I'm still here

Just a quick post to say that I am still in Golden and that the next planned trip is to American Samoa. That should be a great update, going from the frozen north to the tropics in the middle of the pacific.

More in the future.

I'm Home

After a long two months, I am home. I arrived home late on Thursday night after spending approximately 18 hours traveling from Kangerlussuaq to Golden. I will write more as soon as I have a few minutes to sit down and organize my thoughts and all of my gear. Thanks again for all of the support.

Cheers,

Mike O

Heading Home

I'm on my way home. Today I caught the LC-130 flight from Summit back to Kangerlussuaq. I am spending the next day and a half out at Kellyville resting and getting cleaned up prior to heading back to CONUS and home. In the 4 hours since we have been back, I have showered, done a load of laundry and eaten supper. I can't tell you how good it feels to be clean and have clean clothes. Tomorrow looks like a day full of repacking and organizing all of my ECW and gear back into a manageable pile of clothing. We need to be back down in kangerlussuaq by 2 pm for our pre flight bag drag. Then, from what I can gather from the folks down at the KISS building, we are on for a 7:15 am bag drag on Thursday. After that, it is Goose Bay, Albany, Chicago and home. I am planning on spending the next couple of weeks getting photos from all of the guy's on the ICECAPS team and putting together an album over at picasa showing all of the work we did. It has been an experience to say the least.

That is all for tonight, I will be writing at least one more post before I am home. Thanks again to everybody who has read this blog and has supported me over the past couple of months.

Cheers,

Mike O

Last Day at Summit

Here it is. It is my last day at Summit Camp. With the new flight period we had our second flight today. It was a Kanger-Summit-Thule-Kanger flight. The flight was designated a cargo flight which was supposed to take out a T-4 pallet. What is a T-4 pallet? It is four regular pallets attached together into one. This T-4 weighed in at 19,600 lbs.

Today's Load Master for the LC-130 was undergoing a qual test, so she was being asked to do lots of good stuff today. To start off, she had to do a Combat Drop of the 3 pallets they brought to us. A Combat Drop is where they shove the pallets out the back of the plane while it is still moving. After this fun, they had to load this monster 19,600 lbs load onto the plane and then take off. This was a lot of fun to watch. Even the regular crew on station have not seen anything like this. When the LC-130 was ready to leave, they goosed it all the way down to the end of the runway to turn around. Nobody could understand why they did it. When they came back on their take off run, they used every single inch of the skiway. The skiway is 2 miles long and they just got the main skis off of the snow surface as they crossed the end of the skiway flags. The photos are spectacular to see. I will try and get hold of them.

Where do I go from here? I will be in Kellyville for two nights and one day. This will allow me to take a shower and wash my clothes before heading back to CONUS on Thursday (CONtinental United States) . Then according to the plans, I should fly out on the rotator ANG flight on Thursday morning, catch a United flight at 5:30 pm back to Denver via Chicago. If all goes as planned, I should be home around 11 pm Thursday night, and the end of my adventure.

I want to thank everybody for their support and their emails. I am looking forward to seeing everybody in the coming weeks.

Cheers,

Mike O

New Flight Period

Today was the beginning of the new flight period. The ANG flys around Greenland for two weeks in and then spends two weeks at home in the States, then they repeat the process. Our first flight of the new flight period came in today. It was a DV flight. They spent a grand total of 1.75 hours on the ground here. They visited all of the science sites, including the MSF. Everybody on station was excited because it means that most of us are heading home sometime this flight period. I am scheduled out, I believe this to be correct, on the next flight from Kanger. This means I am a short timer. I am definitely at the point of being ready to head home.

The temps are relatively nice right now, in the 10 to -20 F range. I am ready for warmer temperatures and not crawling into a freezing sleeping bag. I also am not going to miss having to cover my head at night to keep the frost bite from attacking my head. I will take a photo of my boots frozen to the floor and how I have things set up in there. One of the fun things I have seen in the last few weeks is having my water bottle frozen solid first thing in the morning, even though I have hot water in it when I leave the Big House the previous night. There are times that it is really nice in the tent, like late mornings when it actually gets up into the 60-70 range in there. But since I am working during the day I don't get to spend that much time in there when it is that nice.

It is currently 0F 11 knots winds and -18 F windchill. I am wondering what I should do for the next 6 hours, since I usually don't go to bed until after midnight. This is the long time of each day, when time seems to crawl. At the beginning it was not as bad as it is now. This is one of the reasons I know that it is time for me to come home.

