Antarctica 06-07

JAN 27th

2007-01-28T21:14:00.000-08:00

Well things are moving along smooth. Were down to 3 flights a day so things are laid back at the airfield now where I will hopefully spend the remaining 3 weeks at. The Palmer came in this morning. This is a research vessel that comes into port every year. The ice has been broken up enough so it made it all the way in. Before I went to work I walked out and took some pictures, it was a really nice morning. Things are winding down on station which is pretty nice.
Im starting to realize that my time left is limited and I will never be back here so im trying to get out and take more pictures now. Im at the airfield station today and we are done with flights for the day so I got bored and went out and moved all of our trucks for a photo opp in front of Mt. Erebus so theres a few pictures from that below. I think tonight myself and another guy out here are going to drive out to pegasus and see it because he has not been yet. Pegasus is an airplane that crashed here about 40 years ago and it takes about an hour across the shelf to see it. When it gets slow we tend to go on little adventures like that to take the time up. We will take one of the red 550's that are in the pictures below. Other than that nothin else is new. I look forward to seeing all of you in about a month.

Firehouse Expo!

2007-01-15T18:05:00.000-08:00

So we had our "open house" this past sunday. This event is basically for us to set up about 6 different stations and let the community come in and see that we are kind people and we do know what we are doing haha. My station was the rope rescue station so myself and another were demonstrating to the people how to ascend a rope and then switch midway and rappell down.

Towards the end I also demonstrated how to do a "pick off". A pick off is nessasary when someone is stuck whether it be from climbing or what not but basically they are stuck hanging on their rope. We as rescuers come in from either below or above and through a series of events end up with the stranded person hanging from our harness then we rappell down with them.

All in all the event was fun. It wasnt as big of a turn out as we would like but that was alright. We also had the upstairs smoked out and we were letting people crawl through it with all of our gear on so that was pretty cool for some of the townspeople. Other than that same old stuff, As of today i have 1 month left on the ice, from here I will be going to new zealand where I plan on renting a car with my friend and driving down to queenstown. Then I will be stopping in Hawaii and meeting up with my parents and Jill so that will be pretty exciting.

The countdown is almost ready to begin

2007-01-10T19:52:00.000-08:00

Well things are going to slow down here now. People (non firefighters) are beging to redeploy back home on January 16 up through fed 28th. The "polar Sea" is now in port, this is the coazst guard ice breaker that is breaking up the channel for fuel ship in front of Mcmurdo. It has been fun because there are about 100 people on that ship that are fairly close in age to us so we get to meet new people. I met a couple guys that want to trade fire shirts so that will work out. The picture above is the ship right in front of Mcmurdo breaking up the ice. We all were able to go tour it last night and it was actually pretty nice on the inside. The bar was about double capacity because they all could come into town and drink. The view is definatly changing because ever since ive been here everywhere around mcmurdo has been frozen ice, we even had our old runway on it and now that the ships are breaking it up we are actually realizing that its water.

Other than that nothing new is going on down here. Ive cut a little weight over the past few weeks, so well see if i gain it back, the food here is good and ther sure is alot of it.

Ill be heading to new zealand on feb. 16 and from there im not sure when ill be home exactly so i will be seeing you guys real soon!

Sunday

2007-01-07T04:04:00.000-08:00

Today was a good day. We had the rugby game this afternoon and after a great prime rib dinner and a nap, I took a hike again around midnight. The Oden, which is one of the ice breakers has come into port so its docked down at the ice. It was a great night to take a hike, the sun was shining and not a cloud in the sky. I happened to come across 68 adelle penguins so i ended up sitting with them for about an hour. It was my best penguin encounter yet. I was probably within 10 feet of them and they were all just napping and preening. It was very relaxing to just sit there by myself and watch them. Ive noticed that the adelles have a much better personality and tend to play more than the emperors. Its pretty funny to watch. Other than that it was just another day, only 40 left.

Early AM hike

2007-01-05T02:48:00.000-08:00

I took this at about 1:30 am last night, the sun was great for once.

So im out at the runway (williams field). We had a pretty good storm blow in today so they evacuated "ice town" at about 9 am this morning. We have just been watching movies out here and waiting for the storm to blow over. Last night at about 1 am we heard there were about 30 penguins at hut point so 5 of us hiked out there to see what we could find. We counted 33 in all and 2 seals trying to get out of the ice next to them. It was really windy but the sun was awesome last night. It was almost like a hlaf sunset with the clouds so it was pretty cool. The above photo is a picture of Mt. discovery. Its across the mcmurdo sound from where we are. We also saw a glimpse of the 2 ice breakers slowly making there way up the sound. Right now the suond in front of Mcmurdo is still ice so they are breaking a channel to get the ships in here.

