McMurdo Days 8-9: Will we make it to WAIS??

We have had a lot of discouraging information in the past few days regarding our field season.

The original plan was to fly to WAIS, a deep field camp, on Dec 15th, where we would take day-trips out to our seismic sites to repair them. Unfortunately, all the flights out to WAIS have been delayed. The camp opened 20 days late (setting a new record for the latest it has opened!), and all the science groups that were supposed to be heading out have been delayed as well.

The details here are that McMurdo does not have enough firefighters on station to support landing any US military aircraft. This was not a problem for the Italian flight I came in on, because the Italian military has different rules about the number of firefighters required for a plane to land. This is just a problem for US flights. So, the 3 US LC-130 flights that were scheduled to come in the same day my flight left were delayed until the US military granted them a waiver -- two of them landed last night, and the third will fly in next weekend (hopefully).

The waiver that was granted is only for "Life and Safety" flights though, which does not include science. The LC-130s will be making trips to get food to the South Pole station and refill fuel tanks at various camps. But they will not be taking us scientists out to WAIS.

We met with the NSF representative on station this morning to talk about what this means for our field season. There are pretty much three options:

1. We don't go to WAIS at all. This means we can't repair and get data from our stations.
2. We fly to WAIS on an LC-130 in early Jan. There are 6 firefighters in quarantine in NZ who won't get here until late-Dec. But once they do, they can support science flights to WAIS. This means we can take all our science cargo, but WAIS camp closes in mid-Jan, so we will only have a week or so to do our fieldwork.
3. We fly to WAIS in the next few weeks on a Basler. The Basler is a smaller plane, so we won't be able to take all our science cargo with us (this means we have to prioritize which stations we want to fix). However, we would have more time at WAIS this way.

Nothing is known for certain yet; we are getting more info by the day. It's hard not to feel discouraged about this, but uncertainty and delays seem to be the norm in the world of Polar travel. At the very least, we are hoping to get some field work done and set up our test site at Castle Rock.

Segue to happier news......... to set up our Castle Rock test site, we have to lug a bunch of equipment with us, so hiking it out there isn't feasible. Instead, we will take a mattrack! A mattrack is just a truck chassis with treads instead of wheels. My co-worker Avi and I got trained on them yesterday. The guy training us kept telling us to "speed up" and "give it more gas".

A mattrack!

The Mattrack training powerpoint. It included a lot of stories of these things catching on fire....

We had a crevasse safety training with our mountaineer, Rob. We practiced putting on harnesses and tying ourselves to a rope. Rob made some .......... creative .......... artwork to illustrate his main points.

[rob's art]

When we are out in the field in a crevassed area (if we make it out this season...), our field team of 6 will tie three people to two separate ropes. We will be spaced 8-10m apart (or more, depending on the widths of crevasses in the region. The idea is that if one person falls in, the other two are standing on safe ground. They will then work together to fasten an anchor in the snow and pull the third person up.

Tuesday (day 8) was a member of our field team's birthday (Peter). Erica (also on my field team) and I went to the craft room in McMurdo and wrapped 3 boxes of Lacroix very elaborately for a birthday surprise. The Lacroix here was rationed for a while. It is a popular resource. And a good birthday present, I hope.

We invited our field team and a few other people to hang out in the McMurdo coffee house (currently not selling coffee because of COVID level reasons, but it is a great hangout spot) and we played Telestrations for Peter's birthday bash. It was a ton of fun.

The birthday tower is 90s-themed because that was the age of all the stickers in the craft room.

Speaking of COVID levels... I don't think I've mentioned them before, but we are wearing masks in McMurdo. There are 4 COVID levels:

1. Red: There is an active COVID case on station. Everyone pretty much stays in their rooms except for really essential workers. People are assigned times to get their meals.
   
2. Yellow: Masks and social distancing required, the coffee house and bars aren't selling drinks (and have limited seating), and limited seating in the galley. If there are over 500 people on station, there is no seating in the galley and you have to eat your food in your room/office.
   
3. Blue: Masks still required, but no social distancing. This means the coffee house, bars, and galley have more seating.
4. Green: No restrictions! Everything is open!
   

We've been in Level Yellow up until yesterday.... AND NOW WE ARE IN LEVEL BLUE!!!! This has been a huge morale boost for the station. During lunch, the whole galley was full of people talking and sitting more than 2 people to a table. Science lectures and other events are back on! It's pretty fantastic.

And to end things, here are some pictures I took on my Hut Point Ridge hike yesterday.

Looking back down Hut Point Ridge loop trail.

Look at that seal!!!!!! So round!!!!!!!!! So cute!!!!!!!!!

Cape Armitage, one of the trails that goes out on the sea ice, has been officially closed for the season. Huge cracks are appearing in the sea ice as it starts to melt, making the trail no longer safe.

You can see some cracks in the sea ice. BONUS: 3 seals napping!!!!!!!!!!

3 radar domes on the ridge-line. They are used for weather forecasting and by some science groups to study the upper atmosphere.

Close-up of a radome.

That's all for now! Hopefully I'll have some good news about our field season soon. I am staying positive!!