Summer has arrived at Summit

For the first two weeks that I have been at Summit Camp, the temps have been well below 0F.  But after the major storm that hit us on the 25th and 26th, the temperatures have been climbing.  Currently we are baking at an unbelievable 15F.  My tent is warm ( I need to measure it but it feels warm) and I am running around without my hat and gloves on.  We are enjoying the weather tremendously.

We are in the middle of the inter-flight period for the ANG.  That means that they are at home and there are no flights into Summit Camp.  Unless you are a DV (Distingushed Visitor) who comes in on your own chartered flight.  Which we had Monday and Tuesday.  We had 22 people on site Sunday and then we had a planeload of people come in with a DV.  We went from 22 instantly to 28.  We had to fill up the tents with the plane load and feed them all.  To boot, they really did not fit in well and they caused some problems.  But that is for stories at home and not on the public internet.

I am happy to report that David and I have 98% finished our top priority projects down in the "Pit".  What this means is that the wiring, plumbing and rebuilding of the system down in the "Pit" is tantalizingly close to being finished.  I managed to take about 5 things off my todo list today.  I still have a few things left todo, but if David is impatient, he might do them tomorrow.

The topic of tomorrow brings up a new topic - House Mouse.  Tomorrow I am the rodent of choice.  I have House Mouse Duties.  I was originally scheduled for Mouse on Friday, but tomorrow's Mouse is not feeling well and I was asked to bump myself up a day.  What is House Mouse you ask?  Well House Mouse is the person who is tasked with all of the cleaning of the common areas of the Big House from Morning until Evening.  You start at 7:30 am or so and you go until 7:30 pm or so.  You wash dishes, you mop, you vacuum, you clean toilets, you restock food, you help in the kitchen, you take out the garbage, etc.  In other words what you do at your house, you do here, except you do it for 20 people.  The thing is, you only do it once every couple of weeks.  Since David and I are only here for a month, we only have to do it once.  I look at it as a good chance to have a down day, away from what I am here to do.  It is also a chance to participate in the community and have some fun while I am doing it.  More about being a Rodent later.

 

Happy Memorial Day from Greenland.  Today has been a red letter day, I have several projects that are almost finished and one instrument that I want to throw from a high flying LC-130.  I spent most of the day working on one instrument that quite frankly I have come to almost loath.  To boot I am having a touch of digestive problems and I am not feeling all that great.

Ok, now that all of this is out of my system, things are going well at Summit Camp.  We had a break from the storm of the last few days and actually warmed up to the point of my being able to work outside for a bit without my coat on.  It didn't last long, maybe 30 minutes, but it was nice.  The one instrument I want to drop kick (I won't because it weighs about 30 lbs) has been on and off the tower three times.  I finally diagnosed the general problem and have asked the manufacturer for suggestions.  At least I have the troubleshooting that far.  Everything down in the "Pit" is coming along nicely.  We are just about ready to turn everything back on for the first time.  Two weeks of solid work and we are almost there.  I will post before and after photos to show everyone the difference we have made down there.

As far as my health goes, I think I am going to turn in early tonight and see if I can sleep some of this off.

One final word:

But the freedom that they fought for, and the country grand they wrought for,
Is their monument to-day, and for aye. -Thomas Dunn English

Ahh A Shower

Today is a wonderful day.  Not for the weather - which is horrible.  Not for the food - it's the cooks day off.  Not even for the companionship - which is better than expected.  No, it is a wonderful day because I got to take a shower.  This is the first shower that I have had since the night before we flew up to Summit.  That was 11 days ago.  Not only did I get a shower, I have laundry going right now.  What a treat, a clean body and clean clothes.

Most of the time we try and get one shower a week up here.  One of the facts that was stressed to us on arrival was the importance of conserving water.  The numbers that were quoted (I haven't checked them out for myself but I believe they are in the ballpark) is that Americans use over 575 liters of water per person per day. At the bottom of the list is Mozambique who use only 4 liters per person per day.  Here at Summit we are currently running about 55 liters of water per day per person.  A huge difference.

For the first time in 11 days I also am not wearing layers of clothing.  24 hours a day since I arrived, I have had at least 2 layers of clothing on.  I tried one night to take my wool socks off in my sleeping bag, but within hours I had to put them back on.  I am writing this while sitting in the sun in the big house enjoying the feeling of having a t-shirt on and having my arms exposed.  It is a fleeting feeling, since I have to put everything back on to go outside, but I am enjoying it.

Our current weather, as I mentioned earlier is horrible.  We had a storm come in yesterday bringing with it high winds and little to no visibility.  It is currently -6 F, 24 knot winds, with a windchill of -33 F.  The visibility is up to about half a mile.  This is the best it has been in 24 hours.  Things were so bad that the station personnel had their day off changed from Sunday to Saturday.  According to them, this is only the second time in 2 months that they have seen it this bad.

