Finally Flying

South Pole
Weather: -39.9F, Winds 6.7 Kn, Alt: 10,260, Cloudy w/400m visibility



Greetings all,

Finally, we got to seismic sites installed yesterday up on the plateau.

We left from the South Pole early yesterday morning. Myself and one team of scientist flew 600 miles via DC-3 (pictured above) and dropped-in and buried a site. The other team left S. Pole at the same time in a Twin Otter and flew appx 600 miles and did the same.
We spent about 2.5 hours on the ground installing the system. That entailed digging two 4x4x4-foot pits to bury the sensor and the recording box (excuse the non-scientific terms) and setting up a solar panel. At our sites the weather was -42F with winds at 22 kn. It was a circus-style, crazy day in the field. In total, it was a twelve hour day in the field and now we are waiting to fly to a site approximately 800 miles yonder. The weather here at the Pole is terrible but the weather at our site is awesome...catch-22 for sure!

We will start flying with two medical mountaineers per flight to speed up the ground time as we now will only be flying with the one Twin Otter airframe.

Ok, update on the AGAP high altitude camp (I almost forgot about that). We have had two LC-130 missions to camp and have fuel and two structures staged. Our camp crew arrived yesterday here at the Pole and we are all awaiting the next two flights up to camp to finish setting up the basic structures. We are hoping to fly up and be there by Wednesday. After acclimatization we will have just about three weeks to complete the camp and get out before weather and temps drops to -50F...not a pleasant place to be middle january!

Well, that's the latest news. Glad I am able to keep the DSP's coming while here at the Pole.

Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe..kristin reported ground temps in Divide, CO today of 1F...Global warming my ass!

Until next time...take care and be safe.

If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much space.

Tayloe