Day 5

10/31/04
10:13 PM
Olympus Range, Mt. Boreas

So we’re in the field. This is day 5. I finally got a chance to warm this thing up. I guess it's Halloween. I wrote about the first few days by hand. I am starting to fall into the routine. Wake up at 8, eat breakfast, get warm, go out in the field, eat lunch, work until 7 or 8, eat dinner, go to bed.
I’m in the tent right now after a pretty good day. We now have a stove in our tent to help dry our wet clothes and warm things up before bed. It is a luxury. Those first few nights were brutal. The stove makes a huge difference. It is probably 70 or 80° at the top of our tent, while the floor is still at -5° F. We don’t have a tent floor. Our tents came from Marble Point, which is a small refueling and storage camp and apparently they forgot to check the tents for floors. So there is just snow and rocks beneath our cots with the tent sleeve between them as a floor. It’s actually not too bad.
The mornings are definitely the worst. It is so hard to get out of a warm sleeping bag to a freezing cold tent. There is frost everywhere inside – on the walls, on hanging socks, on sleeping bags, on pillows. But again, I’m getting used to it. So far I am satisfied. The cold sucks at times, but other times I don’t even notice it. I’m definitely getting tougher, both mentally and physically. Mentally is more important here. It actually feels pretty good. I feel as though I am doing something healthy for myself.
As ar as the science goes, things have been going slow. Yesterday, Adam and I found a continuous layer of fossil mosses in some lake deposits near our camp. He things they are over 14 million years old and indicate that there was a time period before then when climate conditions in the Dry Valleys were warm enough to allow the mosses to grow. We have been digging pits and trenches into hillsides to find the stuff and search for ash layers to obtain dates or glacial tills to obtain stratigraphic information. The first pit I dug yesterday had the mosses. We stopped immediately and sampled them. We started carefully brushing like archaeologists around the mosses and realized that they were continuous. We became less and less careful as our pit extended for over 20 meters. It was pretty incredible and very exciting. This is all unknown. I love science.
The digging part sucks, but at the same time, I am enjoying it. It makes me feel satisfied with myself, like I’m doing real work for a change. I am getting stronger at the same time.
Also getting pretty dirty with all of this digging. It’s been 6 days so far. I’m starting to smell, especially after the mountain climbing session the other day. Hair is pretty greasy.
Today was a relatively easy day. It was windy and there is still a lot of snow on the ground, so we couldn’t get much done out in the field. I dug a few trenches and then Adam sent me off to look for more lake deposits. I didn’t find any, but got a chance to walk a few miles away around the valley. It is beautiful out here. It was especially cold in the morning, considering the wind chill. It’s all relative at this point. No matter what the wind is doing, it is fucking cold. Dinner tonight was spanish rice. We ate early, like around 7. We had a few beers (after cooking them on the stove) and laughed a lot. Kate was drinking screwdrivers and Adam said something about Kate rubbing spanish rice all over her busom. It became a theme for the night. We decided that rice was way down on the list of things to rub on breasts. I said gravy was #4. They joked that my top 10 would all involve some sort of butter or butter product. We listened to Kenny Rogers and then I got my iPod for some James Brown. High spirits. And another day over. I’m getting pretty cold. It is amazing how much colder it gets when the sun goes down. Every night at about 10 PM it dips behind Mt. Boreas, each day a few minutes later. It looks like the battery on this thing will do better than I had imagined, so I will probably be able to write when I’m not too tired. Unfortunately, the solar power charging system isn’t working, so once I run out of juice, I’ll have to wait until we’ve got generators in Beacon Valley. It is going to be weird with 4 new people out here. Especially since two of them are Jim and Dave. I give it a week and then it will be just like it is with the four of us now. Maybe with a little less crudeness.


Camp. The tent in the foreground is the cooktent and the others are for sleeping. The pinkish one is mine (and Doug's). The mountain in the background is Mt. Aureas (sp). It is deceptively far away. The wooden boxes in front of the tent are the food/rock boxes.



I really like this picture of Mt. Boreas. The contrast with the blue sky is so crisp. It just towers over our camp.

Farewell civilization

10/25/04
8:02 pm

So this will be the last post for a while. I don’t know how long it will be. The one thing that I know for sure is that I will be out of contact until at least mid-December, possibly later. There is a small chance that I will return to McMurdo for a night to upload some data, and if that is the case, you will see a flurry of activity. I will bombard you with blog entries, emails and phone calls, even if it means I get no sleep. But my only reliable source of communication for the next two months will be the United States Postal Service.
We are headed out on two huey helicopters tomorrow morning at 8:45 for the Olympus Range in the Dry Valleys. We will be there for about two weeks and will then pick up camp and move to Beacon Valley, where we will spend the rest of the field season. No showers, no toilets, no laundry, no beds. Just rocks and ice, a few tents, good company and a bottle of jagermeister.
I love you all and I will be thinking about you out there. I will talk to you again soon.

This is a little map of the Ross Ice Shelf area and the Dry Valleys. I put little dots and numbers for where we're going to be. McMurdo (1), The Olympus Range (2) and Beacon Valley (somewhere near 3).



This is a landsat image of the Dry Valleys area. Click to make big.



My backyard for a month in Beacon Valley. That rock-covered, lobate, flowing kind of glacier-like thing on the right in the foreground is called Mullins Valley. That is my baby. That sweet little collection of rock and ice is why I'm here. I'm going to expose it repeatedly, drill it repeatedly and hit it with a sledgehammer, repeatedly.

This morning we had to load all of our gear onto a truck to bring it down to the helicopter pads. I was up in the truck securing the equipment as people threw it up to me. Doug had just thrown me the two big urine barrels that we will use in the field for the next two weeks. As the second one sailed through the air into my arms, Matt (my roommate, who just got a really nice camera and is learning how to use it) pulled out his camera and said "Dave, do something!".
This just came naturally:

A flashback to freshman year...

