Random Ramblings, Reasonably Recent

Current Conditions
Temperature: 1F
Wind Chill: -8F

Mom always tells me I don't take enough pictures of friends. Well, I didn't take any of these, but at least it proves I have pictures of friends.

Once a month the Kiwis host trivia night. Pete creates the quiz and emcees the event. Pete is my Kiwi counterpart; he takes care of their Arrival Heights building, as well as other scientific equipment at Scott Base:

The trivia rules are simple: "My answer is always the right answer, however, I will accept disputes as long as they are written on a 20 dollar note." Humorous answers are encouraged, so if you don't know the answer, you can still get points for wit. You have to think like a Kiwi, though, because their humor can be a little different.

This was our trivia team for the last two months:

From the left: Brody, Brian, me, Emily, Ellie, Jackie, Jill. Excepting Emily, the girls are British scientists who are studying microorganisms in several lakes in the Dry Valleys, an area on the main continent directly across McMurdo Sound.

Ellie once settled a disagreement between Pete and me concerning our English by stating simply, "I think you both talk funny."

We tend to do a lot of laughing and make a lot of noise during trivia. Normally, the Americans would be the loud ones, but in this case, Jackie is definitely the catalyst. She has a bad habit of saying the answer loudly enough for other teams to hear, so we have to shush her every time her face lights up. This is usually followed by uncontrollable laughter. By the end of the night, other teams were saying "shhhhh" with us.

We placed third last month and second this month. The fact that Pete catered several questions to the Brits and always asks Pink Floyd questions for me had nothing to do with it, I'm sure. Actually, he stumps me half the time. It's too bad the whole team is gone now (except Brody) because we had a good shot at first next time, which would win us each a highly coveted quart of real ice cream.

At some point in the evening, Gifford, Emily and I busted out the Tiger Strike:

Through extended season we played volleyball every Monday night in the big gym. We would play anything from two-on-two to six-on-six, depending on how many folks showed. Skill levels varied dramatically, which made for a lot of silly mistakes that led to laughter and quickly snowballed into general goofiness. It was always a blast.

My serves, when they make it over the net, are pretty difficult to return, I'm told. They're terribly inconsistent though. Gifford and Emily were my teammates for the last game of extended season. Gifford proclaimed that our strategy would be the "B Nelson Tiger Strike." When I served one completely under the net, Emily yelled, "Less kitten, more tiger!" which had me rolling on the ground laughing. Generally the opposing team is gracious enough to let the laughter stop before serving, but I think they got impatient, because they scored three or four points before we finally settled down.

We had a wine tasting in the library last weekend. Since the coffee shop is closed for the winter, the library provided a great place to hang out with a similar laid-back feel. I was asked to play for the event. It was great fun and I managed to play for three hours without exhausting my repertoire. Brody was the official photographer and grabbed this one:

He also took this picture of Casey and Jude:

I wasn't there for it, but I find it amusing. The down side to playing the gig was that I didn't really get to socialize much. We're going to try to start having acoustic nights in the library, which will be a lot of fun, and I won't have to play the whole time.

This collage of friends is incomplete, of course, but I feel that I can't conclude it without at least including Katie and RaJa:

I really like this photo, so I've blatantly stolen it from Brody's blog. He claims there that I was the photographer anyway, so if I keep my mouth shut no one will be the wiser.

More random rambling to come...

"The Last Sunlight Disappears"

Current Conditions
Temperature: 2F
Wind Chill: -12F

The last direct sunlight disappears, that is. Today, that fat old sun in the sky is falling below the horizon for the last time. It's a shame because in the past few weeks I've seen some of the most amazing sunsets of my life. Oh yeah, and because it's going to be dark for a long time.

Unfortunately, the western flank of Mt. Erebus obscures the horizon where the last direct rays cross the ice. Still, the sun winks us a seductive farewell:

About two weeks ago, I telephoto'd in on Brian and Emily walking Hut Point Ridge at sunset. They were surprised (and a little worried) when I told them I had a candid picture. But not after I described their silhouettes on the ridge; Brian's stature is unmistakable. I like that they're in step:

I continued out to the ridge myself for this spectacular sunset:

A couple days ago, I drove out to Willey Field to check on a protostation that hasn't been working. The station is basically a very small insulated room with solar panels and wind generators for power. Inside is a bank of batteries and a dummy data collection device that transmits back to the states via satellite phone. The idea is to determine if multiple stations like this could be placed in remote areas throughout the continent and perform self-supported data collection and communication. The protostation hasn't been communicating, mostly due to low power; there's not enough light for the solar cells anymore, and the wind is inconsistent. I checked on the inoperable station just to make sure nothing was actually broken. Inside:

Oops. Perhaps in addition to more power, the station needs better door seals! The snow wasn't the problem, though. The batteries were dead, the sun was down, and the air was calm. Actually the sun had just gone down and was still illuminating the sulfurous plume from the Erebus crater. I told you that story, to show you this picture:

Eerie.

