30 March, 2011
From Byrd Polar Research Center - Research Wiki
We woke up at 4:30 am to take the military bus at 5am up to Scotia, at the National Air guard. The plane was scheduled to take off at 8am and that’s what happened. Right on time! We flew up to Goose bay in 3 hours, had a short ice cream break over there, and then went back on the plane for 3 more hours to get to Kangerlussuaq. We arrived at 5:30pm local time; it is still winter here, snow on the road, snow on black ridge, Greenlandic driving snow machines around and pretty cold temperature around 0F. It feels great to be back in Kanger.
Good news about the lunch/dinner situation, this year CPS crew has greatly improved their system; we have the choice between the pizza Rio, the Polar bear (Thai food) or La Cantina. So, after a good dinner at the polar bear, we had one hour meeting with Kathy, started at 7:30pm.
We went to check the gear in the warehouse in 532, depot looks good, and Kathy already put together a bunch of camping gear, which is great.
Concerning the TO flights: The Northlandair pilots are available for us between April 1st to April 5th. Two flights are scheduled, the first one will be prioritized with as many core boxes as possible and a 30 Gal drum, in case of 2nd flight cancellation. The second flight will depart with the rest of the core boxes and some drill parts like the generator... + maybe some food. Evan and Brian will each assist the pilots during one flight; this help is requested by the pilots and will permit us to know the situation at C prior to traverse. Bamboo flags and cargo straps will help us to secure the cache. During this time, I will start working on a connection between the GPS and the GPR.
Tomorrow schedule:
- Break down pallet with science + personal gear (Team)
- Check the depot from ACT-10+ identify needed items (Clem+Evan)
- Prepare 27 core boxes (4” tubes, black straps, foam) to go on the TO flight (Team)
- Identify drill part able to go on TO flight with core boxes (Terry)
- Sharing food in half, so it is ready to be ship if possible on the TO (Team)
- Localize and identify GPS + solar panels from UNAVCO, test gear (Clem)
- Work on Allocation list for camping gear, identify needed items, test stoves and other gear…(Brian + Evan)
That’s what we have so far, it’s now 10:50pm, darkness started around 9pm, unfortunately; it is too cloudy for Aurorae, hopefully tomorrow.