10/24/04
8:23 pm

So I slept for 13 hours last night. I woke up at around 11 this morning, feeling great. After I fell asleep, I was woken up again when Matt came into the room. He was just sitting there reading and then Byron showed up. He was tanked. I forgot to mention earlier that he kind of looks like Chong, of Cheech and Chong. I heard him banging into things and he started talking to Matt. It was pretty funny. He couldn’t really form coherent sentences. Slurring every other word. Matt said he grabbed a beer on his way to bed. I heard him come into the little nook where our beds are, stumbling and banging. He kind of stood there for a minute, I guess considering the task at hand – getting up into his bunk. He turned around and asked Matt for a blanket. Matt gave him one. He threw it up onto the bunk and then tried to climb up himself. I watched it unfold. He was kind of hanging there by both arms kicking his feet until he finally found the dresser next to the bed. With his foot planted he pushed up a little and managed to slide up onto the bare mattress a bit more. He then stayed in that position for around 10 seconds. I thought maybe he had passed out. Finally, he gave one more last ditch effort to get up and in the process swayed backwards. I thought he was going to fall for sure, possibly on me. But then I caught my last glimpse of his feet and I knew he had achieved his goal. There was some additional rustling and his gloves and a few papers came raining down between the bed and the wall. Then silence.
When I woke up this morning he was gone. I looked up on his bunk. Matt’s blanket was there, neatly folded at the foot of the bed – I guess he never managed to open it up. I went and sat down on the couch to watch the news for a little while and he came stumbling in with another case of beer. He started throwing it into the fridge. It was around 11 at that point. He grabbed two six packs and on his way out the door, turned to me and offered me a beer, something like “hey, you want one of these before I head down?” It was very tempting, but I declined, playing the “I don’t like to drink before breakfast” card. He said “breakfast, what the hell is that? I think I heard about that in a movie or something” and proceeded “down”. I chuckled.
Apparently they ran out of booze at the south pole station before the winter season was up. Byron was making up for lost time.
I went and had brunch with the crew and then went to Adam and Doug’s room to watch game 1. My feet were getting cold, so I went back up to my room to grab a pair of socks and I find Byron sitting on the couch with a plate of breakfast talking with Matt. As I walk in, Byron is in the middle of a tirade, “If you fuck her right, there outta be giblets when you’re done”. Matt started laughing. I headed out the door shaking my head. I wonder what Byron’s life has been like. I get the sense that there is a lot of misogyny and womanizing here, that Byron is not alone.
So anyway, we watched the first half of game 1 over a few Speights. Adam always says “Speight’s Gold” in this kind of half-pirate, half-mad-Kiwi kind of accent. It makes me laugh every time I hear it.
Doug and I decided that we wanted to get out and do something, so we tried to go bowling. There is a two lane bowling alley here that apparently dates back to the mid-50s. It is an antique, one of the few remaining manual pinsetter alleys on the planet. Adam was telling us that Brunswick (or whoever the bowling manufacture actually is) has repeatedly offered contracts to ship the lanes back to the US in exchange for a brand new bowling facility and quite a bit of money. But I guess it is kind of a landmark down here too. When Doug and I walked in, there were already like 12 people there bowling and they all kind of ignored or scowled at us. There were two men in short shorts and black and white horizontally striped socks at the end of the lanes operating the big metal pinsetters. It was actually kind of funny to watch them drop down every time the ball came through. The would roll it back and take care of the pins. Since there was no chance of us getting a lane, we headed back, picked up Adam and Kate and went over to the Coffee House for a game of Risk. We had scoped out the board games the night before and saw that they had two Risk sets. Both of them are from the late 50s. I imagine that there are quite a few games that have been around since the early days at McMurdo. I had never seen that version of Risk before. The board is square, but the map and territories are all the same. The pieces were little plastic roman numerals or kind of 3-D asterisks. We had a quick game and I ended up winning after a few hours. It was a lot of fun, and probably one of the most laid back Risk games I’ve ever played. We reconvened for dinner where we discussed our nicknames. Kate’s temporary name is bandicoot. She was banding food boxes the other day when Adam first called her that. It seemed fitting because she is kind of small and marsupial-like in nature. I can’t remember what Doug’s original nickname was supposed to be, but he was talking about changing it to Striker. I guess he was tired of Doug. He’s a funny dude. They had decided that I was The Duece because I’m Dave II after big Dave. So Doug and I are Striker and The Duece. We sound like a team of F-16 pilots or some Burt Reynolds wannabees. I can foresee some good times in the field with the shitbox (our field toilet) and my nickname being The Duece. Apparently if you do well in the field, you get a chance to sign the wall of fame in the cage, which among other things, has the toilet seat from the ‘98-99 field season, signed by those who made it on the wall.
After dinner, we kind of hung around, I got on a computer for a little while and then we watched Kill Bill II. Great movie.
I came back and Matt and I talked for about a half an hour, laughing about Byron and talking about what we would be doing in the field, rock climbing, and being 21, among other things. I’m really starting to like him. He’s a good person. He told me he’s been going to the science lectures and has really been out exploring McMurdo. I have a feeling I would be doing the same if I was stuck here for a little longer. Surprisingly, there’s always several activities or things to do here (at least during the summer). It’s important and I think they do a pretty good job of providing those options. There must be an entire office down here that plans and publicizes activities and other social gatherings.
OK, well tomorrow is another 6:45 AM morning. A few tasks to take care of, and then I need to pack everything I’ll need in the field and bring it down to the helo pads for loading.

thirsty?

