Feliz Navidad de Antartida

Merry Christmas everyone!

We arrived back in McMurdo on Saturday December 19, after being at WAIS Divide for almost 5 weeks. One of the coolest things was being the only 2 passengers on board the LC-130 and being able to sit up in the cockpit with the flight crew. I have added a picture looking out the window. What a great view and what a difference a few weeks makes. The sea ice close to McM is breaking up which means that the chance to see seals, penguins, and whales has improved! If that’s not a reason to come back to McM I don’t know what is! Oh, actually I do…it’s to not have to sleep in a tent when it’s 0 degrees outside! That’s right, we’re back to civilization and in a dorm now where there will be no sleeping in tents. That is at least until we go out for day trips or a couple of night trips to work in the Dry Valleys or elsewhere on this lovely continent. So far it has been McM and the flat, white of WAIS. It will be very exciting to be able to get on a helicopter and get to work where it is more scenic.

Let me update you on the last couple of weeks here in Antarctica and mainly at WAIS. When I wrote previously I had told you about WAIS, what was going on there and some of the projects I had been working on. Since then, ICDS (Ice Core Drilling Services) began their drilling season and thus far have been very successful. They added a piece to the drill that enables them to pull out a larger ice core each time they drill. Another carpenter and I had to take apart and reassemble part of the catwalk above the 36 foot deep trench so the added part to the drill would fit and not hit anything. That was quite an assignment, but we got it done and it looked great. They had been averaging around 2.7 meters or so in previous seasons and now are getting ice cores around 3.2 meters long. This is all very exciting for the drillers and the ice core handlers. Pictures are attached showing the ice cores. They are about 1650 meters down into the ice and have gone back in time to about 8200 BC. They even got to a layer of volcanic ash. This layer was from a volcano which erupted about 7800 BC just east of WAIS and I have a picture showing where the ash layer is.

As for me, I was able to assist NICL (National Ice Core Laboratory) for a day. We brought up some ice cores from the basement they keep them in in the arch and got them ready for shipping back to Denver. It was actually quite a nerve racking experience as when all is said and done with the cores each one is going to be worth around $40,000! Can you believe it???!!! It was a very fluid and smooth process moving each individual core without having human hands ever touch them. What a fun time!

I also put some of my newly acquired carpentry skills to work and made a small bookshelf for the control room on the drill side of the arch, a small box-like platform for the NICL side to use to transfer ice cores, and also a small wooden instrument for NICL to use to draw straight lines in the ice cores. It was a daunting task as I was used to being someone’s assistant and seeing as how all of the other carpenters by this time had gone back to McM, and Eric was doing his own work, I was left alone to complete these tasks. In the end and with Eric’s support and confidence in me, they turned out great. They were only a few tears shed Another GA and I put our shoveling skills to use and we shoveled at least 500 pounds of hard snow and ice off of the top of a fan room outside the arch. Pictures of some of the things I built as well as the finished task of shoveling are added as well.

The last couple weeks were great at WAIS and it was bittersweet to come back to McM. The people there were wonderful, the food was great, and it was just a small family-like community where just like “Cheers”, everybody knew your name. But like a quote I came upon in a book I’m reading, I too am willing and able to live my life to the fullest and seek out new adventures whatever and wherever they may be. The quote is from “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer. “The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.”

Eric and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas,a healthy and Happy New 2010 and may you find and experience a new world of adventures in the year to come!


Love,
Erika

P.S. As I’m writing this there are huge snow flakes falling outside. I think we have a pretty good chance of having a white Christmas here!