple of guys on top of the rock, who borrowed cafeteria trays to sled in – these are so much fun! The key thing, though is not let your cafeteria tray go – we watched a girl lose one and the tray went down for a good 500 m without stopping. Considering that the tray can also veer off the safe trail - chasing it might be quite dangerous.

I am happy to report that we successfully used our blue cafeteria trays as sleds without loosing them! It was so much fun – made me feel like a kid before – I guess I haven’t sled down the mountain for a long time.

If you are adventurous enough you can take the long way down to McMurdo – the trail loops around for about 6 miles or so and comes back along the Kiwi base.  We decided return the way we came and hurry up for dinner – during Sundays/holidays dinner is served till 7pm and it was about quarter to five when we were done sledding.

On the way back we met a “Google-maps” guy carrying a 360-degree camera going uphill to take photos of the Castle rock trail. So I am guessing the trail will be online soon. We were circling around the guy for a good 15 minutes to make sure his camera takes pictures of us on the trail.  I suspect, however, we will not make to Google view… Oh maybe, who knows ;)

Thanks for reading!

M