10/23/04
10:40 PM

I’m back in my room after a short night of barhopping in Antarctica. After dinner, we went to the “non-smoking” bar called Galligher’s for a few beers. Speight’s Gold to be precise – a New Zealand brew, the self-titled “Three Star Beer”. We had a few rounds. Kate opted out and instead took shots of tequila “with training wheels”, meaning the bartender gave her a saltshaker and some lemon juice in a small cup. Limes haven't come in yet. We played some air hockey. I cleaned house. I love that game. I was perfectly happy there, but more people started to show up and it was getting crowded and noisy. I think it is more of a place for the workers to take off their carharts, drink beer and unwind. Adam looked uncomfortable. He suggested we leave to go to The Coffee House – one of the other three bars - a little coffee shop and wine bar. When we walked in I understood. It was more of the scientist crowd or at least the “high society” of McMurdo. At first, I was hesitant and felt a little uneasy. A lot of people drinking wine. It was in this little wooden halfpipe. I can’t remember the actual name of that particular type of building, but they're really warm and do well in harsh conditions. A band named Soup was playing there tonight. They were pretty bad. The started off with a Floyd cover and then moved into very slow, drawn out, crappy acoustic music. Ok, so it wasn’t that bad. During the first song, I kind of got lost in the moment. I forgot about everything else. Then after a few minutes, when I started thinking about where I was, it made me happy and I realized that for those people who live and work at McMurdo, this is all they have to get away for a night. It could have been any little bar in a small town, USA. Inside you couldn’t tell the difference. It is their way to feel normal, to forget about the bitter cold and lack of civilization for a few hours. The social dynamic was interesting as well. A lot of dudes. A few women.
Anyway. Soup. We ended up looking at the cheesy romantic novels on the bookcase next to us before their set was over. Adam left early. There was talk about getting another bottle of wine, but nothing ever came of it and we left early. I’m definitely with older people - nobody wants to stay up late.
At lunch yesterday, I left my parka on one of the community coat racks and when I went to pick it up, there were two coronas in one of the pockets. I threw them in the room fridge. Later that night when I got back from Crary I offered one to Matt. I pulled them out of the fridge to find that they were still warm. The fridge was unplugged and smelled like ass. We drank them anyway and talked for a little while.
Matt and I have two new roommates who just got in from the Pole. They had wintered there for over 7 months. The same three buildings, the same 70 people – for seven months. I can’t imagine. Last night when I got back, someone else’s stuff was in our room. At about 11:30, after I had gone to bed, I hear someone come into the room and climb up onto the bunk above me. When I woke up this morning, there was a scary looking dude on the couch putting on his boots. I looked up at his bed – no sheets and a briefcase as a pillow. Hardcore. His name is Byron.
I met the other new roommate this afternoon. His name is Donald. He is the chef from the South Pole station. We talked for about an hour. He is from Baltimore and was on a submarine for 20 years. He’s been all over the world. This was his third year in Antarctica, but he claims it is his last. During our conversation, he kept coming back to how much play he was going to get and how he couldn’t wait to get to Christchurch and Bangkok for the hookers. It was funny. I couldn’t tell how much was real and how much was stretched or just plain out false. Regardless, it was an entertaining conversation with an interesting person. We talked about crabs (the kind you eat), baseball, football, Antarctica, women, Tennessee (and the country line dancing bars), traveling and drinking among other things.
I saw two crab seals today. We stopped into Crary to fill out some paperwork, and from the second story computer lab, we could see a pair of seals on the sea ice, not too far from the base. They were just laying around, soaking up the sun. I wish we could have seen them up close. Apparently they knaw through cracks in the ice using their lower teeth to make a hole to squeeze through. And when they get older and their teeth are so worn down that they can no longer make holes, they die.
We took a walk down to Scott’s hut this afternoon. It was a beautiful day. The hut is in pristine condition, the same way that they left it in 1902. Crazy to think that over 100 years ago, people were already building permanent establishments down here. They came here in sailboats that could break through the sea ice in the late summer. There was a dead seal sitting outside the hut, lying on some scrap canvas that had been preserved by the cold. You could still see its whiskers and flippers. It was as if they had killed it yesterday. We couldn’t get inside because it was locked (we forgot to get the key before we left), but could peer in through the windows. Everything is just as it was when they left. Food, furs, sleds, tables, stoves, everything. A snapshot into the early days of Antarctic exploration. Not too far from the hut is Vince’s cross. Apparently one of the men drowned nearby, so they built a 6’ wooden cross for him on top of a small hill.
Donald said something earlier in the afternoon along the lines of “if all of this ice melted, you’d find bodies everywhere – people, dogs, horses, all sorts of animals”. He’s right. Who knows how many people and animals have just disappeared, fallen in crevasses or frozen to death over the past century. Nowadays, the chances are really slim, but before the days of radio and GPS, it was a serious risk.
So it turns out we couldn’t get the helicopter flights out to McMurdo until Tuesday. It sucks, but at least takes a little pressure off and gives us a weekday to take care of stuff like laundry and last phone calls. I have a feeling that we are going to get pretty bored tomorrow. At least we can watch the world series. And I can get one more post in before I'm cut off from communication.
I felt awful this morning and thought that I was coming down with the crud (how they refer to a cold around here). I was overtired and after a little nap before lunch, I felt even worse. I couldn’t eat much. I kept feeling like I was going to throw up. But after relaxing for a little while and talking with Donald, I felt much better. I forced fluids all day. Mom would be proud. We’ll see how I feel again tomorrow morning. I really hope I’m not sick. Maybe I just need a good night’s rest.
I started looking through one of Matt’s photo books earlier this afternoon. It was a collection of photos from the guy who took the famous National Geographic cover of the Afghan girl with the eyes. He is an incredible photographer (the book photographer, not Matt, although I haven't seen Matt's photos). And the material he was working with is equally as incredible. It made me feel very fortunate for what I have.
And then tonight Doug, Kate and Adam were bitching about Dave (their advisor) and the shitty social life as a grad student for at least an hour. I just sat there silent. It was really weird. I thought about getting up and leaving. They didn’t even look at me or make an attempt to include me in the conversation. At one point they acknowledged me and I spoke my mind. I told them that I had actively avoided the grad student social scene because of what they were doing. That is all grad students ever talk about, their conversations almost always devolve into bashing their advisors in some way or another. I told them that I understand why it happens, I’ve done it myself before - it is the one thing that they all have in common so it is very natural to talk about it, but that it gets old to sit there and listen to it. They agreed with me and continued to do it. Whatever. I’ll be there in a year. Maybe I’ll understand more then. It was just interesting to juxtapose a malnourished child in Nigeria with three, well-fed, whiney, educated Americans who have nothing better to do (or at least, no problems large enough) than to sit there and bash the man who pays them and got them to Antarctica in the first place. It seems very disrespectful. Maybe I’m just trying to criticize. Fuck. I don’t know. I’m going to bed.

