iceblog!

End of the Year Field Work

Productivity has gone down somewhat since the epic Abbott day, due to marginal weather. We seem to be plagued by it this season. Nelia figured the ratio of workable (day on which we were out more than about three hours) to non-workable days has been about 2-to-1, which she deems typical. However, she also says there are usually more really nice days: Calm, sunny, warm days.

Sunday, the 29th was nice in the morning. There are no helos on Sundays, so we knew we were working locally. The whole group of us, sans Sarah, skidooed out to an area of ice towers commonly referred to as Harry's and surveyed as Nelia and I had several days before. My task was note taking. After a good bit, we called off the survey due to wind. It wasn't intensly windy, but even the breeze was making it difficult to measure windspeed out of the towers and CO2. Plus, my hands were cold, and the rest of me was starting to be. I was slowing down. It was a good time to head back for lunch. After lunch, Nelia and I retrieved the campaign GPS equipment from E1, the side up on the rim of the side crater. The place had skanked up, and we anticipated wind and cold, and consoled ourselves with the idea that the task would be short. As it turned out, the weather at E1, although skanky, was quite pleasant. The GPS receiver was happy. We broke the site down quickly. We were happy. We went home.

But it was still early. Nelia, Bill, and Rich E. headed off to start installing a power station around the other side of the volcano; R.K. and I headed off to install a campaign GPS instrument at HELZ, a site which we'd already surveyed. It's good to repeat measurements sometimes, to get an idea of repeatability. Plus, I think I accidentally created a new mark on the top of the monument last time I surveyed it, but screwing our mount on a little off-center. So, I may have been off the real mark by about 1 mm. The folks I worked with in the Philippines used to say, "What's a few millimeters among friends?" Since we're looking for motions as small as a few mm/yr in this case, a mm setup error is--while often hard to avoid--not very good.

Since Monday, we've had the same helo plan for the morning and been denied the same helo plan every day. The general routine has been wake up, come in, get ready, talk to helo ops, get put on helo hold due to weather in either McMurdo or up here, and wait until noon. Realize at noon that we're better off calling off the helo plans and working locally. Head out after lunch. On Monday, Nelia, Bill, and I spent the whole afternoon continuing the ice tower survey over by Harry's Dream.

[Nelia measures CO2 from an ice cave. An ice cave that probably extends at least to her feet.]

Nelia found a particulaly nice 'picnic spot' on a ridge of lava flow flanked by ice towers. "We should take a picture of Beth up on that tower, because it's so pretty," she said of a nicely-formed fumarole. I start to climb up. Hmmm, doesn't look too stable, I say. Go on up there, says Bill. Looks a little thin, I say. And this is as far as I got.

[But at least I'm happy. What a goof ball.]

Bill says to Nelia, Climb up to the top. Nelia comes to check it out. She pokes at the ice and snow with her axe. Hmmmm. She get a little farther than I did. Climb all the way up, says Bill. You climb up, says Nelia. Bill says, Okay.

And he did.

[Bill says: "I'm gonna jump!" "No, Bill, don't do it!"]

So Nelia climbs up. No problem. Then, climbing down, she says, Okay, Beth, now your turn. Says Bill, Don't let Nelia pressure you into it.

[This time, to the top.]

We continue on with our survey. Bill and Nelia go in for a little synchronized cave entrance scoping.

[Peer.]

[And probe.]

We finish off the day with Harry's Dream. Bill climbs up to a ledge where he can access a few periferal entrances. Steam emits from the top opening.

Sunshine, lollipops and sweet dreams, mountaintops

Some days, you just can’t help but stop and grin and think, “Man, this is awesome.”

Perfect weather. Helos were flying. An A-Star piloted by Barry came to pick Rich E. and I up and whip us off to Abbott Peak for a GPS permanent site installation.

I shouldn’t say the weather was perfect, because it wasn’t perfect everywhere. Skank was threatening to move in, and threatening to deny Rich and I from returning to the hut. But, the weather was perfect at Abbott.

[Approaching Abbott Peak.]

[Rich braces himself as the helo takes off after it drops us off.]

[Warm day, but Rich's breath still steamy.]

The perfect weather made me realize that even though I like being out, I generally like coming back in. The weather usually nips away at me enough to try my patience, or at least try my enjoyment. The weather at Abbott did nothing of the sort. It was like the big jovial green-clad giant who represents Christmas present in "Scrooge," the version of the Christmas Carol my mother likes to watch. Stay a while! it shouted. Enjoy the gorgeous view! Don’t you see the world stretching before you? Take off your coat and relax!

Take off our coats we did. And, I took off the layer under that, AND I took off both my outer mitts and my gloves, and worked for a good part of the time with bare hands. It was tropical. It was delicious. I had no desire to leave the site; my only desire, besides just enjoying myself, was to get the GPS site in and relax on the rock. Maybe sunbathe a bit, or have a picnic lunch.

[I look doubtful, but really I'm happy.]

[There was this really, really great rock that was super fun for climbing--and, although I have my gloves on in this photo, I clambered around on it with bare hands and it wasn't even cold. This may be my favorite hold in the world right now. Totally bomber, frictiony, niiiiiiiiiiiice.]

[Rich works to strengthen the communication tower.]

[GPS antenna freshly in place, with Mt. Bird in the background.]

As it turned out, we didn’t have time to lounge; we finished just before the helo came back for us. But, it was still splendid. We worked pleasantly at a comfortable pace, and got the work done. Three hours after our arrival, a 212 came for us, with Scotty piloting and Steve on as helotech, and took us from our paradise towards our second destination: BOMZ. BOMZ can be unruly, and was windy and somewhat miserable last time we were there, and didn’t even want us to come near this time. It was completely skanked it. Scotty attempted to drop us close to the hut, which was also skanked in, but the skank was too strong. So, he dropped us at Truncated Cones, the site on the edge of the world, where somebody would be able to come rescue us by skidoo from the hut. Out Rich, out Beth, out gear, out survival bag. On communications guys who had been setting up an antenna at Cones and needed a ride back anyway. Helo small in front of volcano. Rich and I watching from a safe distance, and helo away. Goodbye, helo, enjoy vacation.

