Looking Back: The Storm
Friday, January 11, 2008 · 
3 comments
3 comments Slawec and I are both back in Santa Cruz now, and will be doing a live webcast at the Exploratorium tomorrow! In the meantime, I’d like to post some more pictures and videos from our time in the field.
Earlier in December, I sent an audio dispatch in the middle of a storm that delayed our work out on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. I stuck my phone outside of the tent so you could hear the wind howling. Here are some of the pictures that accompany that audio– together you can get a bit of an impression of what being trapped in the storm was like. To listen to the audio dispatch again, click here.
The Storm begins.
Slawec prepares to brave the outside. Yes, he’s in there!
The interior of my sleep tent where I eventually took refuge — small, but very cozy. The wool blanket and foam pad serve as a carpet, and my sleeping bag is on the right.
Going to get water during the storm was a chore — winds were around 20-30 knots at this time, with higher gusts.
Doug and Slawek inside the kitchen/work tent during the storm. As we were unable to go do our field work, we spent the time huddled inside this tent together.
By the time the storm had ended, snow blown by the strong winds had nearly buried much of our gear. Here you can see the snow packed in around one of the sleeping tents. In the background, you can see the poles we used to mark objects in camp — a preparation made especially because of events just like this.
A lot of digging had to take place in order to uncover our newly-snow-buried equipment…
…a lot of digging. Here Rickard frees our sleds from the snow.
looks like fun…I bet you have very strong arms after all that digging.
It’s true– living on an ice sheet definitely makes you stronger! Being surrounded by hundreds of miles of ice in every direction, modern amenities aren’t really an option. But hey– we definitely don’t have to worry about going to the gym.
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