Seven Days and Counting

Memorial Day 2010

Memorial Day 2010, it has turned out to be a wonderful day for us here at Summit. The last couple of days were overcast and windy. All of the ant tracks were blown away and the sastrugi have gone from nothing to 2 foot in height in some areas. This morning I was removing the snow from the down wind side of my tent, just to let the sun shine in.

Now for some definitions:

ANG
The Air National Guard. The 109th squadron which flies the unique LC-130s that fly into the arctic and antarctic remote stations.

Ant Tracks
The paths made by multiple people in the snow between buildings. Usually following one makes walking easier.

Bag Drag
The act of showing up at the ANG to weigh in for for a flight. All checked luggage is taken, and all PAX are weighed with carry-on bags and ECW gear. The times change with little notice, but are rarely convenient.

Beaker
A scientist.

Big House
The main building at Summit Camp. It houses the dining hall and general use toilet and shower.

Boomerang
To turn back in mid-flight, usually due to bad weather at the landing site, or mechanical problems, especially ski issues with the LC-130s.

Carp
Short for Carpenter. Also the name of the Carpenter berthing building at Summit.

DNF
Do Not Freeze, a label applied to cargo that must not be allowed to sit outside.

DV

Distinguished Visitor, a person of some prominence down for a visit. DV is used in favor of the more common VIP.

ECW

Extreme Cold Weather, the label given to our protective clothing, from parkas and bunny boots, to bear claws, balaclavas, yazoo caps, et cetera.

Freshies
Common term for fresh fruit and vegetables.

Green House
The science and full time crew berthing building at Summit.

MSF
Mobile Science Facility. This is the newest building at Summit. Put into operation summer 2010.

PAX
Passengers.

PI
Principle Investigator, head of a science project.

Sastrugi
Sharp irregular groves in the snow surface carved by the wind. They are usually parallel to the prevailing wind.

Sun Dogs
The name for the two rainbows that appear on either side of the sun, approximately 23° away, caused by the refraction of light through suspended ice crystals. Frequently seen with displays of halos and other perihelical effects. They are occasionally visible in temperate latitudes, but more common in polar regions.

Tent City
This is a group of 20 tents setup at Summit for the use of summer personnel.

Traverse
The name given to any journey across the ICE more than several miles in length.

Week What?

I have come to remember something that I had forgotten a long time ago. Namely how easy it is to lose track of time when you are at a field station. Here it is Saturday night and I just realized that I have not updated my blog for almost a full week. Days blend together and the day of the week don't mean much. Everybody works 7 days a week, the only difference is that on Sundays the cook, Rosemary, doesn't cook. Everything else is the same.

Speaking of Rosemary, holy smoke, what a cook. Rosemary is a lady who really knows her way around the kitchen. She has not only fed us, but she has put out a menu that has been incredible. My wife said it the best way possible, "You changed locations and exchanged great accommodations for great food." That is the truth. In Kellyville, we were living off of frozen pizzas and frozen meals. Here we are treated to meals that are fabulous. We have fresh veggies every meal, we have meals that cater to every ethnic group. For example, this evening we had grilled lamp chops, vegetarian stir fry, caesar salad, butter carrots, small potatoes, fresh baked rolls and lemon squares for dessert. Today's lunch was chipote black bean pumpkin soup, regular salad, green chicken enchiladas, veggie enchiladas and corn bread. Every day has been a different culture and different styles of cooking. There is truth to the saying that summit has the best food in Greenland. This is a tribute to our cook for this phase, Rosemary.

Sunday Night

Well, here we are. It's the day off for everybody, except for the Beakers. What is a Beaker? A Beaker is somebody who shows up on station to do science. This reference comes from the muppets most lovable character Beaker. I have included a picture of what most of the beakers around here look like.

Like I said earlier, it is the day off for most of the staff. Beakers continue to work, why? Because that is all they know to do. For example, today we finished cleaning the MSF (Mobile Science Facility) and started putting in instruments. I spent some of the day under a large radar dish, which is being installed on the roof of MSF, helping put on a weather proof collar. I was laying on my stomach, while working underneath the dish. A little later in the day I was vacuuming the inside of the MSF in preparation for the instruments to start being assembled. Later in the afternoon I was unpacking some of my equipment and starting to put CAPABL together. It is never dull around here.

