Merry Christmas from the Ice!

Well, we never made it to the field. The weather didn't clear up enough to be safe for flying until after the holiday break began. That means that the three of us are sitting around McMurdo Station for a couple of extra days. So what did we do? We went back to the helicopter hangar and brought all of our gear back to the lab, so that we could at least spend the time fine-tuning our equipment in the lab, instead of the field.

To move gear between the lab and hangar, I drive the truck. I love driving big trucks, so this part of the job is very fun! All of our gear is in that yellow cart. We put about 500 lbs of it into the bed of the truck and drove it back to the lab.

Because we didn't make it to the field, we're celebrating Christmas from McMurdo Station. It's not quite as special as spending Christmas in the field, but everybody tries to make it a good time! Last night, on Christmas Eve, we had a large feast at the Galley (the common dining hall). There was steak, lobster tail, stuffing, potatoes, salad, and lots of desserts to choose from. It was quite good, considering the difficulties of getting fresh food down to Antarctica! Here's Brendan and I sitting down to our goodies:

 Since we aren't able to do much work from here, we spent some time walking around station to enjoy the outdoors. During the summer, there's 24 hours of daylight in the Antarctic. That means the sun was shining on us on Christmas Eve through the storm clouds. Here's our view looking down on McMurdo Station on Christmas Eve:

We've been rescheduled to fly to the field tomorrow (Wednesday). Let's hope the weather clears up and we can finally make it! We're starting to go stir-crazy!

Weather delay

We were scheduled to fly this morning to New Harbor, but we woke up to falling snow. This is what it looks like at McMurdo Station right now:

Our friend Peggy models in the snow. (Peggy runs the Food Room where we get all of our field rations.)

The bad weather has made visibility very poor. That means we're stuck in McMurdo, because the helicopters can't fly when visibility is poor. If we can't see across the sound to the Dry Valleys on the mainland, we're not able to fly there. This is the view from our lab window right now. Normally you can see straight across McMurdo Sound to view the mountains on the mainland (which is where we're trying to go). You can't even see them today!

We're technically only delayed right now, so there's a chance we'll get out later, but it's not looking good! If we don't get out today, we'll be stuck in McMurdo until Wednesday, because of the Christmas holiday. That would be bad, because we have work to do out in the Dry Valleys!

Getting ready for the field

We've spent the past two days at McMurdo Station getting ready to go to the field. We've had several different training sessions (too many!), and we've unpacked and set up our gear. We then packed it all back up again and dropped it off at the helicopter hangar. We've gathered together all of our camping and survival gear, which is also at the helicopter hangar. Currently, we have a total of 1,149 pounds of gear at the hangar to fly into the field tomorrow. And that doesn't even count the weight for the three of us and our bags of clothing and other personal gear! We're scheduled to fly by helicopter tomorrow morning to New Harbor, our first field site.

At New Harbor, we won't have internet connection, so it will be a few days before I'm able to post. But after Christmas, we will fly to our next field site at Lake Hoare, where I will be able to get online.

Arrival in McMurdo

We finally made it to McMurdo! Last night, we packed all of our gear, donned our ECW, and boarded the plane to fly to McMurdo. Here's a photo of Brendan, Chris, and I all packed and ready to go. (Notice the NASA scientist on the left is the one least capable of packing light.)

We're packed and ready to go!

Once we're dressed and packed, we wheel our carts over to the "pax terminal". ("Pax" is short for "passenger".) We hand over all of our checked luggage, which gets weighed. We can check as many bags as we want, but we have to stay under 150 lbs. We then have to step on the scale ourselves, along with all of our carry-on and ECW, so that the pilots know how much weight they're carrying. We watch a couple more training videos, and then we're off!

Normally, we fly on U.S. Air Force cargo planes. It's pretty fun, but not very luxurious. This year, however, we traveled to Antarctica in style! We flew on an Airbus 319, just like a commercial flight! Instead of flying in a cold, loud cargo plane on a jump seat made out of webbing, we sat in plush leather seats like first class, and we each got our own row! Instead of all scrambling to look out of one tiny porthole to see the view, we each had our own window! There were even flight attendants serving hot beverages!

Chris shows us how excited he is to be served hot tea by flight attendants on his way to Antarctica.

Because we each had our own window, we got a great view of the Trans-Antarctic Mountains  as we flew over the continent. I think this photo is pretty neat, because of the great cloud formations in the valley over the glacier. Above those clouds, the sky is beautiful and blue! Below those clouds, you feel the reason we weren't able to fly!

View from the Airbus window. I love having my own window!

After a four and a half hour flight, we landed on Pegasus Runway

Me in front of the plane at Pegasus Runway

Since our arrival, we have been VERY busy! We're a day and a half behind because of the delay. We've been busy setting up all of our equipment so that it's ready for use in the field. We've been packing up all of our camping gear and moving it to the helicopter hangar so that we can be ready to fly into the field. We also, of course, have more safety trainings to sit through. The current plan is that we'll be heading into the field on Sunday. Let's hope all goes well!

Delayed in New Zealand

Well, our flight never left Christchurch last night. We've been delayed for "at least" 24 hours, which means we get to spend another 24 hours in the beautiful summer weather. That could be fun, except we're anxious to get started on our field work!

