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Letters Home from McMurdo Station

Dreams of summer

Greetings from McMurdo Station!

Things have finally died down to a low roar and I have a moment to write. Four of our group are down here, although more are on the way. At present, our group includes Paul, who is the PI or principal investigator, Robert Van Dam, who is Paul's post-doc, David Levinson, who is Paul's graduate student, and me. I do the computer work. We all left a week ago last Friday and arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand, a day later. Of course, since we crossed the International dateline on our way, we lost an extra day. In reality, it was two days later when we landed in New Zealand. (This can get very confusing when you want to call home.)

Once in Christchurch we collected our clothing issue. What a frustrating experience that was! Someone out there must be able to fit into the cold-weather gear that they issue, but it wasn't me. Nothing fit properly. Most items were either too short, or, if long enough, too wide. I opted for the too-wide style, since I'd rather not have parts of my arms or legs exposed to the cold. The end result was that I look like the youngest child of the family, arrayed in the older siblings' hand-me-downs.

We reported the next day at 5:00 AM to catch a military flight down to McMurdo. Since bad weather in the McMurdo area is always a possible problem, flight day is never certain. You can haul your gear all the way to the terminal and then be told to go back to your hotel at the last moment. What's worse, you can even be turned back mid-flight. When this happens, it is called a boomerang. As a result, on your flight day you keep your fingers crossed and hope for the best.

We were lucky; we made it to McMurdo on the first try. It would have been grim to do this more than once since we were crammed in the plane's hold, facing one another in long rows. To add to the discomfort, the seating was military style with webbing instead of airline seats. What an incredibly uncomfortable way to travel!

Our transport was a C-141 jet, which is very old equipment. I noticed that on the plates opposite me several of the bolts were missing. It gave one something to think about during the flight. I kept hoping that none of the missing bolts were mission-critical.

The jet landed on the frozen ocean just outside of McMurdo. It was a beautiful sunny day, but that sunshine was deceptive. When we staggered outside, there was a strong wind. With the wind chill included, the outside temperature was a balmy -40. Notice that I didn't include the degrees unit. That is because degrees Fahrenheit and degrees Centigrade intersect at -40. Besides, regardless of how you express it, it was very cold.

The first week has been filled with all kinds of briefings and classes. On the first day, we attended an in-briefing with the station’s NSF representative and the heads of all the major support departments.

From there, we had a lesson on how to drive a Spryte. Sprytes are a type of tracked vehicle capable of driving on the sea ice.

The next day, we had a briefing on the amazingly complicated recycling program instituted here in McMurdo. When I was last in McMurdo thirteen years ago, all the trash was dumped into a pit and either covered over or burned. Now the trash is sorted and shipped home. About 60% of it is recycled state-side. This is quite a change from the old system.

After that came the safety courses. Paul, Robert, and Dave only had to take one small refresher course since they had been down here last year. I, on the other hand, had to take both a sea ice safety course and a snow survival course. The sea ice class was fun. We learned how to assess the safety of the sea ice, how to pitch a tent on ice (it takes a special kind of ice screw to anchor the tent, in case you are wondering) and how to start a portable stove in case of emergency. We were able to gad about on the sea ice away from McMurdo. I really enjoyed this course.

The next day the party was over. I headed for the Snow Survival course, which is euphemistically referred to as "Happy Camper" School. It was anything but. We had to camp out in the snow overnight while we learn a number of important survival skills. The Antarctic can be a harsh mistress and you need to be prepared.

When we left McMurdo for this course, it was Condition 2. The weather here is rated as to the temperature and/or visibility. It is a rough reflection of the degree of safety. A nice, clear, sunny day is Condition 3. Condition 2 is called if the visibility is under a 1/4 mile or the wind-chill is below - 75 degrees F. Condition 1 is called when the visibility has deteriorated to less than 100 feet or the wind-chill is greater than - 100 F.

While on our way to our camping site, conditions deteriorated to Condition 1. We were in a full whiteout. Our instructor couldn't see the road and got lost briefly. However, since we all now use GPS (global positioning system) to find our locations, he was eventually able to find our instruction site. From there our survival course had the realism of the weather to spur our efforts.

My poor tent mate had never been camping before. What a way to start! It's rather like diving into the deep end of the pool to learn how to swim! We spent a cold, windy, miserable night. For something as soft as snow, the ground was amazingly hard. How glad we all were to see the morning.

So, now all the courses, lectures, etc. are over. Yesterday, our group went on a helicopter ride to survey the sea ice. Paul is looking for a good spot to place our camp. He needs to find an area in the sea ice that is free of cracks because when we allow the penguins to dive through our drilled hole, they have to come back. If there are cracks anywhere, the birds can sneak off and we lose our equipment.

That's the news for now. We do have one sad bit of news to report. Paul's aunt died this week while we were down here. It was very frustrating to be so far away and know that it would be impossible to get home in time. We send our deepest sympathy to his family.

I close with this thought. Down the hall from us is a group that studied the break-up and movement of the continents. Five hundred million years ago, the land mass that would become the Antarctic rested at the equator. As I look out over the frozen ocean and the blowing snow from the Crary Lab, I wonder if this continent ever dreams of its lost summer.

Be well and happy trails.

Kathi