A view of McMurdo station. The hut in the foreground is Scott's hut. They built it in 1902. Apparently it is the archetectural style used by Australian sheep herders and is ideal for blocking low sun and keeping a constant temperature within (because it is always in the shade)



Vince's cross.



A view from Crary at around 11:30 pm. A beautiful Antarctic sunset (about as low as the sun gets at this point in the year).

hungry?

10/22/04
8:48 PM

Another long day. Woke up again at 6:45 for breakfast and then had to go to a waste management and evironmental training class at 8. It turns out that we have to record every environmental disturbance that we create while in the Dry Valleys. That is going to be an incredible pain in the ass, considering that nearly every pit that we dig is considered a disturbance. And there will be many, many pits.
We spent the rest of the morning in the food pantry, figuring out what we are going to eat and drink for the next two months. It was really difficult and incredibly tedious. I finally see why Adam was dreading this part of the preparations. We had about 30 wooden crates, maybe 1’x2’x1.5’ that we had to fill. We had a sort of ad hoc system for boxes divided up into breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks and beverages. It is tough to think about cooking meals in the field for 8 people at a time on December 8th, when you don’t know everyone’s preferences or how much they will be eating. We settled on six main dishes for dinner. Chili, bean burritos, spaghetti, a mashed potato/stuffing/gravy/chicken/ground beef concoction, stir fry, and a rice dish. Then on day 7, we will have something special like steak or chicken patties. Then the cycle repeats. For the next 8 weeks. Not too bad for camp food.I was assigned to pack the chili and spaghetti boxes. I couldn’t believe how much food we are actually going to need. Granted, we will be working hard under cold conditions and burning calories, but even so. I gathered what I thought would be necessary to make a pretty hearty chili for 4 hungry people. Adam looked at it and told me to double it. When I kind of looked at him blankly for a second, he said, “just do it, you’ll understand when we get out there”. It took about 4 hours just to gather and pack all of the dry foods. Each box ended up weighing 50-60 pounds. The food pantry itself is worth writing about. It is filled with a lot more than I expected, from dehydrated green peppers to oreos. They tell you not to look at the expiration dates on anything down here. You see, the dry foods that come down here are usually bought directly from the source as surplus or rejected products, in bulk – dirt cheap. And they don’t throw them away for a few reasons - mainly because a very hungry person in the field will eat them at some point without thinking twice and because waste management is a big deal down here. I found out today that 68% of "waste" from Antarctica is recycled. By far the highest anywhere on the planet. I’ve heard that sometimes things will sit in the pantry for years. You’ll open up a box of Ritz crackers and then see that they “expired” in 1999. I guess it's just one more form of environmental conservation.
Anyway, we ate a huge lunch and then spent another few hours preparing boxes and filling a few coolers with frozen meats and veggies. We miscalculated a few things and ended up with 180 tortillas for two weeks. We have another appointment tomorrow morning to return 120 of them.
I can’t believe that I just got here on Monday. It has only been four days, but I feel as though I have been here for a few weeks, at least. We have packed so much into those 96 hours, it is really hard to believe. And the crazy thing is that I have been getting 7-8 hours of sleep every night. Maybe it is just the early starts.
We spent the rest of the afternoon in the BFC getting things ready and testing our equipment. Dinner tonight was a feast. King crab legs, prime rib, steak fries and mixed veggies. I had two full plates. And then a bowl of soft serve ice cream. I have been eating very seriously lately, trying to store some energy. I’m actually gaining weight, both muscle and fat, adding a little girth. I'm already up to around 178ish. The goal is to be 180 before we leave. The only thing that I am afraid of is that once we’re in the field, I will be this uncontrollable eating machine because my body is used to such a high caloric intake. Like my Uncle Dave used to say, "gotta feed the boiler". Adam has told us that we will probably be consuming 8000-9000 calories a day out there. It is amazing how much energy it takes to keep your body at 98.6°F. There’s a lot of water in there that has to be maintained at 80-90 degrees above the ambient tempearture. And Adam pointed out that I have the highest surface area to volume ratio of the group. Hence the name LankyPoobah. Actually, they say your core temperature usually drops a few degrees after being out in the field for a little while. That will be fun.
I keep forgetting to bring the cable for my digital camera when I come here. I will have more pictures soon.
I hope everyone is doing well. I have been thinking about you all.

A few thoughts about TV.

10/21/04
4:50 pm

TV down here is interesting. There’s probably about 8 channels total, some informational, one for sports, one news, and a few for movies. It is all through the military, or at least they are the same channels that are fed to ships in the Navy or the international military bases. There are no commercials. The breaks are all filled with public service announcements or propaganda. There are those ads telling you to stop smoking or stop drinking and that drugs are really bad for you. Doug made an interesting point about the anti-drug ads – they may be to get servicemen and women who are away from their families to pay more attention to keeping their kids back home off drugs. But then there are ads that are clearly propaganda. 30 second chronicles of the great things that the military is doing. How the missile defense laser system technology was used for laser eye surgery. Personal narratives by people in the military about why they love what they do. Chronicles of famous US military achievements on this day in history. A mini-documentary on the proud men and women who work at the ICBM silos in Wyoming “hopefully they will never actually fire their missile, but if the order comes, they will be ready” (that one particularly bothered me). A news break with a young sailor in uniform highlighting the lastest acheivements by forces in Iraq or Afghanistan.
I don't want to be inappropriately critical of the military, but it just seems like brainwashing to me. If you are constantly told that what the US military is doing is always good and just and the right thing for the world, and that is your main (only) source of news and information, then it is hard to believe otherwise. I understand that is essential to maintain morale and that it is important for servicemen/women to feel that what they are doing is important and the right thing, but it just seems wrong. I guess that is what propaganda is all about, and it is frighteningly effective.
Sorry, sometimes the idealist in me comes out and I can't help but share my thoughts.