We are definitely starting the period when nobody is going to be sleeping much. We have a lot of work to do before we leave. Some added pressure comes from news that we are having a DV (Distinguished Visitor) showing up on the 3rd. We are pushing to have all of the equipment possible online and taking data before they show up.

The next post will deal with Food.......

Summit - First Day

Well, here we are at Summit Camp - at the summit of the Greenland Ice Cap (see the following website for more information http://www.summitcamp.org). It is a high altitude camp, physical altitude of just over 10,500 feet. The physiological altitude bounces as high as 11,000 feet if a good strong low comes over. There is 24 hour a day sunlight now, so we won't get to see the night time sky again until we head south in June.

I will answer some of the questions I have been getting from everybody:

1) How am I doing? I am doing ok, I felt the altitude sickness headache and decrease in appetite yesterday afternoon, but after 4 bottles of water, 8 advil and a good night sleep, I feel much better today.

2) How is the tent? It is a two layer tent called an Arctic Oven. I can say that it is a good tent, it kept me 30-40 deg warmer than it was outside. That means it was above 0 F in my tent. Good for sleeping and not good for electronics or drinks. When I got up this morning my water bottle was frozen solid.

3) How is the weather? Well, when we got here it was -15 F with wind chill of -37 F. It has been up and down since then. Today is warmer with -5 F temps and 10 knot winds. We have some clouds and some weather coming towards us with colder temps and high winds. It should be fun in the near future around here.

4) How do you sleep if the sun is up all the time? First of all the tent I am sleeping in is not dark inside. So if I want to sleep, I will be putting something over my head to make it dark. As long as I have some cold air to breathe, I will be fine. I just don't want to wake up in the middle of the night and see the bright sunshine, that just makes it harder for me to get back to sleep.

We did get started on our new building today. We had the help of the station personnel in putting in the window for our laser. It was a lot of work, but it is in. We might have the building ready to occupy in the next day or so. Then the real work starts.

I'll write more later.

Cheers.

Phase 2 - Summit

Phase two has begun. I made it to Summit today. The flight left Kangerlussuaq at 8:30 AM this morning. We landed at Summit Camp around 10:30 this morning. It is an adventure being back up at 10,600 feet. The weather when we got here was pretty nice, temperature -15 F, windchill -37 F, pressure 689.2 mb. All in all a nice day. I have attached a photo of my new accommodations, a little more austere than it was in Kellyville.

This phase will last until June 7th or so. I will be keeping everybody updated on our progress up here. Scroll to the bottom of this page to see my new home away from home.

Turn Around Flight

The excitement for today was that I made a turn around flight to Summit. I flew into Summit for a grand total of 30 minutes today. I made the flight so that I could see the new building that we will be working in starting next wednesday. I learned a few things and have started the ball rolling on having one design feature in the building changed. Lots of time in the air for a short amount of time on the ground.

I have posted a couple of photos from the flight over on the Picaso site.

End of 1st phase

Everybody shout hallelujah, the end of the 1st phase of the project is here. This afternoon we delivered CAPABL to the shipping department of the ANG to be pallatized and readied for shipment to Summit. There have been problems with the flight schedule due to a plane being down with mechanical problems. Because of that the flight from three days ago still has not taken place. They boomeranged yesterday with engine problems. They are in the air right now with the possibility of boomeranging again because of crosswinds at Summit. We shall see. I am still scheduled for a turn around flight tomorrow, but that depends on if the flight makes it today. As always, all of this depends on the weather cooperating.

One last note: Happy Birthday to my wonderful wife!!!

Three Weeks In

Wow, where did the last three weeks go. Here it is May 11th and I have been gone for three weeks. To tell the truth, I have been having a hard time remembering what day of the week it is and what the date is. Today is a great example of that. Last night (or should I say early this morning) I got to bed around 2:30 AM. This is a wee bit later than I had planned on, but within reason given the work I have been doing. The only problem was that I needed to get up at 8 AM to have a quick breakfast before heading into Kangerlussuaq for a meeting with a bunch of people who arrived on yesterday's ANG flight from NY. Running on 5.5 hours of sleep is ok for Ryan, but not for me.