What do you do during an unexpected 24-hour delay? Well, mostly we're sitting in our hotel room working from our computers. However, we did venture out for a short drive along the coast. This is a picture of the three of us on Lyttleton Harbor. This is the harbor from which R.F. Scott departed for his Antarctic expeditions (because they had to take ships back then, rather than planes!). We felt it was an appropriate place to visit on our way to the Ice! Featured are: me (on the left), Brendan (Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii) and Chris (Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University). We are the three remaining scientists that will be completing our research group. The others are already waiting for us in the field!

We propped the camera on a rock, but it was a bit slanted. We corrected for the slant. Aren't we clever?!

Preparing for the last leg of the trip

It's almost time to head to the Ice! The last leg of our flight, from Christchurch to McMurdo, is scheduled for later tonight.

During our time in New Zealand, we make some last-minute preparations for Antarctica. We have to watch some training videos and go through some medical and computer screening, but most importantly, we get outfitted with our Extreme Cold Weather gear (lovingly called our ECW).

We do all of this at the U.S. Antarctic Program's headquarters in Christchurch, which is on the Christchurch airport's property. This is a board at the headquarters displaying all of the cold weather gear we get issued.

We have to try all of our gear on to make sure it fits. This is not easy, given that it's summer here! We sweat quite a bit trying all of that gear on! We put on all of those layers of fleece and down to make sure they fit and aren't in need of repair. Then, we pack all of that gear up, along with the science equipment and personal gear we brought with us from the U.S. At this point, our gear is prepared, and we're all packed and ready to head to Antarctica. We're just waiting for our flight!

We're scheduled to fly later tonight. Normally, we leave for Antarctica in the morning, so that the plane can take us to Antarctica and return to New Zealand (with new passengers and cargo) within the same day. However, they've had to switch us over to flying at night, because the weather has become too warm, which causes damage to the airstrips that are built on the ice over the Ross Sea.

In the map below, you can see the three airstrips near McMurdo Station. (They are the yellow lines towards the bottom.) Pegasus Runway is the main airstrip used for flights from Christchurch at this time of year. It is built on the permanent ice shelf (the gray colored ice on the map) that does not melt each year. The "Ice Runway" is built on the annual sea ice that thaws each year (the blue colored ice on the map), so that airstrip is only used during the colder seasons. Normally, the Ice Runway is used during the colder months, because it's closer to McMurdo and more convenient. However, during the mid-summer, like right now, it naturally melts too much and we have to switch to Pegasus, the main airstrip. (Willy field is also on the permanent ice shelf, but it's only for small aircraft that fly within Antarctica, not for the big aircraft that come from Christchurch.)

Normally Pegasus works just fine throughout the entire summer season, because the permanent ice does not melt even during the summer. However, recently summers have been so warm that the ice runway starts melting. If large planes land during the daytime, they can gouge the ice runway. The weight of the plane is too much for the melting ice. Therefore, we have to land the plane at night when the temperatures are coldest. This has been the case for the past few years.

We were scheduled to take off at 9 PM, which would have us land in McMurdo around 2 or 3 AM. At that time it'll be cold enough to prevent damage to the runway. However, we've already been delayed, and our new take-off time is about 1:30 AM. That will have us in McMurdo in time for breakfast tomorrow! Let's hope there are no more delays, because I'll be sad to miss Waffle Wednesday in the Galley.

Christchurch, New Zealand

We made it to Christchurch on schedule! For the past 24 hours, we've been enjoying some summer weather in New Zealand.

Almost two years ago, in February 2011, Christchurch was rocked by a pretty major earthquake. They had a pretty big earthquake in mid/late 2010, just before I was traveling through New Zealand on my way to Antarctica. There were some aftershocks while I was here in January 2011, and then in February 2011 there was another large quake that destroyed a lot of the city center. Since I've been here preparing for my trip to the ice tonight, I've walked around a bit to see the destruction.

For those of you that have read my blog in previous years, you might remember me posting a picture of the statue of Robert Falcon Scott. R.F. Scott was an Antarctic explorer who made several expeditions to Antarctica, the last one of which he reached the South Pole. Unfortunately, his entire team died on the return trip. R.F. Scott was English, but his expeditions left from New Zealand, so his memory is honored here. There is a statue of him that was sculpted by Scott's widow that stood in the city center.

This is me, with two of my team members, visiting R.F. Scott's statue in Christchurch 5 years ago.

The earthquake knocked it over and broke it into two pieces.

This is where R.F. Scott's statue now lies, in the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, after being broken into two pieces by the earthquake.

An awful lot of the buildings have also been damaged, particularly the ones in the "downtown" city center area. At the heart of City Center is Cathedral Square, where the Christchurch Cathedral stands.

This is a photo I took of the cathedral five years ago.

It survived the first earthquake, but the second major one in February 2011 did a lot of damage. The front end completely fell off! The entirety of Cathedral Square is fenced off. This is as close as I could get.

This is a photo I took yesterday of what remains of the cathedral. It's taken from a different angle. (Essentially, I was standing on the left side of the cathedral, rather than in front.)

This is what most of the streets look like in the City Center right now:

But, the Botanical Gardens, which is my favorite place in Christchurch, is doing just fine. It's as beautiful as always!

Rose Garden at the Christchurch Botanical Gardens

During our time, we've been getting ourselves outfitted for the field. I'll post more about that later!