Sunset and the Crater of Death

Current Conditions
Temperature: 2F
Wind Chill: -17F

Last weekend, Katie, Brody, RaJa and I hiked up to Second Crater for the sunset. I mentioned this spot briefly in a November post, but feel I didn't do it justice. If you look at the Kiwi's Arrival Heights webcam, you'll see the American building with Mt. Erebus above it in the background. Second Crater is the large hill between the two. It affords one of the best views around, and definitely my favorite.

Once a month I inspect an antenna cable that runs from the building all the way up the hill. At the top, the ground drops away again in a bowl-shaped crater. The antenna is right in the middle of the crater. It is a VLF antenna, which, I'm disappointed to tell you, just stands for Very Low Frequency. Remember UHF and VHF? Can you guess? These are all just boring designations for specific ranges of frequency.

The VLF antenna measures electromagnetic radiation from 3kHz to 30kHz, or, in layman's terms, low frequency radio waves. There is also an ELF antenna here that measures from 30Hz to 3kHz. Just like infrasound, which I've mentioned before, VLF and ELF waves are capable of traveling great distances and actually following the curvature of the earth. They do so by literally echoing off of the ground and the ionosphere, like bumper bowling on a curved lane.

Due to the remoteness of their location, these antennae can collect natural occurrences of low frequency radio waves without interference from civilization. The information collected is used to study everything from atmospheric and magnetospheric physics to auroral activity to polar cap phenomena. There is also a strong correlation with global thunderstorm activity, providing information on climate change. When I see that little needle spike, something somewhere is getting hit by lightning.

I found a couple pictures from a previous visit to Second Crater on a sunny summer day. Here I am trying to keep my footing on Crater Lake, the frozen pond beyond the antenna:

The wavy surface of the deep blue ice made for nice sunlight reflections in November. I've been back to this little pool several times, but it has not been this blue since:

Now some more recent shots, from last weekend. The long sunset alpenglow capping Erebus and Terror:

Check out the stylish "bunny boots" we're issued:

This is Rachel. Her last name is Javorsek. We call her RaJa. For some reason, only her left eye was frosty, giving her an amusing "clockwork orange" look:

Brody hiking into the sunset:

Katie thought the hike would be more exciting with an element of adventure and risk, so she renamed Second Crater. It is now the Crater of Death, exemplified by the eerie color in this picture taken from the rim:

The sun is up for exactly 5 hours today. In just one week it will set for the final time. It won't rise again until August 19th.

C'est La Vie

The final flight just left. The next flight will arrive on August 15th.

You'll all be missed.

Now begins the cold dark winter.

The Carnage Continues...

Current Conditions
Temperature: -13F
Wind Chill: -29F

Black Island is about 20 miles southwest of McMurdo. On it is the hub for all of our off-continent communications. Needless to say, it's important. If something should go wrong, it is easy to fly there in a helicopter, but that's not an option in the winter, so there is also a road over the sea ice. The sea ice is constantly in motion and under various pressures, so it is not always a nice flat driving surface. Weather, tides, glaciers, landmasses and other influences create widely varying and constantly changing terrain. The road to Black Island must be examined and maintained at the beginning of each winter.

We got word in town on Monday that, while maintaining the road, a dozer had punched through the ice and fallen into a meltpool. This is an area on the surface of the ice that has melted and formed a sort of lake. When the surface of a meltpool freezes over it is called a 'lens', and can be very difficult to discern. Inside this lens was 4 or 5 feet of water. Just for an idea of what I'm talking about, here's a picture of a small meltpool in the pressure ridges near Scott Base:

It stands to reason that only after I wrote this post did I get the real story about the dozer, so I've made some amendments. Rumor had this lens a quarter mile across, but it was really only 40 or 50 feet in diameter. A quick dozer anatomy; the blade is the plow in the front, and the ripper is like a large vertical fork in the back, used to break up ice. The walls of the meltpool were too steep for the dozer to crawl out, so the operator pushed the blade and ripper down as far as they would go, lifting the vehicle up off of its tracks and mostly out of the water. A second dozer was attempting to break up one side of the lens to drain the water, when it too punched through and got stuck.

A team was quickly assembled to go out and pull both dozers out of the meltpool. It consisted primarily of mechanics and fleet operators, but several SAR (Search and Rescue) team members went along as well, just in case. Two SAR members, Kish and Talie, were left in town to gather emergency equipment and then drive it out to the site, well behind the initial response team.

It had just gotten dark when Kish and Talie left town in a Hagglund. The weather was good for much of the drive out toward Black Island. Then, suddenly and unexpectedly, as it always seems to happen, the weather turned. At first they could still drive from flag to flag, but soon the view became a total whiteout.

