What new and valuable skills have I learned this past week? How to dig holes in snow.
Since we are no longer going to WAIS, Avi and I have decided to spend some time really cleaning up the Castle Rock test site. This includes raising the solar panels, which have been buried under 6 years of snow accumulation. We hopped in a Mattrack and took Erica and Rob of the (then) POLENET team out to start digging on Monday.
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| Avi, Erica, and Rob, after about 30 min of digging. We were so naive and optimistic back then... little did we know how far we had to dig..... |
The four of us tackled three of the mostly-buried solar panels. The current PASSCAL standard is to mount solar panels on a 10-foot pole. However, the panels at Castle Rock are older than this standard, so we had no idea how far down we'd have to dig to reach the bottom of the pole.
After about 3 hours of pretty intense digging, we hadn't reached the bottom, and decided to head back in time for dinner.
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| Erica standing in the deepest hole (about 6ft down!) after 3hrs of digging. |
We decided to come back the next afternoon with more snacks, and an extra person (our friend from the galley who decided to help us dig on her only day off!). But things got off to a rough start...
When Avi and I checked out the Mattrack, we performed a routine inspection to make sure the glycol/oil/transmission fluid levels were adequate and that there were no loose bolts on the tracks. Unfortunately, we found a loose bolt. And because it was 1pm, everyone was on lunch break and we had to wait around to let someone know.
When we finally found someone, they told us we had to submit a formal service request. Which we did. Someone checked out the bolt and realized it was stripped, so it would be an even bigger fix. But then we had to wait some more for more people to come back from after-lunch meetings. Finally, the head of the VMF (Vehicle Maintenance Facility) gave us a call and told us we should be fine to drive out to Castle Rock, but we had to drop off the Mattrack to be repaired on our way back.
So after a 2 hour delay, we finally got on the road!
There's a huge icy patch on the drive up to Castle Rock, and the Mattrack spun out on our way up. It was a little scary, considering there are crevasses farther down one side of the hill. But we made it safe and sound, and more than ready to start digging.
About 2 hours in, Erica and Grace (galley friend) found the bottom of one of the solar panels!! Unfortunately, their hole was several feet deeper than the the other two, which did not make the rest of us optimistic. We dug a little more and then took pictures and packed up.
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| Me standing in the solar panel hole. It's about 8 feet deep! I got pretty warm while digging, so I'm not wearing any of my jackets in this picture. |
We dropped the Mattrack off at the VMF on our way back, as promised. Unfortunately, this means that all of the Mattracks are in the shop. The one Avi and I found the loose bolt on was the last functioning Mattrack on station.....
But there are plenty of weird vehicles around McMurdo, so the next time we go up to Castle Rock, we'll take a PistenBully instead!! You remember them. SO CUTE:
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| Here's a lil PistenBully with a snow plow on the front! We won't use one with a snow plow, but it will be just as adorable. |
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| There are so many switches/buttons/lights inside the PistenBully. Part of our training was to name what each switch/button/light means. Also weird about the PistenBully: there is no brake pedal! |
Yesterday (Wednesday), we took a break from digging to get trained on the PistenBully. And to figure out what to do with the news of the POLENET season cancellation.
As I mentioned in my previous post, most of the team is being sent home Monday. The PASSCAL folks (me and Avi) will probably stay until our original redeployment date of Feb 9. We have some work to do to prep for next season, and we have more cargo arriving on the vessel in late-Jan. This includes some nodes (all-in-one sensor + datalogger) that we will need to setup and charge.
We tried to go out to Castle Rock again today, but MacOps (McMurdo Operations / central communications) told us the wind speeds were too high for us to go safely. The wind is gusting around 40 knots (40-50 mph) today -- so I think that was definitely the right call!
I took a quick hike up Ob Hill at lunch today, and was a little worried about being blown off the top. I'm all safe and warm back in the office now!
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I took some pictures in the safety of a rock alcove. I am stylishly wearing my hat and neck gaiter on my head to try and prevent my glasses from blowing off! |
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| McMurdo from above! That's Hut Point sticking out behind town. |
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