And yes, the Red Sox are going to the World Series. I managed to catch bits and pieces of the games, sometimes even live. Only here it was already lunchtime on the next day. A little strange, but at the same time kind of cool. There are three TV's in the main hallway in the main building with dorms and the cafeteria. There were always groups of like 10-15 men in Carharts with full beards standing around watching the games - most of them pulling for the Red Sox.

Chris, it was epic. One to remember. I wish your boys the best of luck.

A night on the ice

10/20/04
9:24 pm

I just read through this one and some parts are a little crude. Sorry Mom.

So I’m back at McMurdo after two long days of “Snowcraft 1: Field Safety Training” (AKA Happy Camper Training School). I just showered for the first time since leaving NZ and it feels pretty good. I even powdered my feet. So tingly. Here’s what stands out in my mind from the past 48 hours:
Breakfast is served from 5:30-7:30 on weekdays, so we had to get up at 6:45 to go eat. We then sat around for a while and headed over to the SSC (Science Support Center or something) for class at 9. We had a little over an hour of class taught by a woman named Suz who was rocking a sort of female mullet. My first impression of her was one of these people who loves to talk about all of the outdoorsy type stuff they have done, “I was a NOLS leader for 16 years before I came here, but then I quit to hike the AT 5 times and then I lived in a lean-to in the Rockies for the next 3 summers, then I killed small deer with my bare hands to survive the winter, etc, etc”. But she knew her stuff. And in the end, I really got to like her a lot. Anyway, after the class, all 19 of us suited up in our ECW and boarded a delta. Now a delta is like a diesel cargo/people transporter, Antarctic style – with bigass monster truck wheels, probably about 4-5’ tall. At the right speed, the whole thing kind of gently rocks up and down a few times a second. It’s actually pretty fun. A quick stop at the cafeteria for lunches and we were off. We headed up the main road and over the mountains that makeup the backdrop for McMurdo. Background info time. So McMurdo is located on Ross Island, which is made up of two huge volcanoes, Mt. Erebus and Mt. Terror. The base is on a little peninsula that jets out into the Ross Ice Shelf. On the other side of the peninsula is the New Zealand station, Scott base. It is almost entirely made up of green buildings. We drove for about 20 minutes, and as we did, things got more and more white. The brown volcanic rock that is everywhere at McMurdo was gone. We pulled up to a little stop with two buildings in the middle of nowhere and the back door swung open. We were on about the flattest, whitest place that I have ever seen (the Ross ice shelf). We made our way to one of the buildings, the I-Hut, the equivalent of a blue Iroquois Long Cabin. Inside, we ate lunch and were briefed on what we would do for the afternoon. We leared how to use the stoves and then started walking toward “Snow Mound City” where we would spend the next 24 hours.
Snow Mound City is the spot where the Happy Camper Training School is held, so there were several generations of ice walls, igloos and quinzees (hollowed out snow mounds). We started the day by setting up two of the big yellow Scott tents and learning how to anchor them properly with “dead men” (a clever name for a buried weight). Then, all 19 of us made a huge pile of our sleeping kits and started to bury them with snow. After about 45 minutes of shoveling and patting, we completed our giant mound of snow, probably 8-9 feet tall and probably twice as wide over the pile of sleeping gear. After the snow had fully set, the other trip leader, Alan started digging out a hole and pulling out the bags. A few of us continued digging out the inside, leaving a nice warm shell of packed snow with a spacious interior. A home. Next we had to build two ice walls to shelter several smaller tents that we had set up earlier. We grabbed saws and shovels and started quarrying – yes, quarrying – blocks of snow, which were on average about 24”x12”x18” and weighed about 30 pounds each. Sawing the snow was a real bitch. The saw kept getting stuck and we would hit patches of ice all the time. Physical activity really gets your body heated up too. I had to strip down several times and was walking around comfortably in a long sleeve shirt at one point in 5°F weather. Underarmor is a godsend. I didn’t feel sweaty once, even though I know that I was sweating like crazy at times. As the blocks started to come out, some of us started building the wall. We laid out a roughly semicircular wall around 20-25 feet long, which involved some precision adjustments to the block shape and size. It was a beautiful thing. In the end, the wall was about 4’ high and took around 3, maybe even 4 hours to complete. We had several reject ice blocks leftover and some of us took the liberty of decorating our wall. They started making ice turrets or castle towers. I decided to take an alternate route. I grabbed an ice pick and began sculpting a 12” idol head that slightly resembled its larger relatives from Easter Island. I told people it would ward off would-be invaders. They really liked it and were impressed with my sculpting skills. I didn’t tell them that I had been professionally trained in Sculpture I, where I learned to make plaster dildos.
So we finished the wall at around 5:00, when Suz and Alan took off and left us to fend for ourselves. Some people set about constructing ice shelters or igloos while others build a little kitchen area with a counter. As the water was put on to boil, we all started gathering in the little “kitchen coliseum”. We had some hot cocoa and started telling stories and laughing a lot. Everyone was in high spirits. It had been a good day and we had all worked together to set up camp so a bond had already been formed. As more water was heated, we broke out the dinner packets. I ended up with Sierra chicken. Inside was pasta, dehydrated chicken, a lot of red powder, some corn chunks and a “freshness packet”. I added some hot water, sealed it up and stuffed it in my parka for 5 minutes. It came out a little crunchy, but hot and somewhat tasty, so I wolfed it down with another cup of hot water. After dinner, Doug and I scoped out a place to sleep. We checked the older quinzees and igloos. It was like shopping for a new house. Some were too small, others had a tight entrance, others looked like they were about to cave in. We finally settled on what appeared to be a decent-sized quinzee and after a few issues with actually claiming sleeping bags, brought our stuff over and planted a flag, making it official.
