Miles Advanced: 50.1 Weather: Ice Fog, 22 Degrees
We dropped off 3 snowmobiles and a few hundred gallons of fuel at Camp 20. Supposedly a plane is going to come grab that stuff and fly it somewhere important- I’m in the dark on this one.
We crossed the ‘Shoals’ without mishap. Dosinga drove the Prinoth while Terry read the radar.
Above: Prinoth with Ground Penetrating Radar.
They did find some crevasses- the biggest one being about three to four feet wide. All of them are about 20ft below the surface which is well within our parameters to cross.
Day 17
Miles Advanced: 58.1
Total Mileage: 672.5
Elevation: 425ft.
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 32 Degrees
Location: Base of Leverette Glacier
Finally, the weather has cleared and we can see the mountains- the massive glaciated peaks remind me of the Wrangle St. Alias Range in Eastern Alaska . We passed the Axel Heiberg, Scott, and Amundsen Glaciers which fall from thousands of feet from the Polar Plateau down to the Ross Ice Shelf .
We’ve made it to the base of the Leverette Glacier, we start ascending tomorrow.
Mechanics had to do an oil change on a couple of the tractors- the oil was cold, so it took awhile- in fact they’re still working on them as I type- its 9:30pm.
Miles Advanced:25.7
Elevation:1717ft.
Weather: Ice Fog, 5 Degrees
We have a fuel tank cached at the bottom of the Leverette Glacier for Twin Otter folks.
They seem to really like this tank because we had to pump an additional 1,317 gallons into it. This took some time and kinda crushed our mojo.
We were on glare ice at that point and had trouble getting the tractors going, they kept spinning out. Also our bladders were swinging wildly back and forth and the tractors wanted to follow the bladders, so we snaked up the hill, ever so slowly.
On the way up, the welds on a D-ring tore loose- and a bladder with 3,000 gallons of fuel was nearly run over. That would not have been fun.
Other than that, I’m running out of booze.
Beyond the Backyard 