Skate skiing back towards McMurdo!
We skied out effortlessly about a mile away from the station, but then we turned around and realized the wind had done most of the work. It was almost impossible to have any kind of technique in that kind of head wind, and my fingers got frost-nipped. OW, did that hurt when they thawed out. It felt like my fingernails were being torn off. No wonder they make you sign in and out with the fire station and carry radios...
Just a quick blog entry tonight...In the last three days, the weather has turned significantly warmer. The snow is melting and all the roads are getting muddy. What a change in just one month! Of course AGAP is still beyond frigid (-60 or -70!), but thankfully Scott gets to hang around a bit longer in McMurdo. Some of his group goes out on Saturday. McMurdo is all a buzz about AGAP and rumors are flying. Folks were saying that people are going to die out there, and that there will be many medevacs because of the altitude, but this place is a rumor mill and the field science director assured me last night at dinner that everything will be just fine. They have every contingency planned for, including emergency back-ups of everything. Check out this box above for example. Can't do without sporks!
It has become a standing joke about Scott's field camp being all men, so the carps (carpenters) are painting the AGAP crates pink, and they have even added unicorns farting out rainbows.
The Royal Society Mountain Range.
Scott was training on the Tucker Snowcat but he and the guys grabbed snowboards and took a break to enjoy the slope!
AGAP has been in the news quite a bit. Check out this CNN article:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7668070.stmThis quote is pretty intriguing about the subglacial mountain range they will be studying: It's rather like being an archaeologist and opening up a tomb in a pyramid and finding an astronaut sitting inside. It shouldn't be there.
4 comments:
Hola Jen!Me alegro mucho de ver que todo va bien. Las fotos son preciosas. Ah! Tambien aqui se ha vivido con mucha esperanza e ilusion el triumfo de Obama, se hizo una encuesta y el resultado era que el 75% de los españoles si pudieran votarian por el :-)
Me parece increible que estes ahi tan lejos! Eres una chica muy valiente.Vi en la tele una pelicula en la que el protagonista pasaba un tiempo en McMurdo asi que pude ver un poco como es. Cuidate mucho.Un abrazo, Pilar
hahaha unicorns farting rainbows... right up scott's alley :)
I'm catching up on your very cold looking black & white snowy blogs with lots of red dots in the frame. Quite a contrast to the balmy, 75 degree temps in SE Utah canyon country where we've been hiking for a couple of weeks. But, with those dazzling smiles and warm hearts you'll have a great adventure no matter how cold it gets. Barbara
What's all that white stuff? I can see that you're out taking it all in. I hope you don't get igloo fever- but I doubt it.
Everything's fine here, and the girls all say hello. G.G. is still getting more love than me, so not much has changed.
Starting to be almost like there here: we had our first frost last week.
-Alex
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