A big group of us, warm, full and happy decided to go for a walk. We headed towards the Ice Falls, an incredible display of crevasse-ridden blue glacial ice not too far from our camp. We walked a loop that was probably around 2 miles long and got a chance to see our surroundings. Along the way, we came across a 1/2” crack in the path that extended as far as we could see in both directions. Proof that the ground beneath us was very much alive and moving. While I enjoyed the walk, I was also getting extremely tired and burning much-needed calories. When we got back I was getting ready to go to bed and then had a half hour conversation with a guy named Josiah who is heading to the South Pole in a week. I felt like I was talking to Win. It was a good conversation, I haven’t had a chance to talk with anyone like that in a while. I took one last trip to the outhouse and crawled up inside the quinzee to join Doug and Kate. After some debate about sleeping arrangements and whether or not the three of us could even fit, we decided to try. I remember thinking, “I could sleep in one of the tents, but when else am I going to sleep inside a mound of snow?” We laid out our pads and bags and dove inside (well, climbed up) sequentially. I should mention that the roof of this particular quinzee was not very high, probably 3 feet above the sleeping platform in the center. The Interior was maybe 8 feet in diameter, so it was really tight. I’m glad I’m not claustrophobic. But one advantage is the smaller the space, the warmer it will be. We were really giggly. Overtired, cramped and excited at the same time. I was farting a lot. They call me “Shean”. After a 10 minute laughing session, Kate said something along the lines of “The Midnight Sun will make ya crazy”. And that was just one night. It’s hard to imagine what two months would be like. I was pretty cold at that point, since we had essentially been sitting around on ice for 20 minutes. I quickly threw off my boots and parka and climbed into my sleeping bag. It took another 15 minutes before I started to warm up, but I quickly fell asleep. After about a half hour, at like 11:15, Kate sat up and announced that she couldn’t do it and was leaving for one of the mountain tents. I took her spot. So she scurried off and Doug and I slept.
The next thing I know, it is 2 am and I have to pee like no other. I spent 15 minutes trying to decide whether or not to get up. I was so warm and cozy and I knew that if I got up it would be awful. The outhouse was like 50 yards from the hut and I would have to put on my ice cold boots and parka. I finally couldn’t take it any more and got out of my bag. It was freezing. I couldn’t get my boots on because the rubber was so cold and stiff, so I had to completely unlace them, all the while my feet are losing all of their heat. When I finally got them on I threw on my parka, spilling trail mix all over the entrance to the quinzee in the process, and ran to the outhouse to pee. At least it was light out (the sun never sets). Man did it feel good to pee. I ran back, cold as hell and reversed the process. I tried to munch on some chocolate and drink some water to help my body warm up. I climbed back in my bag and fortunately, most of my body heated up again within 15 minutes. But my feet were still cold. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get them warm and that is the way it was until 8 am the next morning. It probably didn’t help that the entrance to the quinzee was right in front of my feet. I tried massaging my feet, putting my parka over the bag down there, but nothing really worked. It was a little bit frustrating. I got some broken sleep, but woke up again at 6:30 with morning wood and having to pee again. I wish I had control over where the blood went in my body. I remember thinking, “Why the hell is warm blood in my penis and not in my feet?”. I finally got up at 8 and put on the ice cold gear again. It took a good 20 minutes before I started to warm up. It was pretty miserable. Oh and I forgot to mention that every time I tried to sit up in the quinzee, I hit my head on the ceiling and threatened its integrity, sending shards of ice and snow raining down into my jacket and sleeping bag. At one point, I was questioning whether I could make it through 6 weeks of this. At least we will have cots and good sleeping pads for our camp. Staying in a big yellow tent on a cot will be luxurious compared to the quinzee.
We had some hot cocoa and oatmeal to start the day. People were pretty tired and cold, but still happy. We had survived the night. We broke down camp and Alan showed up at 9. We made our way back to the I-Hut for the day 2 instruction.
We talked about planning and logistical issues of field camps, ate some lunch, and then did radio communication training. We learned how to use VHF radio to communicate as well as HF radio equipment that was surplus from Vietnam (seriously). Next was a white-out simulation. We had to don white buckets over our heads, and using only a rope, the 9 of us had to find one of our instructors who had “gotten lost in the storm” going to the bathroom. It was pretty tough and there was a lot of confusion, but we managed to do it, and according to him, we did a damn good job. My bucket fell off as I was bending over to help lift him. I caught a glimpse of everyone else in their buckets, we looked pretty ridiculous, it made me chuckle a little. Finally, we had to set up emergency camp using the basic survival gear that we are required to have with us at all times and did some mock simulations to deal with cases of hypothermia.
We were all pretty tired at the end of that, and were happy to return to McMurdo. The ride back was less quiet than I had hoped – one annoying girl kept talking to people. We had to sit through a helicopter safety training video and then learn how to buckle the seatbelts. Finally, Alan talked for a few minutes about the Dry Valleys and emphasized the importance of having a pee bottle. While in The Dry Valleys, there is a “leave no trace” policy – which means everything you take into the field, you take out (EVERYTHING). Even if it wasn’t for environmental reasons, I would have a pee bottle in the tent with me after the experience from last night. So much more practical than getting suited up to run 50 yards to a big, shit-filled pit in the ice to pee.
And then we were free. I got back here at around 3:30 and slept soundly until around 5:30 when I met everyone for dinner. After dinner we went back to the BFC to get some gear ready. I was loopy and farting a lot. Adam said he was originally worried that Kate would be the problem in the field, but now was concerned that it was me.

