Cape Evans excursion!!

Today was my day off and my whole shift planned a trip to cape evans. Cape evans is where Scotts hut is. Its about an hour and a half drive across the ice shelf on the other side of mt. erebus. IT was an awesome time, we ended up getting a Delta stuck because the sea ice is getting really soft at the shelf melts away, so this was probably one of the last trips out there for the season.













We saw some emperor penguins along the way as well. Scotts hut is the hut that Capt. Scott stayed in in 1908. He along with his expeditionary died on the way back from the south pole but the hut is in the exact conditon they left it in, and has been virtually untouched with dishes still out, so it was a real step back in time. It was cool to see all of the tools that they used back then. There was even a dead penguin on the table inside that stayed frozen over the years. Apparently they froze it back in 1908 with the hopes that they could revive it again in the future.

Here is a cool picture i got of the ice starting to crack. It was a pretty deep one and the ice is starting to break off alot.

Emperors at the runway

So here is a glimpse of the new C-130 flight crew getting ready for a flight. Just kidding but here are some of the pictures from the ice runway last shift when the Emperor Penguins invaded, this is considered one of our more serious calls we go on down here. Some of the better pictures from this trip. Other than work, not much is new around these parts, Im up all night tonight with flights coming in every hour till 7am so thats about it. Hope all of you have a good turkey day!!

Snow School!!!!

So I got back from snow school today. Its pretty much a class that teaches you about survival in the arctic envirnonment. Basically they dropped us off at our "site" yesterday around noon and then picked us up today. It was an absolute amazing time.


Our drop site was suppose to simulate being dropped into a field camp by helicopter. It was on the ice shelf right next to a big glacier so it made for amazing scenary.













Yesterday moring we spent going over some "tips and tricks" and then we were on our own. It was by far the most extreme camping ive ever done. THis was not a fire deptartment thing, but put on by the search and rescue so my group was only 2 other firefighters and then some scientists. We took the majority of the day setting up camp. Due to the harsh winds and blowing snow we built a wall in front of the area where we put our tents to block us from snow drifts.




We then set up a "kitchen area" and so on. we cut out a kitchen table which ended up being really cool for us to sit around.

I ended up digging out a snow cave and sleeping in that because we had some extra time. We were pretty far out of town so it was definatly a remote setting.

After our camp was set up we made dinner and spent the majority of the night sitting around getting to know eachother and boiling lots of snow. It was very interesting hearing the scientists talk about what they are doing down here. THere was a doctor from japan and another from new zealand and they were both doing scientific research. In all there were 20 of us in our group. Last night a pretty bad storm blew in so there were about 30 knot winds with snow wich made for an intersting time. Luckily this morning it cleared up and made for a beautiful morning to break down camp. By simulating being dropped into a field camp we had to also simulate being picked up so as a gorup we had to have all of our gear organized and ready to be lifted out by 9 am today. All in all I would definatly say I learned some new stuff about snow camping and this was one of the more benificial things I will do down here. Ill have to bring back some new tricks to try out on my dads annual snow campout this spring.

Sea Ice!!

So today I went on a trip way out on the sea ice to learn and study about ice cracks and pressure ridges. It was an awesome trip. It was about a 2 hour ride in a not so comfortable vehicle but it was well worth it in the end. We drove on the sea ice over to where the sea ice meets with the land and ice shelf and from there drilled holes to analyze cracks and measure the depth. Pressure ridges are kind of like plate tectonics on with ice.

The ice converges and pushes up making a ridge. The ice is very different when you get way out there and it has lots of blue colors that are really cool. On our first stop while we were talking we began hearing muffled noises which were actually pretty loud and it ended up being seals under the ice making noise. I also had the chance on this stop to stick my head in a hole that we had made and yes, the water really is cold.






From there we drove the the base of Mt. Erebus where we found many pressure ridges and large cracks along with a seal colony. It was really cool walking between the cracks and ridges. We us Ice axes to feel the ground so we new where all of the cracks were.


It really was amazing walking here around all of the pressure ridges. The terrain was so remote that it almost didnt seem real. In the particular area there were 4 giant rock formations coming our of the ice that made a square that was probably about a half mile across. What they are is the top of a volvano that is under the water and these formations are all that stick out.

Novemeber 11 continued

I forgot to say last night in the blog that Dianne Sawyer is here and will be doing good morning america live from here on monday so if you get a chance check it out monday morning.

Novemeber 11

An eventful night. Got a good workout in until about 8. At 8 I was interupted to here that there was a penguin down by the ice road. I quickly got my camera and headed down. Sure enough there was 1 Adelle penguin taking a nap by the road.

I guess that means the ice is starting to melt so hopefully we will see more in the near future. After that we all went over to gallaghers to have a drink, Only 1 though, we are working tommorow. At about 12 30am we had our 2nd dinner and then at 1 45 this morning myself and 3 others decided to go hike out to Hut Point to find some more penguins. You may think this would be dangerous but dont forget, it doesnt get dark out so all of these pictures were taken after midnight (crazy, i know) . It was a clear night but the wind picked out on the point so im guessing the windchill out there was close to 30 or 40 below tonight, so not much time to take pictures.

The sun was great tonight for pictures so here are a few from hut point looking at the ice runway town.

And one looking back at our town were we walked from:

Repeat pictures

So for those who have been following these are repeat pictures but i lost a couple of entries so sorry about that. For those who

havent seen them this is a few pictures of some recreation around this place.

Its a long way down!!

More Med-evacs

So were staying pretty busy. Ive been working most of my shifts on the ice runway lately but Its been busy. Today we had 14 hard stands for flights and had 2 med-evacs from the south pole. The altitude is very high there, and the weather is extreme there so 2 people had severe altitude sickness. During our hard stand for the c-17 (the big jet) I walked over and met some of the flight crew. One of the guys is a firefighter in Kent washington who was called back to the air force for active duty. We exchanged patches and talked for a bit, it was nice to have a connection like that so close to home. Im going to try to sneek a fleece on tommorows jet for him. He wont be coming back but hell be in New Zealand so i think the flight crew tommorow will get it to him. Nothing else is going on, Its warming up, today it was 10+. Its amazing how warm that actually feels.

The Sun was out and it made for an awesome view from the Ice. I realized today how important the sunglasses are. I had some goofy big ones on in the picture but i didnt where them for the first flight for the south pole med evac and i got a bit of snow blindness i think. Other than that its the same old news.

The picture below although not funny at the time had a somewhat funny story behind it. Heres an example of the difference between confined space rescue in Antarctica vs. back home. It was a very tight space and good tunnel and cave. It got pretty narrow in some spots:



The funny part was I know im gaining weight (19 pounds so far, but its good weight) because I had to work pretty hard to fit my but through some parts of the cave and tunnel. I never had trouble with tight spaces in the past but I realized once you start getting stuck the claustraphobia tries to kick in more.