Antarctica, the return from the "Harsh Continent"

As with everything, we had to hurry up and wait. We conducted the "bag drag" to the Movement Control Center (MCC) at 9PM the night before and then gathered around 10AM at the MCC the next morning for movement to the Pegasus Airfield for our C-17 trip. This flight was affectionately called the "Freedom Flight" for obvious reasons. Of course, we had to travel in our beloved Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear and get crammed onto Ivan "the Terra Bus" for the trip back to the airfield.

We arrived at the Pegasus Airfield at 11:30AM to be greeted with a, you guessed it, delay by the Air Force. Therefore, the plane that was scheduled to arrived at noon was now enroute to land at 2PM-ish with another hour for unloading and loading cargo making it a 3PM-ish departure. We stood on the Ice waiting for a couple of hours and watched the plane land, taxi, offload, and upload all of the cargo. Then, we anxiously awaiting our box lunches and hurried to get onto the plane.

All in all, we spent 15 days on "the Ice". That isn't bad considering most of the contractors spend close to six months there. We spent just about every night at Gallagher's or the Wine Bar (forgot what it's officially called..."The Mountain Inn"?). We toured the gym and they appeared to have nice equipment but we never stepped foot in there. And, of course, we spent a night at Black Island. In my opinion, no true experience is complete without doing some time (albeit just a night) in a field camp.

We were lucky enough to be with a producer from PBS filming a Nova episode and a writer from MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15834019/) who were focused on global warming. In fact, two of the folks we traveled with were captured in their online photos in the front row of seats.

All in all, it was a good trip and a lot of fun. Quite an interesting place and we didn't even go to the Dry Valleys or to the South Pole. Of course, we also didn't have to stay deployed for approximately six months either.

Can't wait 'til next year. Hopefully, I will be lucky enough to go down there to do the work we have been preparing for since 2004.

Black Island

After getting qualified at Happy Camp to travel to Field Camps, we were now ready to head off to Black Island. Black Island is approximately 23 miles from McMurdo by air. We were scheduled to take a helicopter (similar to a UH-1 or "Huey") on 11-Dec-06 and leave McMurdo at 1PM. Google Earth did the best that it could to show a map of the area. For perspective, McMurdo base is SW of Mt Erebus on Ross Island on the water and then Black Island is south of that base.
At 12:15PM, we headed to the helicopter pad for our safety briefing and loading for our 1PM departure. Halfway into it, Flight Ops called for an indefinite delay allowing us to go back to our dorm room to wait for a call. Thirty minutes later, we got the call and headed off. Our helicopter took off and made it about five miles out when the pilot informed us that white out conditions prevented him from moving to our destination and we would have to head back.

Better safe than sorry. So, we went back into an indefinite weather delay and had to wait in our dorm rooms for the call. At 5PM, a couple of us headed to the galley to get some dinner and the call came in. It brought back memories of "eat it now, taste it later" as we scrambled to head out to the helo pad. Our helicopter successfully took off and was able to make it to Black Island. We even got some pictures of the Pegasus crash site from the helicopter--pretty cool. The helo landed on the landing pad that is appropriate for Black Island.












We had arrived. There isn't much to Black Island in comparison to McMurdo. It is a Field Camp. There are some buildings attached to each other that contain a kitchen, main sitting area, some beds for the "permanent" members, storage, a comms room, and antenna domes (one attached and one approximately 50m away). The other detached facility of note is called the "Night Train". It is a white building located at the left edge of the picture where guests stay. It is heated and has multiple bunk beds. Pretty good conditions for a field camp but all of the guests will not be happy--some will be too hot with the heater and some will be too cold with the rock that is used like a damper controller on the door. The rock was affectionately called the BFR.
Since we got there near the end of the day, we elected to conduct our work the next day as our scheduled flight back was at 5PM. Our hosts, Tony and Jessica were kind enough to cook a great dinner and we gladly brought the wine to introduce ourselves to their camp. Quite a "harsh continent", eh?
The next day we started our work at around 9:30AM. Jess cooked an amazing breakfast and that got us moving for the day. When we broke for lunch, we were making good progress when Flight Ops called to inform us that we would be leaving at 3PM instead of 5PM due to potential fog. We jumped into action to make sure we finished everything and successfully did so leaving some time to say goodbye to our gracious hosts. The helo came on time and kept the rotors going while we loaded and took off from Black Island.