So much has happened today, mostly planning for the next phase of the trip. Currently the plan is this: On Thursday the 13th we will be dismantling CAPABL and packing it up for the trip up to Summit. All of the gear (approx 1.5 tons of it) needs to be at the ANG staging warehouse in Kangerlussuaq by Friday noon. On Saturday, I am scheduled to fly up to Summit for a turn around flight. What this means is that I will fly up to Summit, get off of the plane for about 30 minutes, climb back on the plane and come back to Kangerlussuaq. Mostly this is for a hands on inspection of the work that is being done to the building that CAPABL is going to be installed in. I will be taking photos and measurements and notes on everything to talk to people about on Saturday night and Sunday. Then, on Monday the 17th, we are scheduled to shift our duty station to Summit for the rest of the trip. This is two days earlier than we had originally thought, but the scheduling people want to give us two chances to get up to Summit instead of one. It seems that the flight on the 19th that we were originally supposed to take is the last flight of this current flight period and if it doesn't go, we are stuck in Kangerlussuaq for another two weeks. This is something that we really don't want.

So, for the next week or so I will be busy working and flying around Greenland. This is so much fun......

It's been a week?

This is insane, I haven't written for a whole week? What have I been doing? Life around Kellyville has been going in fast forward, days blending together. Most of the time I have been working mornings (9 am until noon) with Ryan and then he heads off to bed. My afternoons have been spent working on my normal work back in Boulder and taking some time off to go hiking. Ryan gets up again around 9 pm and we work on the lasers until midnight when I head back to my room for my evening chat with my wife and daughter. I usually try and hit the sack around 1 am or so to get ready for the next day.

Weather wise, we have had everything from snow storms to days like today where I have the window in my room open to catch a breeze. On my hike yesterday I actually took off my jacket because it was so hot. I am concerned about heading up to Summit though, the temperatures are still hanging around -30 C and have not started to warm up significantly. We are 10 days from flying up there and the temps are still on the cold side.

Hiking in the area around Kellyville is fairly easy. You have a dozen or so large hills that are accessible to you to explore. Most take about 30-45 minutes to climb and the view from the tops are spectacular. I will post some of the photos over on the Picasa site later today. I am planning on taking a 1-2 hour hike this afternoon back towards the Fjord so I can take some more photos. I think everybody will enjoy them.

Please scroll to the bottom of this page to see a new photo that I took this evening.

First Day Off

Today has been an exciting day, it was our first real day off since we got to Kangerlussuaq. Besides sleeping in (for me at least) we took a tour of the area around the Russell Glacier. The Russell Glacier is about 25 km north of town and is very impressive. It towers over the glacier till by about 50-100 feet. To get to the glacier we crammed into one of the pickup trucks owned by SRI and headed to Kanger where we picked up two other people who were in town on another project. We then headed north along a dirt road that followed the river that flows down from the melting glacier. After about 20 km we got to the end of the road that is open to the general public. To get from the road into the glacier we had to hike in several miles to the base of it where we sat, ate and listened to it's popping and cracking as it slowly moves along. We were lucky to see a sizable chunk of ice fall off of it, but it was not as spectacular as you probably have seen on TV. I have set up an account over at picasa to share some of the photos I have taken so far on this trip. All I can say is it is fascinating sitting that close to the tongue of the glacier. All told, it took us about 6 hours to do all of this today. I would say it was a great day.

Wow, April 30

Here it is April 30th and I haven't posted in a couple of days. CAPABL is up and running at just about full capacity and we have several days worth of data that we have collected. So far everybody seems to be happy with the data and we are now starting on a data collection schedule that has Ryan working nights and my working days. My schedule is to wake up around 9:30 am and watch the system until around 5 - 6 pm. Then Ryan and I spend the next few hours talking about what needs to be done to the system. I then help him pull the system out of the building (depending on the weather) between 11 pm and midnight. At that point my day is done and I head back to my room to read and talk to my wife and daughter via skype. Most nights I am asleep by 1 am or so. It is not a bad schedule, but it is different.

Yesterday was the first day that we got away from the site and headed into Kangerlussuaq. We decided that we wanted to eat out, so we went to the Asian restaurant and got some takeout. I had a noodle dish and I hate to say it, well, I am paying for it today. I think I will be staying away from that place the rest of the time that I am here. While I am on the topic of food, one item of note: There is no ground beef here. It is ground Muskox. It has a different flavor and texture than beef, but it is not that bad. It is definitely an acquired taste. I will be heading to the store tomorrow and seeing what other foods they have on hand. They tell me that this is a bad time of year to be here, the regular supply flights have not started and the shelves will be a wee bit bare. We shall see.