And then, Rich and I were in paradise again. The skank had won over only on select parts of the volcano, and others thought they were in the Bahamas. Sunny, warm, and beautiful. Only no tourists. Or palm trees. Rich and I played around in paradise for about half and hour before Bill and Nelia arrived to pick us up. In the meantime, I made a snow angel, we took a bunch of pictures, Rich rolled rocks down the snowy flank of the caldera (whump whump whump whump whump crack whump), we sat on a rock and watched airborn ice crystals sparkle in the sun (“spaaaahkly’) (remember the crow in “The Secret of Nihm”?), and I slid on my butt down the hill back towards the volcano. Wind pants are good for that.

[Rich establishes radio contact with Bill and Nelia.]

[View towards Cones GPS and seismic site.]

[View up towards Cones repeater site.]

[On the other side of the Cones repeater site, Rich (carefully) rolls rocks.]

[A zoom-in view out towards the Trans-Antarctics.]

[Rich waits for our ride, as I get ready to slide down the hill.]

We were home in time for a late lunch, and in the late afternoon Nelia and I headed up to the rim to install the campaign GPS equipment on our brand new monument. Again, the trip was beautiful.

[Right on the rim.]

[Heading back.]

[View of land slump with the Upper Hut riding on top (rectangular speck), with the caldera rim and the sea ice beyond. Nelia thinks the slump is loose rock and ice which moves by freeze-thaw processes within the pile.]

When we returned, I headed right back out the door to enjoy a little more of the kind day. I walked out on the rocks behind the hut until I found a nice, small whaleback from which I could view the Trans-Antarctic mountains. Sleepiness was setting in, keeping me from fathoming the mountains at all, but life was good.

Ailments: Not for the Weak of Heart

Our helo plans for Dec 27 fell through due to morning skank, so it turned into mostly an inside day for me. Since nothing interesting really happened, I’ll outline my ailments for you.

Ailments. It’s impossible to not acquire them while doing field work, right? So I’ve decided to give a run-down of mine to date.

I mentioned a while back that I landed on the edge of a piece of plywood, catching it in my ribs. It’s feeling better now, although a day or two ago I felt like it was getting worse, probably from (characteristically) holding in my sneezes, starting the skidoos (pull-start, like a lawn mower), and struggling to push open the door to the orange hut which often sticks. These are the times when it most hurts. It also hurts when I sit up or lie down, but not as much as it used to. Nelia thinks I may have done something mildly nastier than bruising, like slightly separating the ribs, and I think she may be right.

I kicked my leg back for balance while skidooing, and kicked my calf right into the pointy tip of my ice axe. Big welt. I’ve since adopted a different ice axe transport strategy.

I have an unidentified bump on my left earlobe. Well, I’ve identified it, but I don’t know what’s causing it.

Several nights ago, I unintentionally poured hot water onto the back of my left hand. Luckily, as Rich K. pointed out, water boils up here at much lower temperatures than it does at sea level. The burn was minor, and hurt only briefly, and showed only as a thin red line on my skin the following day. Much stranger was another mark that appeared the same day. It appears I burned the wrist of my right hand, but I’ve no idea how. The burn showed up as a perfect bullseye: A solid white circle surrounded by a red circle, with a smaller, irregularly-shaped red blotch beside it. This is the first time I’ve blistered from a burn. The blister filled to the point of being obnoxious; it was probably about a centimeter high, and I’m not exaggerating. The poor bandaid didn’t know what was going on. Below is a picture of the blister after draining.

The worst occurred two nights ago and, more than anything, made me mad. No, wait, it really hurt, too. It happens that the orange hut had fallen into a state of disarray, and I fell prey. Immediately before heading to bed (tent), I needed to get to an antenna bag that was over *there*. The paths to over *there* were blocked by big batteries on one side and empty cardboard boxes on the other. I chose the boxes. I lacked finesse. I tripped going forward, tried to catch myself backwards, tripped going backwards, fell going backwards, spiraled towards the ground and –WHAM!-- …….. landed on a big cable spool. …….On my crotch. It hurt. Really, really bad. Luckily, there was no one else in the hut, and I could yell my profanities and safely leave my footprint in one of the boxes that had so viciously tripped me up. Go figure that the worst of ‘em is going to be in the hut, not in the field.

And, I have minor frost nip on the bridge of my nose, between the lower reaches of my goggles and the upper reaches of my balaclava.

The Rest of the Day After

As if cruising around the ice towers wasn’t enough, Nelia and I headed to the crater rim in the afternoon. Skank had started to move it, and it actually started to snow, but the trip turned out to be quite nice.

Our sole mission was to install a new monument on the crater rim, close to the camera site. I had picked out the site earlier, on a different expedition to the rim, and finding a reasonably flat, stable outcrop of bedrock proved to be a challenge. All the rock seemed to be either bombs, lava boulders, overhanging, or too steep. The overhanging rock seemed reasonably stable, but the idea of perching on the overhanging with a drill vibrating the rock beneath me conjured up ideas of falling with the overhanging rock into the crater that didn’t seem entirely unreasonable. So, I kept looking, and I found.

The adventure was pretty exciting. This was the first official monument installation which I was in charge of (with some possible exceptions—what’s important is that it felt like it was), which was kind of fun. We brought up the epoxy, babied in an insulated bag (“cooler” sounds too weird in this context) with handwarmers and a hot water bottle, a battery-powered drill, a level, and the stainless steel post for the monument with a little orange skirt with its name lovingly etched in with the sautering gun. To get to the rim, we park our skidoos as high as possible (sometimes borderline epic, given the often icy state of the slope) and then hike up from there. And, it’s pretty much all up. It’s not a terrible walk, but it’s not a breeze, either. Nelia was kind enough to carry the batteries we needed for the survey. I love Nelia.

