Progress progress .....

It is amazing the difference a week can make in Antarctica. Especially a week where the weather remains relatively mild. Last week at this time, we had just turned power on at one site (even though the instruments weren't ready, we wanted to test the communications) and we had partially installed another two. As of today, three sites are 100% operational and the fourth needs only one more instrument and the wind shield installed around the precipitation gauge. That also means this week has been, well, fast-paced is a good way to put it.

Before I dive into some updates on the sites, I wanted to give a shout out to the amazing galley staff here in McMurdo. As I had mentioned before, Thanksgiving is celebrated here on Saturday instead of Thursday so that everyone has a two day weekend. (Normal working hours and days here are 7:30am to 5:30pm Monday through Saturday, with Sunday the only day off for the regular staff here). We signed up for dinner Saturday evening at 7:00pm. As we were standing in line, they started passing back the layout of the galley so everyone would know where to go once they got in. The food was simply amazing. I should also mention there are about 900 people on station right now so feeding that many was no small task.

The Thanksgiving dining menu and galley layout.

McMurdo also has its very own Turkey Trot 5k race that takes place on Thanksgiving. I stopped over to take some pictures of the beginning of the race. There was no lack of people dressing up for this!

The McMurdo Turkey Trot.

On my way back to my dorm room, I encountered this Skua at the McMurdo Starbucks. Clearly he was waiting to peck the monitor of another unsuspecting victim ....

The evil Skua.

Sunday we hit the ground running. We finished installing all of the sensors at the Phoenix site, and had the communications working by the end of the day. Just as we were finishing up, we got to watch the New Zealand Air Force 757 land, drop off the new arrivals, pick up the ones headed north, and take off again. (I had no idea a 757 could land here, let alone on an ice shelf, but it had no problems doing so).

Completed Phoenix site with White Island in the background.

The New Zealand Air Force 757 taking off for Christchurch.

The Willie site took more time than the other sites for two reasons. One because it's our premier site with three precipitation gauges, and two because it was our first time installing a lot of these sensors so it became the "learn from your mistake" site (and there were plenty of mistakes to be made). The first time we set up the Double Alter shield, it took 3 hours just to do the shield. After regrouping and making a few modifications, we got the shield installed at Phoenix in just under an hour. We were also finally able to coordinate our schedules late last week with the carpenters, Liz and Rachel, and spent a day getting the DFIR shield installed. As a side note, Liz and Rachel were amazing and this is probably the most solid DFIR shield ever built. Conditions degraded rapidly as we were finishing the shields and it started snowing and the visibility began to drop dramatically. We hurriedly finished and somehow I got stuck driving back to McMurdo .... and by stuck, I mean I got stuck in the snow while driving. They had to call a tractor on tracks to come pull us out. And by tractor, I mean giant behemoth tractor with tracks half the size of the truck. One of my colleagues was kind enough *cough *cough to video the entire thing (which I can't post even if I wanted to because of our slow internet connection). On Monday, we were able to finish the last Double Alter shield at Willie and bring the site online.

The DFIR shield with Mount Erebus puffing away on the left and Mount Terror peeking (peaking) up on the right.

The Pluvio gauge with the Double Alter shield assembled before we raised it into place.

The final Double Alter and Pluvio installation.

The Pluvio gauge with the Double Alter and the instrument tower at the Willie site.

Then it was time to turn our attention to Tall Tower. We had gotten one flight to the site last week to install the towers and the power at the site, so now it was time to get everything else installed. Yesterday we took off again in a Twin Otter but all was not happy in the weather world. Before we took off, we were told the forecast was for clear skies and 10 knot winds. On the way there, a low stratus deck obscured most of the area and I thought we were going to boomerang and wouldn't be able to land because we couldn't find the site. As luck would have it, Tall Tower was right at the edge of the clouds so after several passes, the pilots landed ..... in 25 knot winds, gusting to 30 knots with an air temperature of 5 degrees Fahrenheit. The pilots were happy if we wanted to just turn around and go back, but we decided to get at least some things done since we were there. In the end, we were able to get all but one of the instruments installed on the tower and established communications back to McMurdo before we finally called it a day. There was no way we were going to be able to install the shield in those kinds of winds. While this didn't compare to some of the work I've done in the past on Mt. Washington, it was still a pretty harsh day of work. The ground blizzard we worked in was impressive. The sun was brightly shining but we couldn't see more than a few hundred feet in any direction because of all the snow blowing around us. Below are a couple of shots from both the first day of installation and our attempts yesterday to get the instruments installed.

Boarding the Twin Otter for our flight to Tall Tower.

Our cargo in the Twin Otter on the flight to Tall Tower.

A very long pressure ridge in the ice that we flew over.

The Twin Otter parked at Tall Tower.

Tall Tower (which is roughly 100 feet tall) as seen from the air as we approached on the second day. Our two towers can be see to the right of it looking like little sticks.

That brings us to today. We set aside today with the ambitious plan of getting the entire Lorne site installed and operational in one day. This was a feat we had not yet been able to pull off so we asked for two boondogglers to come with us. A boondoggler is one of the regular staff here that signs up to help out with other projects in the field as a reward of sorts for their hard work around town. We also had two people, Thomas and Spencer, from UNAVCO going with us. We figured with six people, we had a chance to pull this off. Lorne, unlike Tall Tower, is only roughly 45 miles from McMurdo and is reachable by helicopter. This also meant I was going to get my first helicopter ride. We arrived at the Helo pad this morning at 8 just in time to see two other helicopters carrying our nearly 3000 pounds of cargo out to the site ahead of us.

One of the helicopters carrying a sling load of some of our equipment.

We waited for the boondogglers to show up .... and waited .... and waited. They were no-shows, which meant there were now only four of us to stand up an entire site in one day. We went over to the helicopter, loaded up and were off. I can honestly say that flying in a helicopter is a blast! I highly recommend it for anyone who has never done it before. You see a lot more of the landscape because you fly a lot lower. They set us down at the site, dropped us off and left us to our work. We went right to work and six hours later, we finished the last of the site, way ahead of schedule. We radioed in and they sent a helicopter to pick us up. Unfortunately, the empty crates and pallets were too big to fly, so they made a sling with the stuff in it we couldn't carry back and had to call for another helicopter to come pick it up later in the evening. In all, it took a total of three helicopter trips to the site to get us and the cargo there and then another two to get us and the remaining empty cargo boxes.

The completed Lorne site. Notice the flat, endless horizon ... this is how most of Antarctica looks.

Full Lorne site with the batteries and solar panels on the left.

The helicopter about to land to pick us up for the journey back to McMurdo.

McMurdo from the air with Mount Erebus in the background.

We have one more attempt tomorrow morning to get to Tall Tower and finish the site there before we are scheduled to return to New Zealand on Friday. More to come .... !