Dirt and liquid water, unusual problems in Antarctica.

As is becoming the norm for us, camp put in did not go smoothly. High winds meant that only our high priority cargo got to us but the rest was delayed for a few days until the winds dropped enough for the helicopters to fly with external loads. So for the first few nights, we all slept in one tent. It was a large tent, so we were pretty comfortable. But I had forgotten to include cooking pots in the high priority cargo, so we had nothing to boil water in until we broke open the survival bags. We felt a little silly opening the survival bags just for pans, but making hot meals was much better than eating yet another bag of gorp.

Maybe if the rest of our tents don’t ever get here we could sleep in an ice cave?

Becker camp. The big multicolored tent was all we had for the first few days.

Of course, the high priority cargo did include enough of our science gear that we could work, so despite the winds we started ROV missions immediately. The ice in the crack, which we had hoped would provide easier access to the ocean, was very hard and not as thin as we might have wished. Drilling took hours every day, and lots of muscle. Combined with the hard ice were pockets of thin crust, which led to wet feet for everyone on the team at one time or another. But, the crack did provide a smooth, and nearly continuous, pathway for hauling our gear.

Everything we need to operate SCINI fits in two sledges.

And those two sledges can be hauled by the support team of 5 people.

After finding such unexpectedly rich communities at Heald Island last year, I was not sure what to expect at this site. Even with that, I was surprised – this time, at how little life there was. Anemones were the dominant taxa, with a smattering of brittle stars, sponges, and these mysterious white sprinkles that, at a diameter of 1 mm, we could not resolve the finer details of. We profiled extensively from 130 to 30 m, where the seafloor contacted the shore ice. At 40 m, there was a thick benthic diatom layer, but nobody consuming the plethora of productivity. And oddly enough, the ice was no thicker than 11 m even off the crack, much thinner than an Ice Shelf should be.

Isabelle on the right and Bob on the left give a sense of scale to the McMurdo Ice Shelf. Heald Island is behind Bob on the left.

So, as is also becoming usual for us, our field time led to more questions than answers. Why is the ice shelf ice so thin here? With the thin ice and consequent high light levels, why are there so few grazers utilizing the high productivity? Are the sprinkles biological, geological or chemical in origin? And finally, what caused the salt outcroppings we found on the slopes near our camp?

Isabelle next to a mysterious salt outcropping. We later read that these are mirabilite chunks that have been pushed around by glacier action.

We were very happy that camp pull out was more efficient than put in, allowing us to return to McMurdo in time for Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday night. Though we did have one triwall slingload self-destruct on the return, nothing was lost. And turkey day dinner was a decadent extravaganza of crab legs and chocolate truffles, in addition to the ALL the traditional Thanksgiving fare. We are so spoiled here. Perhaps the contrast to cold gorp dinners enhanced our appreciation, and the presence of good friends certainly added to our pleasure, but I think the meal was a gourmet a treat as any I have ever had. We owe so much to the wonderful folks here who keep us going in so many ways. I hope that you recognize as much to be thankful for in your lives as we do on the frozen continent.

Packing up the triwall prior to it self-destructing on the flight home. We did let Isabelle out before we sealed it.

The helo ready to take the last of our camp gear. Fortunately this time the last flight (for us people) went off as planned.

Farewell to Becker Point.

In this next video, also a time lapse of one image per minute, we set up our personal tents, where we each would sleep.

Part of the safety protocol is to have the field party pitch one tent before the plane can leave. This is in case something happens, weather or injury, there can be a haven out of the elements. In certain scenarios, it might just be the difference between life in death.

As you’ll see, we pitched our tent much too close to the plane and we were bowled over by the force of the propellers. Moments later the plane disappeared into a cloud of snow. Silence and we were alone.

Our camp consists of nothing more than three Scott Tents, one Endurance Tent, scientific equipment, and the bare minimum of supplies to comfortably survive… or at least survive mildly comfortably. To minimize our camp footprint and lessen the use of helicopter dependency we decided on a greywater-free camp. Greywater is any sort of wastewater resulting from cleaning, cooking, or bathing. A few weeks in the field can lead to well over 100 gallons (or >1000 lbs) of wastewater which must then be helicoptered back to McMurdo and treated. My opinion is that it is much more environmental friendly (and saves us valuable helo hours) to not create greywater to begin with.

For the duration of the 5-6 week field season we do not have running water, shower, or wash with a nice warm wash cloth. If we feel dirty under our multiple layers of clothes we will simply wash ourselves with wet-wipes. Washing our hands is accomplished through instant hand sanitizer (i.e. Purell).

