It is mind-boggling, I know, that there is unfrozen water that far below us, and under all that ice. The lakes are formed from heat from the earth being trapped and insulated by the several kilometers of ice and occur at the outflow of the Recovery Ice Stream, a large region of fast flowing ice.

One defining surface characteristic of the lakes is that they are flat, flat, flat, flat. There are no sastrugi [sharp frozen ridges and mounds in the snow], which we have become used to, or topography to speak of (not there was much before).

But while the landscape here is a bit monotonous, the snow here is really weird. Really weird. The top bit of snow is pretty new–some wind blown and some freshly fallen. It’s been snowing off and on while we were at camp, which is actually really rare for East Antarctica– we are in a polar desert after all. But the combined action of the wind packing the snow and changes induced by the ever-present cold temperatures and sun during the summer months have made for some of the hardest layers in the near surface I have ever encountered.

One layer, which Tom and I have been calling the MOAHL (or Mother of All Hard Layers), 1.2m deep in my pit, actually hurt my hands, shoulders and arms as I tried to dig into it with my shovel. It felt like I was trying to dig into pavement. Below the MOAHL, the snow is sugary and coarse and won’t stay together. This snow has frustrated nearly all our attempts to drill cores in it. We drill down, only to have the sugary stuff fall apart in the barrel. It’s been very exasperating– we’ve started and abandoned 10 different holes trying to get a core. I’ve started calling it Devil Snow.

Devil Snow crystals. Pretty to look at, but their rounded shapes make them not bond well to neighboring crystals, and hard to work with.

The Devil Snow is also hard to dig, falling apart on the shovel, raining down on your face and into your jacket—leaving you spitting out the coarse, sharp crystals and trying to scrape them out from your collar. It makes it hard to cut blocks out of it for the water melters, which we use for our drinking water as well. Devil Snow.

Despite the Devil Snow, we have managed to make some progress. I have dug another three pits, we have collected some shallow cores, and Lou collected one 90 m core and another 20 m core. We’ve installed a string of several temperature sensors for Ted Scambos’s graduate student Atsu in the deep hole. The temperature data is being sent via satellite to Atsu in Boulder at the University of Colorado, where he can monitor the data for changes. We already heard from him that he is receiving the data!

Lou with a monster piece of core from the Devil Snow area. The cores should be 1 m long to fit in the insulated core boxes we have, but Lou had problems getting the core out of the hole since the ice and snow is so soft. She had to keep drilling further to try to get something that she could grab onto.

Ted Scambos’s temperature string, powered with solar panels, beaming data back to Boulder.

Ted also installed a GPS station on the last of the lakes in order to track any changes in the level of the lake. This particular spot seemed to move up and down vertically in the last five years, as if there was a lake draining and refilling. Devil Snow or no Devil Snow, we are getting science done.

Speaking of Devil Snow, we’ve decided to start a heavy metal band called Monster Sastrugi, with the first single called Sastrugi Tongue. The other tracks on our album would be:
- Hot Raro (Raro is the New Zealand drink we have at every meal; it’s like Tang)
- Hand Core to the Transition Zone (this was Tom’s song from graduate school)
- Barrel Full of Chips (Ted thinks this song is too country-western)
- Do You Really Want to Drill Here?
- Devil Snow
- Little Cold Metal Parts
- Lost my Sprocket Wheel (luckily just once on this trip)
- Planetary Gears Rock
- Hot Differentials
- UFO Hunting in Antarctica

Of course we have, collectively, no musical talents, so there is no need to worry about the band ever producing any music– you can breathe a sigh of relief.

This brings me to another list we have been working on, the top 10 signs you’ve been on the Antarctic Plateau too long:
10. You are no longer fit for polite society.
9. Coffee consumption passes 5 cups for breakfast.
8. You expect things to go wrong.
7. -20 deg C is a “hot day.”
6. 3 meters doesn’t seem that far to dig.
5. Raro starts to taste good, and the colors are pretty.
4. When someone says they saw dragon-shaped sastrugi, someone else asks if they were Asian or fairy tale-type dragons (the answer was both).
3. You think that the piece of lint drifting across the snow is an insect, and that it would make a good pet.
2. The thought of a fresh apple makes you salivate.

And the number one sign that you’ve been on the Antarctic Plateau too long:
1. Everything is funny.

January 21, 2009
Weather: Partly cloudy, -25 C, wind 8 kts

RECOVERY LAKE ‘B’, ANTARCTICA– We are currently camped out in the Recovery Lakes region, and one of the main features of the snow surface is that it is flat, flat, flat. Hardly a sastrugi (wavelike ridge on the surface of hard snow) in sight larger than a few centimetres high. But there are still plenty of snow surface features to get excited about. Here at this camp spot, there are these neat patches of ripples dotting the landscape. Out on a ski this evening, I spotted multitudes of cups dug out of the snow surface as well. The features are created by the wind, which we’ve had plenty of the last couple of days, along with the return of colder temperatures. Summer is over on the Antarctic Plateau!

Ripples in the snow near our camp.