This is a picture of the cross at hut point.

Happy New Years!

2007-01-01T00:37:00.000-08:00

So we had new years and I guess its 2007 now. It was acutally a fun day. It was yesterday for us and on new years eve day, we had what is known as Icestock. It was an all day event where they set up a big stage and had bands playing all day. There was also a chili cook off that was pretty cool. Out behind my doorm which is the main building here, they set up a stage and about 12 shipping containers and each department set up there booth for the chili in a container...ex. Heavy shops had one, janitors had one and so on. We had three guys from our firehouse play in the concert and they were actually one of the better bands. They did a few cover songs from
the goo goo dolls, dispatch and three doors down. All in all the day was fun. About dinner time we were all ready for bed but we took a quick nap and then headed over to the other side of the island to the kiwi base for the new years celebration.

It was a good time, they had a good turnout over there. After that about 4 of us caught a van back to mcmurdo and went over the the air guards doorm and hung out in their "bar". It was a really good time seeing that the pilots are some of the only people on station that like us haha. We had a good discussion over a few drinks about our rules for the landing scores. I dont know if ive talked about it but when the hercs land we have a binder with 1 through 10 on paper and we grade them based on a strict criteria. Grades are based on many things. If they land quick and taxi off quick they get higher scores and if they do "sight seeing" and fly over mcmurdo a bunch of times and make us wait they lose points. For the flgihts that get in after midnight the highest score they can get is a seven because that means we have to wake up for it. They can up their score buy holding the nose up for a long time on landing, landing with the cargo doors already open, whiting out the runways and taxiways by reving the throttles when taxing in, and landing with only 3 or 2 props, if they have engine failures. They get an automatic 10 if they land with an engine on fire though. Its actually a fun game and funny to watch them get mad in the cockpit if we give them a bad score. All in all it turned out alright. A huge storm blew in after midnight and it was a condition 1 storm today (which is the worst classification) when we went to work. That means everything is shut down. We had to come out to the airfield though to replace A shift so we were the only vehicles aloud out. Now I am here and hopefully we dont get stranded out here tommorow. someone left the window cracked in our big tank looking fire truck out here at the runway so we had to clean some snow out of the cab when we got out here. In storms like this if there is the slightest crack the craziest thing happens and it snows inside.

Home stretch

2006-12-21T16:17:00.001-08:00

Home stretch

2006-12-21T16:17:00.000-08:00

So things are getting interesting. I am still having a great time and seeing new things but there have been some issues with work. Last shift our chief along with some Lt's and firefighters resigned and at this time are on a 747 back to LA. It was for good reason due to issues with raytheon but its made things rough around here. There will be nobody coming to replace any of them so we find ourselves having to step up and make this place run for the next 2 months. Im not going to bring the blog down by getting into it but we dont have a chief and are losing firefighters each day. Other than that the weather has been great and it looks like it will be a white christmas. Things have been busy and ive been out at the runway alot so thats abuot all i have for now. Hope everyone has a good christmas and new years and ill post so more when something interesting happens.
heres a photo of the department right before everyone left who resigned, we had a little say goodbye thing.

Pressure Ridges

2006-12-10T00:17:00.000-08:00

At our new runway (Willy Field) its snow and not ice so the planes use there skies now instead of wheels.

So things are moving along. Were all moved into the new runway and operations are going as normal once again. Its actually a much better location than the sea ice runway with a better view. Im pretty sure making the drive out there in the morning is possibly the best morning commute I could ask for. It takes about 45 minutes to get there but its ok.

The sea ice is melting pretty quickly. I was down at the old runway the other day and there were some definate wet spots over the sea. The weather has been really warm this past week so thats been nice. Things are starting to become routine so im putting together a forcable entry class to teach in a couple weeks which has taken some time up.

I was lucky enough yesterday to go on a pressure ridge tour which was pretty cool. The pressure ridges are the area where the sea ice, ice shelf and land converge, and work somewhat like plate tectonics. This action creates big cracks and holes and moves the ice formations about 3 feet per day.
In the next picture you can see the pressure ridges from far away on one of the roads leading to the kiwi (new zealand) base. To the left is the ice shelf and to the right is the sea ice that has actual seawater about 10 feet under it.

