Tag: Antarctica

Snow Petrel

daveweimer

 Miles Advanced: 54.2                                                                                                                                     Weather: Overcast, Wind-chill 8 Below                                                                                                             248 Miles From McMurdo

McLovin’ found my journal from last year. I’d shoved it behind the seat of the tractor and forgotten about it. Of course he read it, can’t blame him- I would have read it too. The first pages are clean and the handwriting orderly. But as you flip through, the words start getting bigger- they look like they’ve been written by a 3 year old. It appears that I’m writing the journal while driving and no longer completing sentences- just blurting out random thoughts. Here are a couple of my favorites:

‘Feels like driving across Kansas.’

‘I think we are going in circles.’

‘I have the slowest and stupidest tractor in fleet.’

‘Says his uncle was eaten by crocodile- he is full of sh*t.’

‘If this tractor were a dog, I would have kicked it by now.’

‘Can’t you go any faster Dave? “No a-hole, I can’t.”

‘He is about to receive a concussion of the brain.’

 

Miles Advanced: 55.8                                                                                                                                      Weather: Sunny, 5 Below Wind-Chill                                                                                                              Elevation: 197 ft.

Good miles, great conditions- a blue bird day. Since it’s the Lord’s Day and all, we were told that we’d get to stop our tractors a whole HOUR early! Oh man, yippee! Thank you Jesus! Unfortunately, that hour was taken away from us when we realized we needed to drain and fold fuel bladders. Ugh. That kinda stuff is usually not good for morale. I mean, if you dangle a banana in front of a monkey and then snatch it away from him- that monkey might bite your face off. And infect you with AIDS.  Just sayin’.

 

Miles Advanced: 34.4                                                                                                                                      Weather: Clear, -3 Below                                                                                                                              Location: Half-way Across Ice Shelf

In the middle of the Ross Ice Shelf, 337 miles from the coast, we saw a bird. A little white bird called a Snow Petrel, my favorite bird in Antarctica and one of the few species on the continent that doesn’t migrate north in the winter. That small bird was just flying around, by himself, in the middle of nowhere with nothing to eat but snow- amazing. I have never seen a Snow Petrel in McMurdo, so not sure where he’s travelled from.

Anyway, we stopped at 1:30pm at some fuel tanks that we have cached out here for Twin Otter pilots- the tanks are buried of course and we need to dig them out and re-berm them. Should be on the trail late tomorrow.

 

Miles Advanced: 41.5                                                                                                                                       Weather: Overcast, 13 Above                                                                                                                                Avg. Speed: 7.1mph

Below is a picture of a fuel tank. It doesn’t look that buried in the picture but mind you the tank rests on skis.

It took quite a bit of blading and a couple tractors to pull this puppy out. There are 8 tanks, all for emergency Twin Otter resupply, none of them had been used since we placed them out here a year ago.

After berming the tanks we made great time. We can now see the Transantarctic Mountains on the horizon.

Ricky Bobby

daveweimer

Miles Advanced: 64                                                                                                                                         Weather: Heatwave, 25 Degrees                                                                                                                         Location: 443 Miles from McMurdo, Nearing the Transantarctics

Can’t believe the conditions we are having this year- to good to be true. We are doubling the miles we made (outbound) last year.

One of our crew (we will call him Ricky Bobby) loves racing. He even took racing ‘classes’ and loves it so much, he has magazines, books, and even audiobooks on the subject. Now put Ricky Bobby out here in a tractor and guess what he’s going to do- he’s going to race. Ricky can’t drive straight, he’s got to be weaving in and out of other tractors and will often ‘draft’ behind a load and then ‘slingshot’ himself to the front of ‘the pack’. All of this is going on at a whopping six miles an hour. Mind you, other members of the crew don’t know they’re racing, all they see is some lunatic weaving and passing for no particular reason.

When asked on the radio, “Hey Ricky, what are you doing?” The reply is usually,” Shake n’ Bake!”

Miles Advanced: 62                                                                                                                                          Weather: Sunny Morning, then Overcast, 20 Degrees                                                                                       Elevation: 290 ft.

Happy Thanksgiving! All is well on the homefront. We started the night off with an appetizer of canned salmon and water crackers, then on to the entrée- a savory TV dinner of Tube Turkey and cranberry sauce. We topped the night off with a box of wine and an amazing dessert- pumpkin pie with the crusts burnt off. An absolutely breathtaking meal.

Below is a pic of the crew during lunch break- 10 person crew, only 8 in the picture.

Miles Advanced: 57.5                                                                                                                                                Total Mileage: 564.7                                                                                                                                        Weather: Overcast, 24 Degrees

We are at the halfway point! Yes!!!

We could see the rocky bases of the mountains today but the peaks are still shrouded in mist, bummer. I’m looking forward to seeing these mountains as they are pretty stunning and they give perspective on how far we’ve gone.

Took our first turn today, a left turn, and it was wonderful- used my blinker and everything.

We saw a visible crack in the snow but the radar didn’t show a void so we continued on across it without mishap. The crack was perpendicular to the trail and went for miles. We should be nearing the ‘Shoals’ area pretty soon. It’s another place with known crevasses, so we’ll see if it’s moved any from last year.

Camp 20

daveweimer

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.