The delta.



Building the quinzee and one of the Scott tents.



Doug with one of the ice walls.



The artist.



A view of the camp. The big snow mound is the finished quinzee. I slept in that thing.



The Ice Falls. Pictures can't do them justice.



A view from inside the quinzee. Those are my feet.



The first signs of insanity begin to appear. (and that's ice in my nose, not snot)

One small step...

10/18/04
9:32 PM NZT

Well, I’m here. We arrived at McMurdo just before 4 pm. At the end of the flight, I started eating a turkey sandwich from my lunch pack and about 4 or 5 big bites in, they came on the PA to tell us we were on final approach for McMurdo. I had to scramble to finish so I could put on clothes. I wasn’t expecting the landing and then all of a sudden the wheels touched down and there was an intense rumbling – an ice runway. I managed to throw on my parka, gloves, hat, sunglasses – the works. They opened the door, but we had to wait for about 5 minutes for the bus to arrive. As I made my way to the door, I patted the door frame and then looked outside.
At that moment I became euphoric. I was on an ice sheet. The ground outside was packed snow with treadmarks – all very flat. There were a few people moving around. I walked down the three steps off the airplane and just stood there dumbfounded. Right there on the horizon was Mt. Erebus and all around me were white mountains rising in the distance just beyond the flattest, whitest landscape imaginable. I just started smiling and saying to myself “holy shit, this is Antarctica”. It wasn’t even that cold. It was 7°F when we arrived, clear blue sky, bright sun. It was gorgeous. In a relative sense, it was like one of those rare 75° days in autumn in Providence. We walked about 60 feet to a waiting “bus” on tank treads. The words “IVAN the terra- something” were written in white paint near the door. We all boarded and headed to McMurdo. It really is like a small town. There are vehicles driving up and down the streets, pedestrians going from building to building. Only everyone is wearing bigass red parkas and sunglasses.
We went through a few briefings at the NSF chalet at McMurdo where they gave us our room keys. I couldn’t pay attention because I was still so overwhelmed. I wanted to just say “Hold on already, can we just look outside for 10 minutes and then deal with the logistical crap?”.
We are all in building 155, the main community center. It really feels like a dorm, only filled with scruffy looking men and women ranging from early twenties to fifties and even sixties. The room is a quad, two sets of bunk beds. So far there are three of us. A guy named Matt from West Virginia, heading to Byrd Station in a week; and a guy named Rudy who was on our flight and is another scientist. It is a little awkward, so far, mostly because we have been getting settled. Adam and Doug are in a room together. After we checked into our rooms, Adam and I went to the housing people to try to switch my room to theirs. It would have required minimal effort, and apparently the housing people are notoriously lazy, so of course my request was denied, because “all beds were filled”.
Then we went to dinner. It was so reminiscent of the ratty. Cafeteria style, grab your tray, grab your food, keep moving, grab a table, get your drinks. It was great. And all free, which makes me happy. All you can eat, whenever. I guess they figure, if you’re here, we’re going to feed you right. Dinner was lamb and pork with potatoes, veggies, some salad and other things. It was actually pretty good. Apparently not finishing your food is heavily frowned upon, which is understandable. Not only are you wasting resources, but you’re also creating more waste in the process. Charles, I think I’ll suggest the pocket rule to the cafeteria manager.
So we ate a lot of food. I was really hungry – I think my appetite is continually growing from all of this traveling. And…the best part, they have soft serve ice cream. So wonderful.
It was really interesting to observe the social dynamic. There were definitely a lot of people there who looked like blue collar workers. Electricians, carpenters, plumbers, maintence guys, etc. There were also many women, although a lot of them were “claimed” by men. We must look like the uppity scientists to most of these people. Now I understand what Adam was talking about, and why Jim and Dave have talked about winning them over (especially the helo pilots). It seems like we shouldn’t have to do that to get things accomplished, but I guess that’s just the nature of the beast. Adam attributes it to Ratheon’s recent takeover of the USAP. I think he’s probably right.
So we finished dinner and headed out to the Berg Field Center (BFC) where all of our field equipment is stored in a big cage. There was a ton of crap in there. We found some sleeping gear for our training school tomorrow and loaded all of our bags into the cage. We got a chance to ride in a jacked-up monster truck-esque ford passenger van on the way to the BFC. They also have trucks here with these awesome tread things in each wheel well. They are like these little triangles of tread attached to each axle instead of wheels. Badass.
It is so weird to walk around at 8:00 pm when it constantly feels like late afternoon. I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but it is really strange. I’m glad we don’t have a window in our room. It’s going to be very disorienting at first in the field.
We went into the Crary Science Center to try to check email, but couldn’t get on a computer because they were making a call to the ISS. While that was very interesting, and on any other day, I would definitely have stuck around, today was an exception. We came back here and I finally got a chance to gather my thoughts and unpack some stuff.
And now I’m writing this, tired as all hell. I can’t even do justice to all of my thoughts and emotions during that first half hour after landing. I will never forget stepping off of that airplane. Surreal.

The view from Ivan the Terra-bus of the C-17 on the ice runway being unloaded.

The second best plane ride ever (behind the Vomit Comet)

10/18/04
2:38 PM NZT

I just saw it for the first time. Unreal. A vast, uneven sea of white. You wouldn’t even see the hills and valleys, well I guess they’re not really hills and valleys, more like blocks of ice and mountains, if it wasn’t for the low sun. Just white, everywhere.
I’m sitting, calmly, in the belly of the biggest beast I’ve ever climbed into. We’re on the left side of the C-17, inside the cargo area. Four feet in front of me is a huge wooden crate, probably 6’x6’ with “TOP LOAD ONLY” stenciled in red spraypaint on one panel and “MADE IN CANADA” in black on the other. A series of shiny brass chains of varying gauge crisscross everywhere as if Houdini himself were locked inside. The cargo bay is probably 25 feet in diameter and the cargo doesn’t even come close to filling the space. All along the ceiling are exposed wires, cables, pulleys, ducts, pipes and other miscellaneous airplane guts attached to bare, white insulation. I’m sitting next to two guys, probably in their late 20’s or early 30’s in camo. This seems very routine to them. A job.
Just ten minutes ago, I got up to go to the bathroom. It was occupied so I found one of maybe 6 total windows in the cargo area and tried to find something distinguishable. At first it was just white and I figured we were still high in the clouds. But then, looking towards the front of the airplane, I saw some shadows. I kind of gasped. Then smiled. The flight engineer or “Globemaster” as it says on his shoulder caught me peering out of the 6” porthole and offered me an upgrade to the flight deck. After climbing up a flight of stairs I found myself in the company of at least 6 other guys that I hadn’t seen before. And out the windows, seemingly everywhere, was Antarctica. I stood there for a minute in awe and then awkwardly tried to take a few pictures under the scrutiny of the pilots and navigators. It didn’t seem real. But now everything is getting much more real. Things really started to sink in thismorning at the CDC when we had to put on our ECW (extreme cold weather) gear. This was it. All of the talk, all of the planning, all of the drunken, false-humility and attempts to hide my excitement when telling people about the trip was thousands of miles away. I was on my way to Antarctica. Actually boarding and taking off just amplified everything. Just before takeoff, one of the crew came back and adjusted the “ADS Lock” panel (above my head) for the cargo pallet directly in front of us. After some fidgeting, he got a thumbs up from the Globemaster and I guess they were both satisfied. It was a little bit disconcerting when during taxi, that particular pallet shifted about 2” forward and aft as if it were on wheels. I guess it actually is. I took a minute to look at the floor when I was stretching. It is pretty incredible. There are a few bright engineers in the military. So the shifting was apparently normal, because none of them took notice, but then as the engines were throttled up for takeoff, streams (literally streams) of water started pouring off of several of the large wooden crates in front of us. I guess that was normal too. Of course, we had all stowed our bags and parkas just behind the large, shifting crate, so they bore the brunt of the waterfall. My bag was at the bottom.
So we’ve been in the air now for about 4 hours or so. The total flight time is supposed to be around 5. So close. They say that as soon as that door opens and you feel the first blast of -20°C air, that you realize what you’re getting yourself into. I’m pretty hot right now, so a little cool air would be nice.