Monument installation went pretty smoothly. We took turns drilling, trying to get a nice, vertical hole in which to fix the monument, and deftly got the drill bit stuck. Getting it out was much harder, and took much longer. But, luckily, we got it out. And, we were able to put the monument in. It wasn’t even too far off vertical.

[Photos taken on a sunnier day.]

The landscape on the way down was surreal. Skanky in a pretty, mysterious way. (Some of you may describe yourselves similarly…) On the drive back, the scene looked brand new: I felt like I was looking out onto a mountain range I’d never seen before I think it was the lighting—half the volcano before me in shadow, and a blue or violet hue in everything in view.

Nelia finds the lost camera. There was a camera installed on the camera rim last year, which stopped working in April. Bill thought maybe it has automatically changed chanels. Nelia and Rich E. visited the site early in the season and reported their findings. "We know what's wrong with the camera," they said. "It's gone." The camera was probably blown away in a wind storm. Nelia put it in Bill's cubby in the hut upon our return, as a surprise.

Nelia walks towards the skidoos (not pictured). To the left, rocked cables stretch as a beaded necklace towards Nausea Knob, at the base of the slope.

After a brief interlude back at the hut, Nelia and I set out again, this time for the Upper Hut (previous center of field work, until nearby bomb strikes in 1984; pictured above). Mission: Retrieve GPS intstrument which had been collecting data for several days. Nelia stopped her skidoo on the top of the hill approaching the hut. Problem? No. She pointed behind me. I turned. The low skank had cleared to reveal the sea ice, which stuck me as having been out of view a long time with the recent weather, and the sun was glinting off the irregular surface. On the way back, I lead, and I approached the hill slowly to savor the widening and deepening view.

Dinner was the best ever. (Every dinner seems like the best ever.) We had just gotten freshies in, and as a result ate delicious finger food. We had bell pepper, bagels and lox, and –tomatoes—and –BASIL--. AND, the galley sent up an entire box of good cheese. So, with our basil and tomatoes and crackers, we had brie. What a day.

Back Out: Ice Towers

The day after Christmas dawned warm. The day after Christmas dawned really warm. I was ready to have my picture taken outside in a t-shirt. I would have been just for show, but still, that thought doesn't occur to me normally. Bill and Rich Esser headed off in the helo to work on a site on the other side of the volcano, Rich K. headed off in a helo to McMurdo to do some work down there, and Nelia and I headed into the backyard to survey ice towers.

The ice tower task is fun, on a nice day. The work consists of poking around different ice towers, recording some information about each. The ice towers are formed where heat comes up through the ground, causing moisture in the air to precipitate. Many of the towers have caves underneath. The caves have rock floors and ice ceilings. Caves, Nelia thinks, are formed when warm rock melts the snow floor above it. If this doesn't make sense, let me know. The ice towers are commonly in lines, or likely along fissures--cracks in the ground. The cracks can be quite small--not like the huge breaks in the Earth I imagined as a kid when I thought I could get swallowed up during an earthquake. I'm counting on your imagination being similar, otherwise you have no idea what I'm talking about. Anyway, the basic idea is: Volcano. Hot components. Hot components like magma chambers within the volcano and cooling lava flows at the surface. The heat from magma bodies can leak out through the overlying rock, as can gases which are expelled from the magma as it rises and cools. The ice towers on Erebus form around fumaroles, which are vents of heat and gas on a volcano. We measure CO2 output at the fumaroles/ice towers to see if the gas forming the ice tower is magmatic, and to see if the CO2 output varies from year to year. This can help us make guesses about what is happening within the volcano.

Plus, it's fun. My explanation of why the ice towers are there and why we're studying them is botcher, because 1) it's outside my realm of 'expertise,' and 2) it's late, and I'm writing off the top of my head. Then again, I always do when blogging. If you have more questions about the ice towers, let me know. If I can't explain, I can ask someone who can, and then I can use their words.

But you can see as well as I can that the ice towers and ice caves are pretty neat. Here's a photo shoot of Dr. Nelia Dunbar with ice.

The ice towers in our backyard.

Nelia knocks away fragile snow near the entry to get a better angle for making measurements. We probe the way up to each ice tower to see if it's safe; the snow near ice towers is liable to be thin, and can fail under the weight of the likes of us.

In both photos, Nelia measures wind speed coming out of entrances. We also measured CO2, estimated the size of the entrance, and took a GPS reading of the approximate location of the tower, using handheld GPS.

Concentric bands of blue ice near a tower give some clues about tower formation. Nelia thinks the ice represents an old tower, that has since migrated to the current location.

Now for the gratuitous part: Nelia and I enter at the base of another tower, which guards the entrance to a decent-sized cave.

Nelia says the cave is usually bare rock, with a dripping ice ceiling. Now, after the recent wind and snow storm, the front rooms and passageways are drifted with snow.

Thin cave walls letting light through.

Snow lace on the walls.

Nelia jots some notes in her field book.

Ice jail bars, about 4 inches high.

Ice penguins, probably about one foot high.

Close-up of an ice wall. Crystals are probably about 1 cm across.

Time to exit.

Pretty amazing to come up and realize what you've just been clamboring around under.

And that was only the first half of the day. Tune in next time, when I tell you about something else.

Christmas on Erebus

It’s Christmas!

We awoke to beautiful, perfect, sunny, windless weather.

Or, maybe we awoke to wind.

The wind has been holding steady at about 20 knots all day, with the temperature currently at –18 C. We don’t think it’s necessarily a storm, but it’s definitely crappy weather, so we’re probably not going to work today. Instead, we’ve had to eat and hang out and open presents.

