Summit Camp Greenland

Here is the news, I made it to Summit Camp.  I have been here since Wednesday, I have spent the last couple of days trying to get acclimated.  I have had a relatively smooth transition, a mild headache and problems sleeping.  I think things will get better over the next couple of days.

Things are different this year, people are not staying in the Big House much due to the internet being throttled.  It is so quiet in there compared to last year.  On Saturday's last year there were people in there until midnight.  I left about 9:30 pm and I was one of the last two people there.  It's crazy.

I'll write more tomorrow.

Boomerang

boomerang - return to the initial position from where it came; like a boomerang

return - go or come back to place, condition, or activity where one has been before; "return to your native land"; "the professor returned to his teaching position after serving as Dean"

 

If you can guess what I am going to talk about tonight.  We "Boomeranged" today.  I am still in Kanger, not that I spent all day here.

Today started off with my getting up at 6:15 am for breakfast.  I decided to go with the early breakfast van so that I could pack and get ready for our 9:00 am pickup.  We had breakfast (eggs, bacon, pastries, juice, etc) over at the airport.  We took our time and go back to the KISS (Kangerlussuaq International Science Support) building at 8:00 am.  I finished packing and climbed aboard the aircraft a little after 9:30 am.  We had a slight delay taking off due to a stuck pressure valve, which was taken care of by an educated rap of a fist.  We settled into a 2.5 hour flight to Summit.  When we got there, we knew we were in trouble.  Normally we fly straight into the runway and land.  This time we came in, flew the length of the runway (3 miles) and increased power and started to climb.  We asked the load master what happened and he said that the plan was crabbing side ways down the runway and could not land.  We circled back and tried to land in the opposite direction.  Again we crabbed down the length of the runway.  We climbed out, the pilots discussing the problem and we headed back to Kangerlussuaq.  All told, we were in the air 5.5 hours today and we are back where we started.

We are going to try and make it in tomorrow morning and see what happens.

Kanger Finally

Greetings from Kangerlussuaq Greenland.  I finally made it here at 7:30 pm Local.  We had a long flight today with a stop in Goose Bay Newfoundland.  I have pictures of the stop which will be uploaded to the Picasa site in the next couple of hours.  It is currently 9:22 pm and Bag Drag for tomorrow's flight to Summit is at 9:30.  For a brief refresher course here are some terms I will be tossing around.

ANG - normally this means the Air National Guard 109th LC-130 drivers.
Bag Drag - time to get your gear to the ANG to be palletized.
LC-130 - Special version of the C-130 military plane that has skies for landing on snow runways.KISS - the KISS building in Kangerlussuaq where you spend your nights while waiting to go to or come from Summit.

That should be enough information for now.

PS, Looks like I am having problems uploading photos to Picasa.  I'll work on it and let everybody know when I get it working.  G'Night

On the Road Again

The great american singer Willie Nelson said it best:

On the road again -
Just can't wait to get on the road again.
The life I love is making music with my friends

And I can't wait to get on the road again.
On the road again

Well, that is what has happened.  I am in Albany New York, spending the night before heading back to Greenland.  Today has been interesting from the standpoint of weather and running around airports.  Bad weather in Nebraska and Kansas forced our flight to take a longer route to Chicago which dropped my layover time from 45 minutes down to about 20 minutes.  I made my flight, as did my baggage Thank the Lord.  I made it into Albany just as a thunderstorm hit the area.  Just after I got into the Taxi, the rain started.  It didn't get bad until about 10 minutes after I checked into the hotel.  Then with a huge peal of thunder, the power went out.  The power stayed out for about 1.5 hours and the rain was impressive to watch.  I loved it.

The flight tomorrow morning is scheduled to have over 30 PAXs, if you remember from an earlier post that means passengers.  With the cargo we are expecting to take in, this means we will be knee to knee, shoulder to shoulder on the jump seats.  I will take some photos and post them tomorrow.

Have a good evening and the next post will be from Greenland.