OK, so I'm at McMurdo. I finally got connected to the internet this afternoon. A lot has happened in these past few days, and I've got some pictures and blog entries to prove it. The people that I am traveling with are Adam (our fearless leader, his 5th Antarctic season), Doug and Kate (second year grad students from BU). Here goes:

10/17/04
9:12 pm
Chirstchurch, NZ

Another long day. I woke up at 7 this morning at the Windsor hotel to bells over a PA and announcement from the front desk that breakfast was being served. My alarm clock was one hour late, so I stayed in bed. Doug knocked on my door at like 8:00 to tell me that they had all eaten and I should go. I ate alone and then met them at Starbucks for a cup of coffee. The church bells at the Christ Church of New Zealand were ringing nonstop. The walk/don’t walk signals here are funny. They have a little green walking man or a red standing man, but the noises they make are great. Kind of a danceable beat. We went to a little craft market thing and then headed back to the hotel to get ready to go to the CDC (Christchurch Distribution Center - basically a giant closet filled with Antarctic clothes). At the CDC we went through some training, listened to a guy tell us about clothes and then went in to try everything on. There was a lot of stuff.
I can’t believe I’m going to the south pole tomorrow. I tried everything on, and had to exchange about half of it because it didn’t fit. I was really concerned about everything fitting and Adam seemed very laid back about it. I guess he knows best. The boots are awesome. Big, white and heavy - they call them bunny boots. They have a pressure thing too. Kind of like reebok pumps, only for the entire shoe and for the purpose of preventing frostbite and not for dunking. It was more stressful than it should have been, mostly because I was on my own and I didn’t know what was necessary or how concerned I should be if something didn’t fit quite right. I think everything worked out ok in the end. I got a flu shot too, which was exciting. We went back to Christchurch for the afternoon and ate at a little pizza place. We had some good discussions about politics, drugs, people, anthropology, racism and past field seasons. Adam is full of stories. We walked around for a little while looking for a pool hall and finally found one that was open on our third try. It was a great place. The played DJ Shadow. There was also a piece of black, squished gum stuck to the red carpet that had a face carved into it – I couldn’t tell if it was purposely there or not. We laughed a lot and told crude stories.
Tomorrow we have to report to the CDC at 8:15. We are on the C-17 which is supposedly the nicest, fastest jet with the most cargo room of the four that fly people to the ice. The entire flight manifest is NSF grantees, while the other flight (on the slightly smaller, less comfortable plane) is entirely RPSC (Raytheon Polar Service Company - a subdivision of Ratheon that handles all of the US Antarctic Program logistics) employees. I guess we are like business class.

Stop #3

I'm in Christchurch New Zealand right now. We've got a few hours before we have to report to the Christchurch Distribution Center (CDC) at the airport to get our cold weather gear and hear the plans for tomorrow. If all goes according to plan, I'll be on a Hercules C-130 (big, slow, military cargo plane), decked out in all of my cold weather gear, at 6 am tomorrow morning on my way to McMurdo. But the chances of that actually happening are pretty slim. I think that people usually experience an average of two cancellations before they get down there.
WE arrived in Christchurch at around 11 yesterday morning after a long, grueling day of traveling. Boston to LA to Auckland to Christchurch. All in all, over 20 hours on an airplane.
No terribly exciting stories so far. Yesterday we explored the city. It is beautiful here and the Kiwis are so hospitable and are generally nice people. We're staying at a little bed and breakfast hotel. There are tea rooms open 24 hours a day. I feel surprisingly comfortable - it doesn't really feel like a foreign country. People just drive on the wrong side of the road and talk funny. We spent the rest of the afternoon at a huge botanical garden a few blocks from our hotel. Some of the trees were unbelievable, like 25 feet across at the base. I have some great pictures and I'll try to throw some up here soon. They sure love their rugby here. Paraphernalia everywhere.
I'm having a great time with the team (Adam, Doug and Kate) so far. We are starting to get to know each other and are laughing a lot. Last night over dinner we discussed our idiosyncrasies and phobias. I disclosed my strange habit of eating frozen mixed vegetables, frozen. They agreed - that is strange.
Anyway, the clock is ticking in the internet cafe. I'll write again soon with updates.
I love you all.
-d

The First Post

Here it is. I'm still in Providence. A little overwhelmed. I am not packed. I have no sunglasses. I need to go to Seekonk and Warwick before 5. And I'm sitting in my office writing this post.

I'm leaving for Boston tomorrow at 10. Flight leaves at 3:45 out of Logan for LAX. Next post should come from New Zealand. Yep.