After this successful trip thanks to our Raytheon Polar escorts, we can now get ready to head off of the Ice on the 14th.

Happy Camper

As part of the requirements to travel to Field Camps, McMurdo requires that people take some kind of training to orient themselves to surviving in the field should an accident happen using the gear that is carried on most vehicles. The training goes something like this:

Tuesday
8:00 AM: Welcome and introductions
8:30 AM: Frostbite and Hypothermia classes
9:30 AM: Travel to field site to an intersection between Scott Base and Willie Field. Hike about a mile to the program site.
10:30 AM: More classroom training (How to use field stoves)
11:00 AM: Begin working on campsite (How to set up Scott Tents as shown to the right, How to set up tents, How to build ice blocks for snow walls, etc.)
5:00 PM: Instructor goes back to Instructor hut and "Happy Campers" (i.e. students) make dinner using standard dehydrated rations.

Wednesday
9:00 AM: Complete breaking down camp and packing
9:30 AM: Hike back to Instructor hut for more classroom training
10:00 AM: More classroom training (How to use VHF and HF radioes)
11:00 AM: Field exercises (how to react to a vehicle emergency using actual vehicle survival packs and how to conduct search during Condition 1 weather conditions)
1:00 PM: Hike back to pick up point
2:00 PM: Truck picked up team
3:00 PM: Conduct classroom training (Helicopter safety and Environmental training for Dry Valleys)
4:00 PM: Ready to join local SAR Team / Class dismissed


I really enjoyed the camping trip since my wife doesn't believe in camping and I have only done the Army thing. So sitting around a stove and BS-ing was something I really enjoyed for one night. And, oh yeah, the weather was perfect, making things even easier. During the camping experience, I ran into a person who was from Grafton, WI originally. Ironic, I travel almost halfway around the world to run into someone who grew up ~ 30 miles from me back in Cudahy. His blog documenting this experience is located at:
http://frozendaze.blogspot.com/2006/12/somewhat-happy-camper.html.

With that training done, our team was finally ready to head out to Black Island to do what were supposed to do. We're pretty tired but, there is a planned Recreation trip heading out to the Pegasus crash site tonight. I think we'll go even though we're exhausted from this trip. We can always sleep on the trucks, right?

McMurdo Life

After arriving at McMurdo, we traveled on Ivan "the Terrabus" (pictured left) and others traveled on the "Deltas" (pictured right).









Upon our arrival to McMurdo (a.k.a. "Town"), we received our inbrief in the Galley during dinner. We got our high level overview of things, got our room key, and headed off to our room. It is a barracks style room with lockers and we were lucky that we had four to a room. The room could have fit five or six. The picture here shows my bunk (it's the one at the bottom) along with my "big red" jacket.

Two things that immediately caught my attention about life at McMurdo. One was a sign posted outside of the store outlining the daily quota for alcohol purchases. The other was a sign in the bathroom talking about...well, you can read. We walked by the recycling area where everything was divided out: food waste, burnables, construction material, plastic, glass, clothing, etc. At that moment, it became readily apparent that recycling, space, power, and water had to be greatly conserved.













The next day, we received a walking tour of McMurdo by our kind hosts from Raytheon Polar. We saw the Crary labs where we got the opportunity to look at the touch tank and get a briefing about some of the science projects that were ongoing.