Are we lacking here in the hut?

Well, we did work Christmas Eve, and it was cold and windy, but we did relax all evening. We ate lobster tails and rice and frozen veggies (we unfroze them before eating them). Let me say that again: lobster tails. We had lobster tails for dinner Christmas Eve on a volcano in Antarctica. And, they were good. After dinner, we dweebed and played cards and did Santa things and drank champagne and Baileys, and opened one present (did you ever get your parents to agree to that?): Ken and Rick and the others, now back in the States with their loved ones, had given each of us an Antarctica thermometer, with both C and F (very helpful with the conversions) and a profile of the continent, including the topography of Erebus. There’s a mirror on the back. The gift will come in very handy for monitoring tent temperature and for checking for goobers before entering the hut.

[Site of skidoo mishap. I rolled it from somewhere above where I'm shooting from to where it is now, sans rider. I jumped off immediately, on the downhill side (counterintuitive, but the way it often works), and then, once I had my footing and realized it was still on the moved, hurried laterally out of its way. The skidoo slid on its side and then rolled over when it caught on a bomb. Nelia and I had to righten it. It ways enough to want to get out of its way, but not so much that two people can't easily turn it over. The rock arc upslope of the skidoos is the outline of a 1984 bomb. Spewed from the crater, about 1/2 km away, inflating, and then landing and collapsing into the shape of a pancake.]

[Nausea Knob.]

[Rime ice at Nausea. The direction of the wind around the rock is recorded in the orientation of the rime.]

[Rime ice on the wind generator.]

[Rime ice on the guy wire, with my mitten for scale.]

This morning, we woke to wind and then congregated in the hut. I was actually driven out of my warm sleeping bag into the cold air of my tent by the very pressing need to pee. (Pee bottle, but no funnel.) So I was in the hut a little earlier than I would have been. Sarah and Rich E. were already in (“I’ve been up since 6:30 waiting to open presents!” Rich said), and Nelia and Bill were soon to follow. Last night, we’d cleared off one of the tables and fixed it up with a red table cloth and a Christmas tree provided by my mother. (Asked RK, “Is that thing real?”) (He was kidding.) The table was already stacked with presents, almost hiding the tree. Bill and Nelia hung stockings with care by the sink. The stockings are really rock bags decorated by Bill and Nelia with permanent markers. They were hung by the sink rather than the stove to avoid melting the contents. It works.

[Table o' presents. Where's the tree?]

[There it is. Barely.]

[The stockings (rock bags) were hung by the chimney (sink) with care...]

[Nelia fully appreciates the images Bill has drawn on the back of her bag to depict aspects of home, including their three-legged dog, Shep.]

[A close-up of my stocking. Santa's got a GPS. Note rocks on cable at the GPS site on the ground (BOMZ, the windy one). Artist: Nelia Dunbar.]

Rich E. and Bill and I hooked up my modest walkman to the hut speakers so we could listen to two tapes worth of Christmas carols sent by my mother. The speakers were originally used to listen to sounds from the volcano from a microphone at the crater rim; the amplifier was taken from the downed helicopter in our backyard. While we got the carols going, Sarah bundled up and headed out with a cup of coffee to RK’s tent to wake him up. She probably even looked kind of like Santa in her red bunny suit.

Once everyone was in, we opened our stockings. They were loaded with food (I, for instance, got chocolate sardines and turron) and gadgets and by the time we were done Sarah and I felt like we’d had Christmas already. It was a challenge to not spoil our appetites for brunch, but there was a really good reason to hold out: Rich E. and Sarah were making eggs benedict, with Rich’s homemade hollandaise sauce. Possibly, we agreed, the best eggs benedict we’d had, ever. Aren’t we supposed to be suffering up here, or something?

[Sarah plays with her new puzzle.]

[Bill dweebs.]

[Rich Esser cooks.]

Then, came the mass present-opening episode. Did I mention that we could barely see the Christmas tree through the presents? It’s a good thing we can’t work today, because it all took a while.

Of note were Bill's wrapping jobs.

[Rich E. unwraps a flag used for marking trails. As Bill noted, the wrapping came with its own ties (black ties at the edge of the flag).]

[Cable ties make great ribbons.]

[Foam secured with cable ties and packing tape is also quite attractive.]

And then the presents....

[Rick K. plays Santa Claus. Beth, have you been good this year?]

[I have! Or, at least, Nelia gave me a pair of mittens. She's been knitting like crazy since we got here, and her efforts have paid off--happy people with warm hands. I love my mittens.

[Sarah loves hers, too.]

[Bill examines the pores on his hand with his new glasses.]

[Bill's happy even with his glasses off, so long as he's listening to the dogs barking Jingle Bells.]

[Rich E. gets a fuzzy new hat.]

[AND Rich got Monster Women. Score. Nelia suggests he NOT take the one that looks like a centiped to his tent with him. She's creepy.]

[My stash, including calendar, t-shirt, food goodies, Squeak Laptop Buddha (compliments of Rich K.), mini maglite, etc.]

Earlier in the day, I began constructing a small army of crystal people to make up for my lack of gifts to give. My family can attest to the fact that I'm terrible at giving gifts. So, the Erebus crystals sprouted some arms and legs. I think I have not yet talked about Erebus crystals. I'll leave that for another day.

The crystals met with 5-minute epoxy and came to life.

And then, the drama began.

Santa was swinging innocently on the extremely sturdy, heafty, burly, strong internet antenna (no wonder our internet went down) that found its end in the wind storm and was brought into our hut as a Christmas decoration

when he was pursued by the scary centipede woman,

who caught him

and dragged him back to her lair!

Poor Santa.

He's been tied to the tree!!

Surrounded by the Monster Women abusing the poor, defensless crystal people.

Maybe we have too much time on our hands.