The Big Move

2006-12-04T06:53:00.000-08:00

Everything seems to be going along alright at this point. We just finished moving the ice runway from its old location in front of mcmurdo to about 19 miles away on the ice shelf. THis is something that is done every year because the runway and "ice town" that I always write about is on top of "sea ice" which is frozen ocean. at this point in the year that sea ice is about 1 to 6 feet deep and is melting away so it cannot support the wait of the C-17s anymore. In about 2 weeks the old location will be water. It was a very complex operation to move. All of the buildings at the ice town are built on skies, incliding our station 2. It was about 20 hours of towing those buildings across the ice to the new location. We now are operating an airfield that is on "shelf ice" which is about 200 feet of ice and then 3 thousand feet of water under that. It never melts and can support as much weight as we need too. My shift fell on a day where we were actually moving the town so we were without a station for about 16 hours. I got stuck driving PH-2 from the old runway to the new one wich took about 3 hours but was an awesome trip. PH-2 is one of the very very large yellow fire trucks on the big tank wheels. It is very slow so I was quickly left in the dust. Once you get about 3 miles out you cannot see anything but ice so its very beautiful. Long story short it ended up breaking down on me about 10 miles out but thats a story ill finish when I get home. So now that the airfield move is done things are slowly returning to normal again. Other than that everything is same old same old.
I dont have any new pictures from the move but here are some from this past week:
The bird is called a Skua. they are just like seagulls but the adults have about a 5 to 6 foot wingspan and are very mean. They odd birds and constantly knock trays out of peoples hands if there is food.

This is one of the A- stars after doing a drop, flying over Mt. erebus. You can see the gasses coming up since it is an active volcano. The other helicopter that is on the ground is one of the 212's which is the other helo we use here.

Cape Evans excursion!!

2006-11-27T02:06:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-22T02:54:00.000-08:00

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!!!!

2006-11-17T23:29:00.000-08:00

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!!

2006-11-15T02:53:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-11T12:19:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-11T05:28:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-07T03:15:00.000-08:00

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

2006-11-06T02:00:00.000-08:00

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.

2006-10-31T00:00:00.000-08:00

Im having a great time with my camera I bought, it takes amazing photos:

So another day, another dollar. Im just at work right now and thought I would make an entry highlighting the firehouse.
Here is a veiw from the main road through town, looking at our firestation #1:

Its been a good day, it was a high of 15+ and no joke it felt amazing. No wind and sun, it was like a spring day back at home. Spent most of the day driving the engines around and doing area familiarization. Its taken alot of driving to get used to some of the roads here. Some are very narrow and combined with the ice and drop offs on them it can make the knuckles turn white. Its been a good time though. Also spent about 2 hours fixing and re-wiring an electrical cord reel that we use on the engines for lighting and other things. (so you know if I took the time to highlight that I fixed a cord, than it must be a very eventful day..)

Here is our T.V. room where we spend most of out time after 5pm, and on the right is our training room:

Here is my bedroom at the dorms:

Halloween!

2006-10-28T19:44:00.000-07:00

So things are going good. Funny story, as i was just typing this an older guy came in on a station tour and it turns out he used to be a firefighter in eugene, im not sure what he does down here but its a small world. Had a busy day at the ice runway 2 days ago.. I think we had like 5 departures and at 1am we had an inbound emergency so that increased the pucker factor a bit. An inbound C-130 sprung a gas leak and ended up landing on only 2 of 4 engines. In all reality they can do that but it was the first time weve been woken up there for an actuall emergency declared by a pilot.

We also had a med-evac again the other day so that was a change.

Heres a picture i took on one of our "hard stands" during a C-17 take off. We have about one of these a day land and take of with supplies and stuff. Thats the type of plane i flew down on as well:

So we had our halloween party last night which was a blast. There was a good turnout and that made it fun. I managed to get a flight suit so i was a flyboy. 2 of the guys on my shift dressed up as schoolgirls so that made for a funny time:

Heres a picture of what the ground looks like at our ice town/runway:

So many flights!

2006-10-24T05:02:00.000-07:00

So things are moving along. Ive been pulling most of my shifts down at the ice runway so that has been a pretty cool experience. now that the season is in full swing we have tones of flights coming in and going out.

The runway and small "town" down there are built on top of actually sea ice. There is about 12 feet of ice seperating us from the sea. Today we had 4 flights total. For each flight we do what is called a hard stand. We have two trucks down there with 3 guys on each. In a hard stand the plane radios in when it is 100 miles out and we head to our posts which are right next to the runway. This has been a great experience because ive been "officering" one of the trucks so its good experience with communications between us and the air control tower. We wait for the plane to land and then follow it through its taxi and onto the apron.