McMurdo has a gym, bowling alley, movie theater, three bars, a church, a library, and many other amenities. Life there is not that harsh and people really make the best of it. We found that everyone we met was very friendly. McMurdo Station supports approximately 1000 people (scientists and contractors that support the infrastructure). Since it was December, it was the beginning of summer in the southern hemisphere. Walking outside late at night with the sun brightly shining is an experience that takes some getting used to when living there.



McMurdo is continuously under construction of some kind and there are a number of vehicles specific to that base due to the climate and terrain.


We had an opportunity to tour Scott's hut located at McMurdo base. The British explorer, Robert Scott, journeye to the South Pole in the early 1900s. He established a base here at what is now McMurdo. Scott and his party left a hut here stocked with goods in 1904 and it is well preserved due to the climate.



One of the biggest and easiest things to do at McMurdo is go on hikes. One thing we found after our short tenure there, there is no real privacy and hiking offers folks a chance to get away. And, when you go on a hike, you get out and get a chance to see more of Ross Island away from town. Most of the trails/routes require that you go with another person, but it's better than nothing. And, you get some breathtaking pictures as seen below.

Mt. Erebus from the Happy Camp location:

"Castle Rock". Castle Rock is part of the eight mile Castle Rock loop that is the longest hike available:

Picture of McMurdo (this one from the West side):

Picture of McMurdo (this one from the East side):

Heading to the "Harsh Continent"

After getting our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear the day before and falling in love with our Montei's beer, it was time to get on with it. We were headed to the McMurdo station on Ross Island. After weeks of reading the official information on the United States Antarctica Program (USAP) Participant Guide and looking at the "real deal" on http://www.bigdeadplace.com/, I thought we were ready. After all, I was a huge fan of John Carpenter's movie, "The Thing", a fan of the video game (complete with all the tips to succeed), and I have the necessary sick sense of humor to think that this would be fun. I wanted to go to Antarctica.

Our morning started with a wake-up call at 4:30AM so we could be ready by 5:30AM for our ride to the Center to pick up our gear to make the 9AM time for departure of our C-17. After waking up, we then received a call that our flight would be delayed three hours. After taking a cab ride to the site, we got our gear gathered and put it on by 10AM where we found out that the weather at McMurdo was not cooperating. Long story short, we finally left around 2:30PM. We were fortunate enough to sit and have breakfast and lunch at the cafeteria there. We were lucky enough to be with a producer from PBS filming a Nova episode and a writer from MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15834019/) who were focused on global warming. In fact, two of the folks we traveled with were captured in their online photos in the front row of seats. After approximately five hours and slightly cramped conditions, we arrived at our destination--Pegasus Airfield outside of McMurdo.

We had arrived.

The Big Trip

Heading out on the Sunday after Thanksgiving was not the best of times--or so I thought. The airport was not nearly as crowded as I remembered it when I used to travel back to college to the East Coast. We left on Sunday at around 5PM for LAX. From there, we waiting for a few hours to board our plane to Sydney (a 14 hour trip). After the fun of sitting on a plane for 14 hours, we got to sit in Sydney for a couple of hours until we could board our plane for Christchurch, New Zealand.

So, in terms of Christchurch time, we left at 1PM on the 27th of November and arrived at 3PM on the 28th. I make that approximately 26 hours of travel if my math is working for me.













Christchurch is a beautiful city. The purpose of our visit was to get back on their time as well as get our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear for use on our trip to Antarctica. Raytheon Polar gave us a nice deal on hotel rooms and put us up in the Heritage Hotel next to Cathedral Square. This hotel is close to everything. We were able to walk all over for restaurants, pubs, the botanical gardens, etc.

After we received our ECW issue on the 29th, we elected to head out of town via bus and go to Lyttleton and then take the ferry to Diamond Harbor to have a few beers and enjoy the scenery at the Godley House. I'd say that it was here that our group fell in love with Montie's beer. For me, it was the Golden that was really good. For my "mates", it was the Montie's Black. It was a great way to relax prior to the big C-17 trip to the Ice.

Just starting this blog thing

Here's goes...my first entry.










And, that's it.