First Light Through CAPABL

Last night was a banner night for us. After working for two days, CAPABL was wheeled outside and turned on for the first time here in Greenland. What is CAPABL you ask? Well, CAPABL stands for Cloud, Aerosol Polarization And Backscatter Lidar. This is the project that I am working on during this trip.

Saturday I worked mostly by myself putting CAPABL back together while Ryan was working on another system here at SRI (Sondrestrom Research Institute). Who is Ryan? I'm glad you asked. Ryan Neely is a PhD candidate that I am working with. He is gathering his thesis data with CAPABL. I have one thing to say about him, he doesn't sleep all that often, but when he sleeps, it's for 10-12 hours.

We got most of the work done on rebuilding CAPABL on Saturday, but we had the last bit of rough calibration to do on Sunday. We rolled it out of the building the first time around 9:30 pm, but it was still to light outside to do much work. We tried again at 11:30 and it was finally starting to darken enough so that we could see the laser beam. It was exciting to see that the rough calibration was good enough to start seeing some data coming in. The big question now is: how long will it take us to dial it in to get the high altitude data we want? Only time will tell.

Greenland is not very green

Greetings All,

After delays caused by Ash and leaking props, we finally made it into Kangerlussuaq. What a day it has been. We had bag drag at 5 am this morning in Schenectady and then onto the ANG base. The flight didn't make it off the ground until 8:45 am eastern. We had some problems with the plane that caused us to get off the plane so they could work on it. After a brief service call, we were allowed back on the plane and we took off for Goose Bay Newfoundland. We arrived right before 12 pm eastern, had the famous Ice Cream from the passenger lounge and headed back out to the plane. Unfortunately one of the other C-130's in our group had some problems. They were having prop problems. It was looking like for a while that we were going to unload the cargo from our plane and setup enough web seats for the passengers from the other C-130. As it turned out, they decided to continue on to Kangerlussuaq on three engines. All told, we were delayed over an hour there. When we finally made it into Kangerlussuaq it was almost 8 pm Greenland Local Time (for those of you keeping track that is Mountain Time +4 hours). Ryan and I made our contacts with the folks out at the station we will be working at for the next couple of weeks and grabbed our gear and headed out to the station. This should be fun.

We're a Go

It's a little after 4 pm Eastern, I just got the call, we are a go for tomorrow morning. The ANG has approved the flight and we have bag drag at 5 am tomorrow morning. For those of you who don't know, bag drag is the show up time so that they can weigh both you and your baggage prior to palletizing all of the gear. Even though bag drag is at 5 am, I don't expect the plane to get off the ground before 8 am. I will let you know what happens. The next entry will, God willing, be from Greenland.

Another Delay

Here is the latest news. I got the phone call just before 5 pm eastern, the ANG has canceled the flight for tomorrow morning and have rescheduled for Friday morning. I spent the day walking around the downtown area of Schenectady and doing a bit of shopping. I also took the time to exercise a bit. Not much else to do around here. Especially since we don't have a car anymore.

Everything we are doing is based off of walking around the downtown area. It has a beginnings of a walking mall like Boulder, but there are a lot of empty store fronts. I found a little Irish store and spent wee bit o'time browsing through everything. I'll see what else I can find tomorrow.

Well, here is the latest news. Most of the folks who are heading north here in NY are feeling a bit sheepish right now. After more than a week of telling people that there was no way that we would be delayed, well we are being delayed. At 3 pm the ANG (Air National Guard) called off the Wednesday flight from Schenectady to Kangerslussuaq because of reports that a low pressure cell has caused the Icelandic Volcanic ash to move towards Greenland. Wow, we are having a hard time admitting that this was even possible. So, for now we are going to stay here for another 24 hours and see what the weather does. I'll let everybody know when we get the go ahead to fly out of here.

Well, here it is. I have been talking about this trip for a several months now and it is finally here. Tomorrow morning I will be boarding a plane for the first leg of my trip to the frozen North. As most of you know this is my first long trip in many years.

I am heading first to Albany NY and a near by Air National Guard base and then on to Kangerslussuaq on Wednesday. This will be the first stop on my adventure in Greenland. I am expecting to be in Kangerslassauq for several weeks. I will be posting as I get the chance.