There’s not much else to do, besides eat pate and, my current favorite, salmon and cream cheese on crackers, and maybe some chocolate. The afternoon was spent playing cards, dweebing, and eating, and the evening brought dinner (turkey, stuffing, potatoes, yams, dressing) and then a homemade game of pictionary. We all contributed words and Rick K. made a board and made fun of us for the same things that he ended up doing. Still, he and Bill won.

Now the big decision is: Movie or more pictionary? And if a movie, which one?

Hope your Christmas has been as tough!!!

I'll leave you with one thought.
Are there polar bears in Antarctica?

No, only penguins.

Wait! It's a polar bear! According to my mother (in a note attached to the penguin--er, I mean polar bear's neck), there are now both in Antarctica.

Okay, one more: Are there little surfer girls in outer space?

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays

In case, my friends, I don't have the chance to get back on the internet within the next couple days, or in case you don't, I'll take this opportunity to say a very warm Happy Holidays from a very cold place. Cold, but beautiful. There are a ton of individuals which I would individually like to wish a very, very happy holiday season, but which I will not have the time to contact. Please know that I am thinking of you, and that I send my love. Thank you for keeping up with me, and for sending your thoughts my way.

I hope this time of year finds you all with loved ones and good spirits. (I think we still have a bottle of whiskey around someplace...)

We at Lower Erebus Hut are happy and hopeful, and ready to celebrate the Christmas holiday with lots of good food and --well, the rest, as always, is weather-dependent.

Much love,

beth

Out of the Storm

Okay, somebody had it in for us. We asked for a couple days of bad weather. Who wished on us the 5-day storm?

Wednesday night, storm threatening to come in. Thursday morning, storm undoubtedly in.

This is a picture of the view from the window towards the orange hut. Orange hut is about fifty feet away.

At this time, the wind was gusting at about 40 knots and the temperature was -30 C (Note: Bill and Nelia say the warmest they've seen this place is -12 C, which I think is about 15 F). That morning, we recorded gusts up to 52 knots. This storm was a little fiercer than the last, with snow besides. It's hard to tell what was precipication and what was remobilized, but either way, we couldn't see. No field work Thursday. Internet had gone down. Only one thing left to do: Relax. Watch movies, read, write, play cards, knit, tinker. Rich E. slept in the orange hut. Rich's tent fly had been minorly sliced by the winds from a particularly disruptive helo arrival the day before, allowing snow to drift into his tent. Sarah, Rick K., and I slept in the main hut. No tent problems. Hut warm, not windy. Tent cold, noisy.

Friday, the same. Will it clear? Doesn't look like it. Another two-movie day, a lot of snacking, and individual activities. I read an interesting book called "Killing Pablo" about drug wars in Colombia. I ate it up. My cousin asked whether I feel like reading about the tropics or about Antarctic adventures. I started with a hankering for Shackelton-type adventures, but have moved on to anything interesting. The Colombian drug cartel is very interesting. It's also nice, sometimes, to listen to upbeat, hot-place music. I did, however, overdose on Ricky Martin. See Q'n'A entry. Too out of place, and too... Well, as much as I love him, it's Ricky.

I had time to think about these things. Almost five days of time. We thought the storm was breaking yesterday--word from McMurdo was that as one storm was ending, another was moving in, but then they changed their tune--and went out and cleaned the snow out of the skidoos and drove them around and waited to see if we could run off to do some work. Good thing we waited. About an hour later, Bill was back outside putting the skidoo covers back on. False alarm. The wind was still with us.

But, it was slowing. Today, we felt, we'd wake to good weather and be able to work.

Skank. And wind. We spent most the day inside, and then around 4 o'clock we saw our opportunity. The wind seemed to have subsided. We'd go to Truncated Cones.

I'd never been to Cones, but I'd heard it was beautiful. Rumor has it, it's the place to be at midnight. I still haven't been there at midnight, but I have been there.

At first, there was nothing. It was amazing. I truly felt like I was driving a skidoo in Antarctica. I heard rumors of great views, but shortly after leaving camp I couldn't see anything around me but skank, the world melting into whiteness with a vague division between white floor and white walls. I could see skidoos ahead of me, and the dark forms of their riders. At some point, the world went flat and the skidoo tracks in front of me disappeared. I relied on the sight of Rich Karstens ahead of me to guide my way. Surreal, I thought. This is cool.

Bill turned off our tradjectory sharply, it seemed to me, into the skank. We pulled up at a craggy rock ridge, with a majestic snow-covered mast bright white against the milky white sky. The mast supported three or four Yagi antennas and about a ton of rime ice. The ice extended about a foot from one of the antennas, completely amazing me. The guy wires looked ready to bust under the extra weight--rime ice forms on everything, regardless of how thin and mobile. I wish I had a picture, but I don't.

When I returned to the skidoos, rime ice had already started to form on the handles, the throttle, the kill switch. It was forming on my backpack, after just 15 minutes. It was forming on Rich Karsten's eyelashes.

Rich E. and I got to lay cable. It's our specialty. We lay cable at the repeater site, home of the White Tower, and then skidoo-ed over to the nearby geophysical monitoring site. A miracle occured. I'm a believer. In what yet, I don't know, but I believe it. The skank cleared in a matter of seconds. My creative writing teacher in college warned against the use of the word 'suddenly' (nothing happens 'suddenly'--come on), but this seemed to occur suddenly. Regarless, it happened fast. The clouds cleared. There was a horizon, with blue above and white below; there were ice towers; there was crazy, chunky-looking snow clutching the rocks; not so far away, there was our White Tower of radio antennas; and, there was a volcano.

