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Field work check-in

[Newly-installed wind generator at Nausea Knob.]

We've had a couple of good field days. The same old, but even with the same old, there's something interesting.

Yesterday (Tuesday), I skidoo-ed sola out to check memory at one of the local GPS sites. Stopped the survey, deleted some old files, restarted the survey. About five minutes of data lost. No big deal.

Shortly after, I joined most the crew out at site E1, to help install one of the permanent monitoring sites. E1 happens to be on the side-crater rim. That means it's high. That means there was a great view. Tasks included collecting rocks (Erebus crystals), installing a new GPS monument, covering cable with rocks, and laying cable for a microphone intended for the central crater rim along the ridge constituting the side-crater rim. 'What needs to be done?' Rich E. asks Bill. 'Why don't you and Beth take care of the microphone?' 'Yippee!' I say. 'Where does it go?' Rich points. 'Up there.' I look. 'All the way up there?' 'Yep.' I lost my yippee. Had I misunderstood, maybe? 'It's not as far as it looks,' says Bill. 'Is it trecherous?' asks Rich. 'Should we bring ice axes?' 'Eh, you probably won't need them, but you may as well bring them.'

I was I glad I did. No, no need to self-arrest* or anything--but the potential certainly seemed there, walking a narrow ridge of either snow or loose rock in cluncky mucklucks (issued boots). Steep drop down to the bottom of the side-crater to the left, steep drop down the flank of the volcano to the right. Some people love ridge-walking, some people hate it. Poor Rich E. had to do most of the cable-carrying, so he might not have loved it yesterday. Admittedly, I would have loved in more in a little more stable shoes. But man, you can't beat the views. No camera--sorry.

[*Self-arrest = save yourself from a slide on ice using an ice axe.]

We got back from E1 at almost exactly 6 PM. It may be the best thing ever (or seems like it at the time) to come in from a day of field work to a warm hut full of dinner-smell and jovial people and tables lined with appetizers. Ah, Sarah. The geochemists were in, the Japanese and associates were in, and now we were in, and it was time to relax, eat, and drink.

For a while, anyway. After dinner, Phil was ready to go out. He, Sarah, and I hopped on skidoos and bopped over to the two GPS sites we had put in two days before, mainly because I was afraid we'd run out of memory at one of the receivers. Well, maily to go on a little excursion. We found no memory problems--but it's hard to find a memory problem when the receiver has no power. Apparently, the solar panels had not been charging the battery. Expect one problem, find another. Such is field work. We decided to not deal with it until morning. It seemed the solar panels had started charging the battery, now that we had jiggled a few connections, and maybe the site would come back on its own.

We got back around 10:30. 24 hours of daylight has its benefits, with field work. Unless you like to stop working at 5 PM.

Today, Wednesday, I went with Rich Esser out to the two GPS sites to beef up the power with more batteries. The first major accomplishment was finding the sites. If you know me, you know my sense of direction is stellar. Sometimes, I consider it a miracle that I ever arrive anywhere. After finding the sites, we found that both were fine. EAST had indeed charged, and was running happily on full power. Still, we added batteries anyway, and headed back to the Hut.

Shortly after returning, we joined Bill, Nelia, and Mario up at site NAUS. You may recognize Nausea Knob as one of the campaign GPS sites; it is also one of the major geophysical monitoring sites, so we worked all day to put up a wind generator and do a few other things. By the end of the work episode, I had cold toes and fingers and was walking aimlessly around in my big puffy red jacket like a little kid. I was happy to head back to the hut. Except that I rode on the back of Phil's skidoo (Phil and Rick came up as well, so we had quite a party up there), which was a little scary.

The day was snowy in the morning, then cleared with some neat clouds, not all of which turned out on film.

You may remember that the Japanese TV crew was in, and may have noticed that I haven't said anything about it. There's not much to say. They weren't here very long, and they were busy the whole time they were here. They mostly followed Ken's group, the geochemists, taking gas samples at the crater rim. They loved the French guys, Pierre and Silvain. They didn't love the rest of us. That's okay. We got work done.

Tonight, we celebrated Silvain's birthday with cake and champaign and presents. Lot's of birthdays up here. And, after all that, to the caves.

Posted by beth at December 11, 2002 05:56 PM | TrackBack