Mealtime can be a challenge in itself. Since wastewater cannot be produced we do not allow for excess water after cooking our pasta meals. (Thankfully we bring out dehydrated green peppers and onions just in case we added too much water to the pot). Cleaning pans, utensils, plates, and mugs consists of a quick wipe down with a dry paper towel. I like to think that the cold conditions that we live in keeps the dishes somewhat sanitary.

Tanner “Dishwashing” in Beacon Valley.

Urine is not considered greywater and is disposed of in 55 gallon drums (or “U-barrels”) at field camps. We are given 1-liter “pee bottles” to use during the day when we are away from camp. We carry these in our backpacks until we return to camp and deposit the urine into the U-barrel. Every year, someone will inevitably let their bottle freeze.

Two liters of urine brought back to camp to be poured into the 55 gallon urine barrels.

The Antarctic field experience would not be complete without the use of our camp toilet which is nothing more than a box with a trash bag lined 5 gallon bucket beneath it. As the bucket fills (weekly basis) the bag is tied, the bucket is sealed, and it returns to McMurdo on the next helicopter flight. For obvious reasons we search long and hard during camp put-in for a windless, private place for the box; but usually the view from the box is spectacular!

A typical field camp restroom in the Dry Valleys protected nicely from wind behind a huge rock.

The gorgeous view from our bathroom looking north towards the Taylor Glacier.

We sleep in tents called Arctic Ovens. These tents are made in Alaska and could be considered Antarctic Ovens…especially in the morning! The tents are incredible at heating up with just the one’s body heat and the sun. In the morning, I have had temperatures as high as 65°F! That is roasting considering outside it is around 5°F (on a warm day)!

Our WAIS Divide Tent City. The tents are outside of “town” so that the noise of the generators and movement around camp doesn’t keep people awake.

The Arctic Ovens in Tent City.

Many of the people at camp sleep in a tent, but there are some communal heated sleeping areas. The tents are really one’s only private space so almost all of the members of the camp community have opted for a space in “tent city”. I have decorated my tent with photos of my family and friends and right now, I have a few holiday decorations up. I also have some rope strung around my tent for drying my socks and hats.

Even though the tents can get warm when you are in them, going to bed usually starts in a cold tent, which means you get into a COLD sleeping bag. One trick for getting the cold out of your sleeping bag is bringing a hot water bottle to bed. A hot water bottle is really helpful and can keep you warm throughout the night. I brought my sleeping bag from home in addition to the cold weather sleeping bag that was provided to us so I am staying plenty warm and comfortable. I sleep with the clothes I plan to wear the next day so I can get into warm clothes when I wake up. I am growing to love my little yellow tent and find that no matter what the temperature is I am always ready to go to sleep when I finally make it to my tent!

For example, at McMurdo Station, where the buildings are heated and it is like any small city in the U.S., there are just regular flush toilets. There is a wastewater treatment plant that deals with all of the waste and keeps the environment healthy. In the field life is different and there isn’t a flushing toilet for about 1,000 miles! At WAIS Divide we have 6 outhouses for the ~40 people at camp. The outhouses sit over large holes in the snow and ice. The main “town” has four outhouses and “tent city”, where everyone sleeps, has one outhouse. Out by the ice core drill we also have one outhouse.

The outhouse near the ice core drill. The view is quite nice!

The set-up is pretty basic, kind of like camping back in the States. The biggest difference in Antarctic restrooms is that sometimes you can’t get to them because blowing snow and horrible weather prevent you from being able to even seen the outhouse! Also, when you are sleeping and you have the urge the last thing you want to do is put on a million layers and your boots to go to the bathroom. To remedy these two issues, everyone has “pee bottles”. These are just a typical one liter water bottles that are marked very clearly with the letter P. These are used in your tent or in a storm. It is actually quite convenient! At smaller camps, like those in the Dry Valleys, all of the waste gets flown out so that there is a very small human footprint.

So, if you wanted to ask, now you know! For the record, I do miss a warm bathroom with running water and flush toilet!

A few of our several iceberg choices in Bay of Sails.

Icebergs are moved by wind and currents, and when they come in contact with the seafloor, plough across it leaving a swath of destruction. Cape Evans, on the eastern side of McMurdo Sound, is bathed by plankton-rich water from the open Ross Sea, providing a good food resource to benthic communities during the summer months. But at Bay of Sails, on the western side of the sound, the water has spent a long time circulating in darkness under the thick ice of the permanent Ross Ice Shelf, so it is very oligotrophic, or food-poor. I am interested in the differences between how these two communities recover from iceberg disturbances.