Rich E. encouraged me to go to the edge and see how far down I could see. The veterans love this spot because it is right on the caldera rim. Brief explanation: Erebus (as you can recognize in distant profile) is characterized by steep slopes at its base, and then an abrupt break in slope above which the flanks angle more gently to the crater rim. The abrupt break in slope is the caldera rim, likely formed by a collosal eruption a long time ago which caused collapse of the top of the volcano. After this collapse, the void in the center of the volcano filled in with lava flows and pyroclastics (chunks thrown from the rocks, like the bombs). This upper, reconstructed part forms the gentler slopes up to the top.

Truncated Cones is on the caldera rim, where the slope changes abrubtly from gentle to steep. But what would I be able to see below me? It was a sea of clouds.

There's something to be said for a sea of clouds. The world dropped away (SHOOP), plunging my attention to a second, fairy-tail world below. In the fairy-tale world, cloud banks swirled and collided before me. The blanket of clouds extended like the Neverending Story's nothing to the horizon before me, and beyond. Shoop.

[Fairy-tale. What creatures lie beneath?]

The ride home was a whole new adventure. The views, before shrouded by skank, were spectacular. My attention, however, was directed mostly towards the bumpy terrain directly in front of me, and, before too long, to the painful and then disturbingly numb nature of my throttle thumb. I didn't realize just how cold my hand had gotten until getting back, heading immediately into the orange hut, and howling along with Nelia over the pain which meant blood was circulating back into our hands. It was cold outside.

The story ends happily. Inside, it was warm, and though it was painful, both Nelia's and my hands recovered completely, and we were greeted by the tantalizing smell of cooking potatoes and then by the site of a cheese and olive platter, tuna dip, potato chips (food of the gutters in the regular world, food of gods after a day of cold in the field), and, soon, halibut and potato pancakes and broccoli. Life is good.

And then, after dinner, Bill and Rich K. fixed the internet. And, the hut looked immediately like this:

And here, I'm still on the darn thing. Thanks for sticking with me.

Q and A

Some have asked questions that I just wasn't finding the time to answer. Storms are good for remedying that.

Q’n’A (with some of my own thrown in).

Men with Beards
As Leopoldo pointed out, a lot of the men down here have beards. As he also pointed out, beards become iced in the field. Mustaches, too. While most of the moisture may come from breathing, one can not deny the contribution of the snotcicle.

I asked about this ice phenomenon. Is it not uncomfortable? I asked. Warm, was the response. A beard is warm, a beard covered in ice is warmer.

Safety
MV asked about safety. Out caravanting around the volcano by helo and skidoo, do we have some safety system? What about weather changes?

I wondered about weather changes myself. What happens if we’re on the other side of the volcano, and a horrendous storm moves in?

So far, the weather changes have been gradual enough to respond in a timely manner. For instance, the nasty weather which is upon us now took several hours last night to materialize.

We always carry radios with us in the field. They come in quite handy for non-emergencies, and so far have only been used for such. When working by helicopter, either the helo shuts down and stays with us (“closed support”) or drops us off with the appropriate number of survival bags. Survival bags are large dry bags containing food rations, a stove, fuel, sleeping bags, a tent (I think), and a trashy novel. I may be missing something. It would have sucked to break into the survival bag on BOMZ yesterday. Skank was moving in at the hut as we set off for BOMZ, and we were slightly worried that we wouldn’t have been able to get back—not because of bad conditions at BOMZ, but because of bad conditions at the Hut. The most likely scenario, had that been the case, is that the helo would have taken us somewhere else—likely McMurdo. Which wouldn’t be the end of the world. Hot shower……

How do you keep warm?
No one asked me this, but I’ve decided to share anyway.
Layers. Yesterday, I had on two inner layers and two medium layers and then my windjacket. It was almost cold enough for me to switch to big red, though (the puffy red jacket—very warm). Hand warmers. We have boxes of those hand warmer packets that you just open and expose to air and then stuff in your gloves. I find these very, very helpful. I generally wear some windstopper gloves which I purchased myself in the States under an issued mitten shell, so that I can pull off the shell when I have to do detail work like pushing buttons or screwing or unscrewing things. I put the handwarmers inside my gloves, and pull my fingers in when they get particularly cold—like when I get skidoo thumb. Handwarmers good. Like I’ve mentioned previously, the skidoos have heated handles, and that helps, too.

My toes also tend to get cold. I commonly reach a point while out in the field where I become somewhat useless. It’s my cold point. My fingers are cold, my toes are cold, I’m a little hungry, I’ve finished a task and am no longer engaged, and I’m ready to go. I move more slowly, and motivation goes down the toilet. I tried wearing toe warmers yesterday to prevent, or at least postpone this. I didn’t feel the warmth of the toe warmers, but I didn’t have cold toes, either. Still, I was ready to be done sledging. Luckily, we’re never out in the field that long. Out for a few hours, back in to heat up and get some food and beverage.

At night, we take a hottie to bed. Yeah, no, I wish—not that kind of hottie. (Bridget said, before I left, “You’re sleeping in a tent? How are you going to stay warm? You’re going to have to hook up with someone.”). Our hotties are hot water bottles: put very hot water in a Nalgene, stick the Nalgene inside an insulating cover, and you’re good to go. If it’s not so cold, leave the bottle in the insulation. If it’s particularly chilly, like it was last night, take it out. Wear a hat to bed. I also have taken to wearing one of those eye masks that they give you in airplanes (I saved mine from the flight to Aukland), which helps me get to sleep in the 24 hours of daylight (is it still daylight, if it’s during the night? Is it even the night, if the sun is still shining?). I never thought I’d actually use one of those goofy things, but it’s just like a lights out. Time to go to sleep. It’s a good way to trick my brain.
[Glorious picture of me in sleep mode was accidentally recorded as a movie, and is not currently available.]

Plus, I’m sure it looks awesome. Which brings me to my next topic.
Beth, how do you still look so attractive while doing field work in Antarctica?
Some would say it’s not showering, some would say it’s the sexy goggles, some would say it’s the puffy coat or chic blue boots or the greasy hair or acne. I think it’s the snot bubbles.

