Week 2: Castle Rock Rescue

Cold, hungry, and stranded at Castle Rock: getting rescued by the SAR team and saying my final goodbyes to PistenBully 314. (Plus setting up a huddle test).

Saturday, November 12, 2022 started off as a day like any other. Avi, Alan, and I headed out to our test site to perform routine sensor testing.

At PASSCAL, we perform "huddle tests" of our seismic sensors once they're shipped down to Antarctica, which involves installing them at our Castle Rock test site and letting them run overnight. Then we check the data to make sure the sensors arrived intact and did not get damaged in the arduous shipping process (from Socorro, NM to Port Hueneme, CA, on a boat or plane through New Zealand, and finally arriving in McMurdo).

We gathered our equipment together to prepare for a huddle test of 8 Trillium Compact sensors (these are small, lightweight broadband seismometers) to support the GHOST project, which will also be going to Thwaites Glacier this season. I called ahead to reserve us a PistenBully and specifically requested my BFF, 314 (ahem, this is foreshadowing, let's keep this in mind for later).

I drove us out (uneventfully) to the test site in PistenBully 314. That's Alan in the back passenger cab.

We set up 8 dataloggers (the Centaur model) inside the Fish Hut and routed GPS cables outside through a small hole in the side of the hut. The GPS cables weren't very long, so we zip tied the antenna (antennae?) to the ladder.

GPS antennas on the ladder. Zip ties are an integral component of any Polar Field Engineer's toolkit.

We also moved some batteries from the system we had decommissioned earlier that week over to the Fish Hut to power our dataloggers and sensors. Since the huddle test would only be running for a day or two, we didn't need to bring any solar panels over; a few batteries would provide enough power.

A 75lb lead acid battery sitting in the snow where I had to drop it halfway to the hut because 75lbs is a darn heavy amount to carry for any distance.

We then dug a 2x8x2 ft trench to install the seismometers in. Each sensor is leveled with a bubble level and oriented towards true north using a compass. The compass needle points towards magnetic north, which is 140° off of true north down here in McMurdo.

Alan adding small shovels of snow to help me pack in the sensors as I leveled and oriented them while laying on the ground.

Alan and Avi gently covering the sensors in snow to bury them. The bamboo poles are there to help us know where to dig the sensors out.

Then we headed inside the Fish Hut to power on the dataloggers and make sure the sensors were connected and properly recording data. This involved working on a laptop in just our liner gloves, so we took turns to make sure no fingers got too cold.

I am plugging an ethernet cable into the back of the datalogger so we can talk to it with our laptop.

The nearly complete huddle test set up. The sensors and sensor cables still need to be buried in this photo.

I may have not emphasized enough, but it was extremely cold this day. The temperature back in McMurdo was -6°F (-21°C) with a wind chill of -20°F (-29°C), so you can bet that it was even colder out on the snow at Castle Rock.

My water iced up. Pro tip: store your water bottle upside down in the cold, so the mouth of your bottle stays unfrozen and you can still drink from it.

I ate a banana snack and left the peel on a table in the (unheated) Fish Hut. Not even 30min later, the peel had frozen solid. Here is Alan looking concerned and holding the peel.

At one point while installing the seismometers (see the picture of me laying on the very cold snow), we decided it might be prudent to turn on the PistenBully and sit in there to warm up. Well... I climbed in to turn it on and the low oil light, low battery light, and engine control error light were on. So I turned it off. Avi and Alan and I laughed about it, foolishly proclaiming that old PistenBullies sometimes have silly warning lights, and they would probably turn off the next time we tried to start it.

An hour or so later, Avi decided that he'd try to warm up the PistenBully again. Alan and I watched his face become increasingly concerned through the window, until he finally ran out and said "Alan, I need you for this". It turns out that the ignition switch was loose, so that turning the key would spin all the way around in a circle and never actually click. Avi had to hold the ignition with a screwdriver while Alan turned the key.

Avi holding the ignition still while Alan turned the key.

And when they finally got the key to turn, the engine refused to turn over. So we all decided to turn on the fuel heater (sometimes PistenBullies refuse to start when they are cold, so there's a handy way to pre-heat the fuel). After we'd let the fuel heat up, Avi tried to turn the engine over again. All the warning lights that I had seen were still on.... and PistenBully 314 was reporting -9258L of fuel.....

Something is not right here...

We were also very cold and hungry at this point and rapidly approaching our check in time. So we called in to Central Comms to report that our PistenBully wouldn't start, and Central Comms activated the Search-and-Rescue (SAR) team. While we waited for rescue, we split our remaining food: my last slice of cold pizza that we tore into 3 very sad, tiny pieces.

Thankfully, the SAR team arrived lickety split and loaded us up into the Hägglund (a faster, nicer version of a PistenBully). I mournfully waved back at 314 as we sped away.

Saying goodbye to 314 (for now?) and loading into the Hägglund. You can tell from the solid white background that the weather had gone from bad to worse.

Alan, Avi, and I made it back safely! PistenBully 314 cannot say the same, however, and will be towed back and taken into the Vehicle Maintenance Facility later. I appreciate this one last trip out to Castle Rock with him. 💕💕💕💕💕