SAR members are trained to operate in these conditions, and the Hagglund is equipped with both GPS and radar. The GPS is great for knowing your location, destination, and heading, but it is not precise enough to be able to stay on the road by. The radar provides this capability by revealing the location of flags in the immediate vicinity. In a controlled scenario, the SAR team practices driving using just these instruments with the windows blacked out, so they are comfortable trusting their technological tools.

Kish and Talie's radar was not operating properly. They soon lost the flag line. At this point they referred to the GPS system, which suggested that they had gotten considerably off course. They corrected and veered back toward the road, or so they thought. The terrain got worse. It undulated with sudden drop offs. They came to a sudden stop to avoid driving straight over a 5 foot ledge. They turned and followed alongside the ledge in an effort to circumnavigate it. The ledge was corniced, though, and they were too close. The cornice gave, the Hagglund fell onto it's side:

Uninjured, but shaken, Kish and Talie radioed there situation and coordinates to town. They were blinded by lack of light and blowing snow, lost, and now immobile. They thought they weren't far from the road, though, and that the returning Fleet Ops vehicles might see them. Regardless, they began setting up camp, carefully. Kish crawled across the side of the Hagglund in Condition 1 winds to access the survival gear in the rear of the vehicle. They were unsure of the stability of the ice around them. They probed the area and felt comfortable walking behind the Hagglund to retrieve the gear, but preferred to set up camp on the higher ground, even though it was exposed to the wind. They managed to build a snow block wall and get the tent up during occasional lulls in the storm. Just as they finished, the wind turned 180 degrees on them and they had to build another wall on the other side. At about 2am, they finally bedded down for a cold, restless night.

In the light of morning, they realized they were considerably off course and found out later they were following the GPS coordinates of an old, obsolete road to Black Island. This meant they were in uncharted territory somewhere between the old road and the new road. The new route had not been uploaded into the GPS unit.

Frustrated and tired, they spent the morning unloading the Hagglund and checking in with Mac Ops hourly. They were picked up and brought back to town just in time for lunch, and we're all glad to have them back.

A picture of the Hagglund recovery:

To tie up the other loose ends, the second dozer was easily pulled out of the meltpool. The first dozer had somehow closed a fuel line valve, and wouldn't start. They couldn't pull it out propped up on its appendages, as it was. After determining the problem, it was no trouble to start it up, lower it onto its tracks, and pull it out. For the time being, they've abandoned the road work in order to prepare the runway for the final flight.

Sunset

Current Conditions
Temperature: -3F
Wind Chill: -26F

The past few days have been calm, clear and warm. Er, above zero, I mean. A beautiful two day weekend, made spectacular by impressive sunsets. I won't even try to put them into words:

On Friday, I walked out to Hut Point to enjoy an unimpeded view.

Though diverse in color, these photos were all taken on the same night.

The slow decline of the sun stretched this sunset out to at least two hours. These pictures span an hour of it.

On my walk back, I passed Katie (Folts) heading out, which gave me the opportunity to snap this shot of her from town:

I've added some links over to the right on this page. The Scott Base and Arrival Heights webcams I've mentioned already. I recently found a webcam that shows McMurdo station. I also linked to a couple of friend's blogs; Katie (Leum) was here over the summer (and last summer), and Brody is still here for the winter. Some of the material is redundant, of course, but there are good pictures and stories on both. Enjoy!

McMellow

Current Conditions
Temperature: -9F
Wind Chill: -37F

Well, things are definitely changing at McMurdo now that autumn is here. It's hard to consider it autumn, because it's like none I've ever known. But it's not winter yet, and it's certainly not summer anymore, either. The open water that I used to see every day from Arrival Heights is quickly freezing over again. The temperature has been staying consistently below zero. Little Reds are being replaced by Big Reds. Rambunctious parties are being outnumbered by quiet movie nights. I actually have time to read before bed.

The changes bring on an interesting blend of emotions: excitement and boredom, intimacy and loneliness, comfort and longing, introspection and extroversion. I think it's safe to say that spending the winter here will change me. But don't worry, I'm sure it'll only make me crazier!

The days are quickly becoming short. Today, sunrise is at 9:15AM and sunset is at 6:45PM. The time in between consists of evening light and long shadows. I haven't been terribly good at photographing the sunsets, but a lot of them have been cloudy. Katie, Rachel and I went up to Arrival Heights to see one a couple weeks ago that yielded these:

Who says Antarctica is all white?

My favorite mountain again:

I also like this one of Rachel gazing at the sunset out over the sea ice. It has a lonely feel about it:


On a lighter note, I spent a good part of this week working on making my music available to the world (yikes!). After searching unsuccessfully for a good place to post it, I finally gave in and built a website:

www.surlyjam.com

I've put up audio and video that should be pretty easily downloaded. If you have any trouble, let me know. Those of you still on the ice will find the audio files blocked by the firewall. If you want them, I'm sure you can find me!