Though the benthic communities locally are not eating well, we are!

To start this effort, we did a reconnaissance helicopter flight. Scottie, our pilot for the day, flew us in beautiful loops and spirals over the dozen icebergs scattered in the bay. We were looking for a berg that was grounded on the seafloor, was in about 50 m water depth, and was close enough to other icebergs that we had alternate target options. Since the bathymetry in this area is poorly known, I had to guess at depths based on distance from shore and iceberg height. I selected a moderate-size, tabular-looking berg about 2 km from shore. It was a good choice, but a better one was about a km further offshore, as we discovered from our initial survey with an extremely high tech weight on a tape measure.

Marco and Henry think a better iceberg is that way.

However, the helo landing site is that way.

Okay, I guess we’ll go home for now.

Parallel with selecting the camp location, we have been packing up camp gear. 335 pounds of food, 330 pounds of water, sleeping bags good to minus 40, tents, fuel for the stove and heaters, sleds, safety supplies, another 1485 pounds of stuff. And then there is the science equipment – drills, electronic gear, the ROV itself, power supplies, batteries and generators, all in all 760 pounds of toys. Then there is the 1000 pounds of people. Not to say we are fat, but several of us are up to three desserts per night. Yow!

How much stuff will fit in one helicopter? 1200 lbs in an A-Star, and 2000 lbs in a Bell212.

All of this is sorted into classifications of Can Freeze, Do Not Freeze, and Keep Frozen (some of the food). Bags and boxes are weighed and tagged. Hazardous material is certified as safe to fly. Much of the Can Freeze camp gear has gone already in an overland (well, over-sea-ice) traverse to a fueling depot about 10 km from Bay of Sails. The helicopters will carry it the rest of the way to us.

Like an n-dimensional puzzle, it all unfolds to a full field camp, dwarfed by the landscape.

My bedroom.

It’s a little nerve-wracking, making sure we remember everything, and enough of it. I have lists, and lists of lists, and I wake up in the middle of the night to make more lists. Remembering to bring all the things we needed to Antarctica was bad enough, but the field camp list must be pared to a minimum yet not leave out anything. We will get a resupply flight after a week, to bring us more water, so we do have that opportunity to fix any bads, but it would be very unproductive, not to say embarrassing, to have forgotten the batteries to the joystick to drive the ROV.

Team SCINI at field camp I: Kamille, Dustin, Isabelle, Francois, Stacy and Bob. Doh, Dustin has forgotten his black Antarctic uniform pants!

Tonight as the sun dips to touch the horizon I think that we have all we need to survive. But I am worried about the engineers getting their stuff packed; they are still out doing tests at 10 pm, 12 hours from when it must be on the helo pad. I am beginning to think that procrastination and engineering must go hand in hand. I think a walk up Ob Hill is in order to reduce my stress!

The view of Erebus and Terror from the top of Ob Hill, colored by a midnight sun.

We began drilling the glacier ice and despite the weather conditions the day started well as we were recovering beautiful, clean, bubbly glacier ice. But soon the borehole reached a small sandy-pebbly layer within the ice and the pace of drilling came to a crawl. Drilling sediment rich ice releases enough heat to melt the ice between the sand grains. When the drill slows down the ice quickly refreezes and makes a sand ice slurry (yes, I referred to it as “crap” in the video) which adheres to the auger like cement making cleaning an arduous process.

The round depression on the top of the recovered slurry core was caused by the down-hole vacuum which assists in removing broken up rock and ice cemented debris created during drilling. Material not removed by the vacuum is hopefully recovered via use of the core barrel as shown in this video. After a few more cleaning runs with the vacuum and core barrel, we were back into clean ice once again!

Mt. Erebus and its volcanic plume blowing to the right.

Above Mt. Erebus was the sun with incredible sun dogs and a halo around it. This spectacle is caused by ice crystals in the atmosphere, and the north and south poles may be the best places in the world to see this effect.

Our instructor, Nick, said that we were in an excellent area for cutting up snow blocks for building structures (you use a saw). Some of my fellow campers tried to build an igloo (a major technological challenge, and they almost succeeded, but they gave up around 1:00 AM).

My fellow campers and their igloo.

Some built a duplex, and I built an ice cave but ended up sleeping in a Scott tent.

An ice duplex.

My ice cave.

Scott tents are famous for their durability in storms.

The next day we were debriefed on how the night went (the low was a balmy 24F, so we were all pretty comfortable during the night), and we then completed the course (the survival training course is good for five years of traveling in remote parts of Antarctica). Overall the course was a lot of fun, and very interesting!