Unsolicited commentary:
Ricky Martin

What is it about Ricky, anyway?

I love him. Or, I thought I did.
I found this tape for $5 Kiwi (about $2.50 US) in the store at Scott Base, and was immediately thrilled. Good thing I brought my walkman. The tape’s got all the best—“Livin’ la Vida Loca,” “She Bangs,” “Shake Your Bon Bon” (‘I wanna be your lover, You’re only latin lover’), “Cup of Life,” AND a version of “Maria.” Not only that, but it comes with all the words.

I was very excited about listening to this tape. I loved that Ricky, propped up on my spare wind pants, was just about the last thing I saw every night. It cracked me up. Ricky in Antarctica. The night finally came when I found some AA batteries and could get some sound out of the old walkman. I got all fired up when I heard the beginning of “Maria,” and was ready to start busting a move in my tent. It’s kind of hard to bust a move in a mummy bag, though, and it was too cold to get out. Then, as it turned out, the song was in English, and lost some of its charm. Also, as it turned out, all the songs inbetween the hits sounded like cheesy 80’s love tunes which were fine when I was listening to the radio in 5th grade and thought that was what love sounded like, but no so charming now that I’m old and wise. Or cynical.

I’m sorry, Ricky.

After listening to 1 ½ rounds of the tape, I decided I couldn’t listen to Ricky again for a while.

On a positive note, that was over a week ago, and I might be able to start listening to Ricky again soon. Until then, I’ll have to stick to Joan Baez, the Pixies, and the Beastie Boys. It’s all the same, anyway.

Check-in Dec 18, 2002

More cables, more cold, and the onset of wind.

December 18, 2002

Another day of Hut livin’. No helo scheduled until 2 PM, so we split in the morning to take care of various tasks: Nelia and Bill to the crater rim, where Nelia tied cables together and Bill worked on the camera permanently pointed towards the lava lake; RE (Rich Esser) and I spent another morning splicing and laying cable, which ended considerably short of our goal, and then connected batteries together for powering the monitoring site at Nausea Knob. Sarah and RK (Rich Karstens) held life together at the hut.

A word on laying cables. It’s not the worst task (piling rocks still takes it), and actually isn’t too bad when the cables are behaving and/or when working with another person. It’s not a task that any of us get excited about, though; most cable-laying tasks seem to require laying cable for long distances, on steep slopes. We’ve been currently working on laying cable from the crater rim to Nausea Knob, a task requiring about 2,000 ft worth of cable. Seems crazy. How can the cables even survive at the volcano’s surface, in this climate? Time will tell. Some cables have faired poorly in the past, either yielding to the elements (cold and wind) or to the volcano itself (Rich and I observed some burned-looking cable, apparently severed by a bomb). The newly-laid cables will be tied together—five cables total: two data cables for the infrared sensors, which will read crater lake temperatures (from the rim! Wow!), two power cables (one positive, one negative), and one mistake—and covered with rocks. Mmm, rocks….

I finished quite cold at Nausea, and ready to go to lunch. There was, as usual, a hot lunch waiting for us. No time for a nap today, afterwards, though. The helo came to pick up Bill to drop a sling load of batteries at MACZ, and then came to pick up Nelia, RE, RK, and I to go to BOMZ. BOMZ is reputedly windy, but when Phil and I went to do campaign GPS, it was lovely. Not the most exciting spot on the planet, but not bad. Today, it was windy. It sucked. Nelia put up solar panels, RE and RK disconnected and connected batteries, and I worked to install a single-frequency GPS system utilizing the existing campaign monument. Unfortunately, not much got installed. Problem number 1 was the monument: the monument was ill-suited to my antenna. Monuments on this mountain generally consist of a stainless still post (small—maybe 10 inches) with a mark on top epoxied into a hole drilled into bedrock. Unfortunately, there were two posts—the first was a mistake, probably drilled at too much of and angle, and the second was the established monument that I assume I was supposed to use. Unfortunately, the antenna is shaped such that it collided with the first monument, and with rock surrounding the monuments as well (the dual-frequency antennas ride higher). I decided to take a sledge hammer to the site. And partake in a little monument extraction. If this was a bad decision, I plead cold. Needless to say, the first post is now bent and in the Hut, to be added to our ‘museum,’ and the second has a not-so-natural, hammered away surrounding. Hopefully, the monument is still stable. Problem number 2 was that the cables on the GPS receiver are too short to reach both the GPS antenna and the radio antenna. So, the GPS and associated cables are still in their box, isolated from the world, weighted down with rocks to discourage destruction by the wind.

We were all ready to leave BOMZ. We sent the helo off with a sling load, and prayed for its return. Well, I hunkered down on my knees to protect myself from the wind, and RE thought it looked like I was praying. And I did want the helo to come back. (“Please let the helo come back for us,” I said. “Really, I’m a good kid.”) We all agreed it would not be at all in the least even a little bit pleasant to spend the night at BOMZ.

Back at the hut, the wind is picking up. From calm in the morning (less than 5 knots), we’re up to 15-20 knots. Snow’s moving outside. Nelia called McMurdo for weather, and when I looked at her inquisitively gave me the thumbs down. Sounds like a big storm’s moving in. Literally (whoosh). We’ve agreed that a day or two cooped up in storm wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Sarah’s been sick all along, RK’s just getting over a cold, and RE’s going down into one. The rest of us are tired. Good for us, bad for the McMurdo folks who are trying to get north for the holidays, and have already been delayed. Up here, we’ve agreed that two days of storm would be fine. Beyond that, we’d probably get antsy. Wish us (maybe bad and then) good weather.