The major buildings on site are the "Big House", the "Green House", the "SOB" or garage, the "Carps Berthing" and the "MSF".  Each of the buildings has a sign on it stating it's name.  The closest building to my tent is "Carps Berthing" and of course two of the outside latrines.  All of the tents are located in "Tent City" as it is designated on the official blue prints of the station.  Two other sites are "TAWO" and the "Noone Pit".  I work in the Pit most of the time.  By the way, TAWO stands for Temporary Atmospheric Watch Observatory and MSF stands for Mobile Science Facility.

Normal Day at Summit

Sorry I haven't posted in a while.  We have been having internet problems while the two SRI techs are here working on our link to the outside world.  There are lots of new pictures over on the picasa site though.

I thought I would start off with a brief description of what my day looks like.

7:30 am - I wake up and start to realize how cold it is and how much I don't want to get out my sleeping bag.  Get out of my bag and pull on my pants and pull on a shirt.  It is usually at this point I start to think about how long it has been since I took off my long underwear and how many days I have had my socks on.  I eagerly await the end of my first week here so that I can take a shower and take off all of my clothes and see what my body looks like.

8:00 am - Hopefully I make it over to the Big House for the daily all hands meeting.  It is here where we talk about daily schedules, who is doing what, what the weather is going to be like today.  I also get to eat breakfast at this time and chat with everybody.  David (my boss) and I chat about the day's schedule and what we want to get done.

9:00 am - Head out to the MSF (Mobile Science Facility) to do the "warm" work or to the "Noone Pit" (think "The Pit of Despair") at the base of the Swiss Tower.

12:00 pm - Head back to the Big House for lunch.  Chat with people and discuss the morning's activities and what the afternoon looks like.

1:00 pm - Head back to the MSF or the Pit.

6:00 pm - Head back to the Big House for dinner.

8:00 pm - Head back to the MSF or the Pit for a hour or two of work.


10:00 pm - Head to my tent and climb into a cold sleeping bag and head to sleep.

Summit Camp Arrival

The big news for the day is that our LC-130 flight made it into Summit Camp at 11:45 this morning.  We had a long delay this morning.  We got up at 5:50 this morning and then the ol' wait game.  The original schedule was for 6:30 am breakfast run, 7:45 am bus ride to the plane and an 8:30 am off deck.  What really happened was the off deck was delayed until 10:15 am.  I could have used the extra sleep.  I will be sending on the new photos tomorrow after I get some sleep.

Have a good evening.

Being the Tourist in Kanger

Some updates from Kanger.  I have added some new photos over on the Mike's Feet Picasa site as well as two movies of the LC-130s.  I hope you enjoy them,

Well now, on to the fun stuff.  One of the most frequent questions I have gotten is what do you do in Kanger.  There are several answers I can give, depending on how much time you want to spend here.  My personal recommendation is as follows:

1) Go to the Russell Glacier.  On my last trip through Kanger, I was fortunate enough to take a day trip out to the glacier tongue.  It was spectacular.  Located about 16 miles outside of town and can be reached fairly easily by car and a short hike.  I have a photo over on the Mike's Feet Picasa site of what it looked like close up.

2) Take day hikes.  This area is surrounded by mountains, hills and are easy to climb.  It is difficult to get lost around this area if you remember which direction the fjord is.  I have spent many hours climbing the area around Kellyville, located about 9 miles outside of town.

That's about it.  If you spend any more time in Kanger, you will get bored.  The only place that I can think of that was similar for me was Fort Sumner New Mexico.  That's saying something.

I have one request .... Leave me comments.  I love them and it gives me something to do.

Greenland Landing

Hi Everyone,


Well the first portion of my ANG (Air National Guard) flights has come to an end.  We arrived in Kanger (Short for Kangerlussuaq, you can see why we shorten it to Kanger) this evening at approx 6:30 pm local.  The local time is 4 hours ahead of MT so it will take me a couple of days to adjust to the new time zone.


This time around I am staying at the KISS (Kangerlussuaq International Science Support) building.  I have uploaded a few photos over to my PICASA site from today's flights. I started the day waking up  in Clifton Park, NY at 4:15 AM ET and then getting on a bus at 5 AM.  Given that I am used to MT, I wasn't too happy about getting up that early.  We headed out to the ANG base and then waited for 4.5 hours to get on the plane and finally fly out.  We had one beaker who originally planned on arriving in Clifton Park last night just before midnight and had the flight canceled on him.  So, he flew in this morning.  He didn't arrive until 9:45 this morning and caused our flight to be delayed.

This delay caused us to change our flight schedule to the point of not stopping in Goose Bay Labrador.  Most of us ol'pros were upset to find out we weren't getting our free Tim Horton's ice cream this trip.  I had hoped to get off of the plane for a bit, but we came straight on and made it to Kanger in a little over 6 hours.

I will write more about Kanger tomorrow.

Have a good day.

Mike

Greetings Friends and Family,

This is a quick update to let everybody know that I am on the road again starting this weekend.  I am once again heading to the frozen north, the garden spot of Greenland, Summit Camp.  This time around I am going to be working on a project that I have only seen from afar, the CPRG Summit program.  I will finally get my hands on the instruments and the computer and find out if what I have been thinking is, in fact, really true.

I will be posting new photos, new insights as I head out on this new adventure.

Mike O