It is actually a really cool thing to see. The weather has been very clear and sunny so the view on the ice is great. Money cannot by the view we get on the ice. Behind us to the northeast is Mcmurdo and Mt. erebus, and out everywhere else is Lots of sea ice and mountain ranges in the distance.

A view of Mcmurdo from the ice runway:

First day at the ice runway

2006-10-19T16:03:00.000-07:00

So once again things are moving along. We got 7 new firefighters in on yesterdays flights so that is always good. I worked my first shfit at the ice runway yesterday. We drive down there in the morning for a 24 hour shift. Yesterday was the first official day the ice station was open this season. It was really cool. Its about a 10 minute drive out of town and its basically a tiny town on the frozen sea. Our fire trucks there are a bit different than the ones we use in town since we are driving on a sea of ice and they can get stuck. They were very fun to learn how to drive and its actually alot easier than it looks.

The runway is 2 miles long and made of compacted ice on top of the water. We had to drive out and standby for each flight that landed. I heard later in the season we do this alot with penguins that stand on the runway.

We also had a funny experience with a seal that didnt want to move off of the runway. We kept hurding it away but it owuld come back so in the end, myself and anouther firefighter sat out on the edge of the runway with this leapoard seal and made sure it didnt get in front of the plane. That made for a loud and cold experience. Luckily one of the guys in a different rig videotaped us the whole time we were doing this so that is one cool video. I have other pictures with me and the seal but i guess the NSF gets mad when theres pictures of us

Mid week update

2006-10-17T21:15:00.000-07:00

So everything is moving along. The 70's party was a hit. Ive worked a few shifts now and have figured things out a little better now. We ran 2 calls yesterday so not very busy. Tommorow I start my 2 week stint out at the airfield. Theres nothing new really going on but i have some new pictures so i thuoght id post them. Ive gotten to know two christchurch proffesional firefighters who were down here to train some of the kiwis at scott base and they are really cool. They were a riot at the 70's party. One has been on the job for 20+ years and the other about 15. they left today to go back to new zealand but he gave me his phone number and address and told me to call him when i come through in the spring. (Late summer for them) hopefully I can find a way to get a couple corvallis badges and shirts down here because they have been very hospitable and they wanted some shirts. Last night was the coldest its been since i have been here, I think it got to 45 below. We were unfortunate enough to get a call at midnight and have to stand out in it.

These are two of our in town fire engines. They resemble a typicle engine. Ill get some photos while im out at the airfield because that is where we use our really cool apparatus.

IM ON THE ICE

2006-10-12T00:51:00.000-07:00

After a very rough plane ride and ice landing I am here. It was so amazing seeing this continent from the plane for the first time. Words cannot describe how beautiful this place is. We landed around 3pm on the 11th, which would be 7pm on the tenth back in the states. Getting off of the plane and onto the ice was surreal. It was very shocking breathing in the air here for the first time. It was about 10 below on the ice runway so that made it extra fun. We were shuttled into town where we got our keys for our dorms and some other needed information. McMurdo station is built into the side of a hill. It overlooks the ross sea (ice shelf) which is what the runway is on. Its a small town but seems large when its 10 below and your walking across it. It is a very advanced town and i can enjoy all the same luxeries such as phone and internet which makes me forget that i am 15000 miles away.

Right now im just getting adjusted and moved in. The dorms are pretty nice and i share a room with 3 other firefighters. On our first night i met up with the other guys i havent seen since utah in july. THere were many stories to be told and it made for a great reunion at one of the 3 local bars here. One thing i will have to get used to is the fact that when we left the bar at 11pm the sun was up just behind the mountain range. Vary odd.

here is a picture i took outside gallagers at 11 30 pm. you can see the ice shelf and mountains in the background.

New Zealand

2006-10-12T00:35:00.000-07:00

I cant think of a better place to get stuck for 4 days.... New zealand has been absolutley great and FREE at the same time. We got boomeranged on our first attempt to the ice so we had to turn around four hours into the flight and come back but oh well. From the irish bars to the outdoors this place really is pretty cool.
W e ended up in a pretty nice hostel/appartment. It had four bedrooms with a common kitchen. We called it ikea, which was a good thinkg because it was all new. On our last night in new zeland we ended up going to our favorite pub called the bog. It happened to be open mic night and it was a blast drinking guiness and listening to irish jigs.
We met an older couple from Whales which turned out to be great. They were on the tale end of a pretty long vacation.
It was interesting talking to the husband who was about 60 and hearing about ther travels from whales to san fransisco to fiji ending up in christchurch.