Check-in Dec 17, 2002

The day went something like: Wake up, eat breakfast (fried egg, potatoes, bacon, English muffin, all real), go to the crater rim with Rich Esser to lay and splice cable. We were both very tired, and walked slowly. At one glorious moment, I lie on my back in the sun while waiting for Rich, and life was good. Not too cold, not windy. Slight breeze, thus sometimes chilly. When we ran out of cable, we hopped back on skidoos and cruised back to the hut for a late lunch. After lunch, I napped. Nelia came in and viewed my head on my hands, saying, “Beth, you look distraught.” I looked up sleepily. She suggested I take a nap before the helos came. I moved to the bench and lied down, and then I remember waking up to the sound of the helo and Nelia said, “Man, I swear you were asleep within 30 seconds of laying down.” “Yeah,” Rich added, “and snoring.”

Helo time took up the afternoon, from 4-6 PM. Three sling loads (net attached to bottom of helo) and one internal load (inside helo) to Ray’s Shoulder, one internal load to E1, one sling load to Nausea. This kept us pretty busy. I got to hook on one of the sling loads, which I described a few entries back, but this time it was to a 212, the bus not the racecar, and life under its belly was significantly windier. The pilot also hovered pretty low, making me wonder what I would do if he grounded out. No worries. There’s plenty of room under there.

In the loads, for those curious, were mostly batteries, battery boxes, solar panels and mounts, etc. Heavy things that we don’t want to skidoo to the sites. Oh, and I also executed my first real radio conversation, communicating with Rich Esser at E1. He said I did very well. (The first time, I had some mic keying issues. This time, I figured out the mic ahead of time.)

After helo-ing, we ate dinner (shrimp with angel hair pasta, and fresh salad) and watched “The Heist” on DVD, with blankets over the windows. I call no more last-shot theft movies. Yuck. Unless they’re incredibly clever.

The plume is straight up today, meaning there is no wind. It’s rising from the volcano, and then hanging out, not quite sure where to go so piling up on itself to the west in front of the sun. The sun, to rebel, turns bronze in the sulfur of the plume.

[Too late to catch the bronze, but still nice.]

Crater Day!

Work, and a little play.

Very tired. Very, very tired.
The weather up on Erebus was beautiful, but clouds blanketed everything beneath us, with just a bit of the Trans-Antarctics punching through as an island in the distance. By miracle, a helo was able to reach us to bring our Sarah back and to take away our Phil.

We were supposed to do some helo work, but the helo headed straight back to McMurdo, thanks to the weather, so we changed our plans.

Nelia, Rich, and I got to lay cable. The joys of cable laying. It could be nasty, but it wasn't--and it took us to the crater rim. By skidoo, and on foot. At the rim, we stopped and sat or, in Rich's case, lied on our bellies, looking down into the crater. Just looking, just appreciating. I think it's what we're supposed to do. Why do field work, if not to enjoy? Nelia worked on her own roll of cable, and Rich and I shared a less managable one, and I found myself laughing, and it was good. Nelia said it would be a good day for a Figure of 8.

The Figure of 8 is a rim-walk, cruising around both the main crater and a side crater and traversing 'The Septum,' a thin ridge inbetween. There was almost no wind, and very little plume, and the view into the crater was great.

I was tired. We came back for a late lunch, I went down immediately afterwards for a nap, and then awoke somewhat hoping we wouldn't go. I was tired.

But, when Bill was ready and the call to come was up, I of course had to hop on the wagon. Or the skidoo, as it were--with a fear of sleepwalking, and a fear of the Septum.

It turned out to be fine. It turned out to be splendid. My shaky blue boots were, at times, shaky, but Nelia cut me some bomber steps through the steep, snowy parts of the Septum, and the rest was cake. And, like she said, the Septum is incredible. After the semi-sketchy snowy part, the ridge is soft mud--very hydrothermally altered, and warm.

I need say nothing else other than around we went, with awesome views into the crater, and were treated to mostly clear views of the lava lake. And, I saw the glowing red for the first time. And, the volcano treated us to a display of red-hot bubbles. Small bubbles, but more frequent bubbles than Nelia's seen. She theorizes that Erebus is particularly quiet right now (few eruptions) because its system is so open, and not storing up gas, as evidenced by the frequent, small-scale bubbling.

We ended up not doing the full Figure-of-8 (we eliminated the side-crater), but no mind. An active volcano in our backyard.

[Getting started: Bill on the rim.]

[The Septum.]

[Steam riding up the crater wall.]

[Bill and Nelia enjoy the rim.]

[Steaming wall.]

[Lava lake! Zoomed in. Semi-obscured, but about as good as it gets; the red spot in the middle is a bubble. Hot lava.]

[Verner's, a smaller vent also containing a lava lake, and associated gas vents.]

[Steaming wall.]

[Time to head back; Bill and Nelia make their way across the rim.]

[View of the side crater, which we ditched for dinner. It's okay--Rich and I went most of the way up laying cable, anyway.]

Check-in Dec 15, 2002

[Parking at MACZ. Note approach--a bit steep.]

December 15, taken mostly from my journal:
Sunday is for sleeping in. It’s also for making up for bad Saturdays.

------------------------------------------------------
Starting late, sometime around 3, Phil and I headed to check on MACZ, then to pick up EAST, and, after a return trip to the hut to drop off equipment and have a cup of tea, HELZ. Back the first time around 5:15; the second time probably after 6:30. Beautiful day, as usual, and though my thumb was again painfully and frustratingly cold on the way to MACZ, the majority of the outing was fine and found me in a good mood. Very thin stripes of cloud, sometimes just one, across blue sky—somewhat surreal. Is the world still beautiful without my goggles on? Brighter, but still beautiful

Antarctica smells like ginger and lemon. No, maybe that’s just the smell of Sarah’s ointment which I’ve put around my nostrils.
--------------------------------------------------------

[Harry's Dream (ice tower, left) and EAST (GPS antenna, right).]

Check-in Dec 14: Grumpy