RECOVERY LAKE ‘B’, ANTARCTICA– It’s the snow, stupid! …that determines many factors for this traverse, that is.

For instance, the changing snow surface impacts our fuel consumption quite a bit. In softer snow, the four vehicles use much more fuel than when we are going over areas of hard snow. The characteristics of the snow determine how easily we are able to cut blocks out to put in our melters to make water. Sometimes, like in the last two camps, the snow is not very well sintered, or stuck together, and falls apart like shoveling sugar. Other times, we find thick, wind-packed snow that we can readily saw into nice blocks.

For the last few weeks, if anyone has wondered, “Where’s Zoe?,” the answer has been in one of my snow pits. I’m just finishing up my sixth 2-meter deep pit today. Each pit is about 1 m wide, 2 m long and 2 m deep. With an average density of about .38 grams per cubic centimeter, I’ve dug about 1520 kg worth of snow for every pit (that’s over 3000 pounds for the Yanks) – over 9 tons altogether. Not that I’m keeping track, but it is no wonder I’m so tired.

What’s neat is that each pit has its own surprise, and each has been different. It’s been fun seeing what sort of snow and layers I find in each of the pits. The layers help us determine what conditions have been like in the last few 10 to 20 years. Large grains usually mean low accumulation rates, as large grains grow over time as smaller grain sublimate and condense onto larger grains. Old sastrugi and wind crusts, as well as hoar (very large faceted grains from warm conditions and water vapor moving in the snow pack) are also buried. These all help us figure out the puzzle of the past climate in this region, which is tricky since unlike in areas where you get lots and lots of snow and can see the seasonal layering in pits, the area we are in gets very little snow, and any seasonal layering tends to get smeared out over time.

Layering in the top 80 cm of one of my pits, seen in a backlit pit, which is basically two pits with a 20 cm wall in between. The light from one pit left open shines into the second pit, which is covered. In this image, wind crusts (thin lines in the snow), old sastrugi (darker layers), and hoar crystals (very light layers) can be seen.

CAMP WINTER, ANTARCTICA– What can I say about a place named Camp Winter? Of all names, it is appropriate: desolate, cold and windy. It’s mind boggling sometimes to think how remote we are, the eight of us, and what minimal buffer we have between us and the vast, cold ice sheet outside.

But more often than not, I am focused on the camp, on the four vehicles, the garage tent, and the two modules we have for living in, the sleeping and the eating module—just running between the modules and garage tent with my head down against the bright, 24-hour sunlight, the constant biting wind, and the cold.

The view from a Basler aircraft of Camp Winter.

The garage tent, erected for the three mechanics who will be fixing and modifying the vehicles which had problems last year on the traverse (7 differentials and 2 gear boxes had to be replaced), is warm and huge. Inside, it is sometimes easy to forget where you are…it could be any large tent, any garage, anywhere. The guys listen to music all day, which switches between songs I know (Prince, for instance, and Purple Rain), and strange Norwegian songs I didn’t know existed (a Norwegian version of YMCA).

The garage tent and vehicles.

Outside, it is still -40 deg C and very windy, and as I run between the eating module and the garage, I am reminded of where I am, especially if I look out towards the horizon, over the snow surface covered with large, rough sastrugi. I spend some time everyday looking out from camp at where I am, just because it is so alien and strange, and try to figure out what I am doing here and what it means to be here. These things I haven’t figured out, on any level, existential or not.

Camp Winter from a distance, with sastrugi.

The three mechanics we have with us are amazing. Kjetil is a firefighter and EMT from Norway who was on the traverse last year. He is the one who replaced the seven differentials by himself throughout the entire two months they were traveling, out in the open and in the cold. Rune is the head mechanic at Troll, the Norwegian base near the South African coast. He worked with Berco, the manufacturer of the vehicles we are using, in order to help engineer a solution to all the broken parts last year. Svein is the third mechanic who will be on the traverse the entire way this year. Rune’s wife is pregnant and expecting soon, and Kjetil promised his family he would be home for Christmas. Together, they have a great deal of experience with these vehicles, and in Antarctica—I can’t imagine a better team to be doing this work. All of them are working hard, long hours, to get the four vehicles fixed.

The garage tent, vehicles, and living module.

There are one and a half tons of parts to replace in the four vehicles we have. Two are now broken, and all four need to be modified to keep the same problems from happening. The mechanics are replacing all the differentials in the vehicles, and two gear boxes in two of the vehicles, and installing planetary gears on both axels of all four vehicles. It’s a lot to do, for sure. We try to make sure they are well supplied with coffee, tea, and when I can manage it, brownies. They all seem to stay in a good mood, even with all they have to do.

While they are working on fixing the vehicles, I am working in a two meter snow pit and drilling 12 meter cores by hand with Tom. The snow pit measurements I am making will help determine what the physical properties of the snow—the grain size and structure—are like in this area. It’s my little secret that it’s actually quite nice in the pit. The main advantage is that I am out of the constant wind that blows. Everyone else thinks I’m tough to be hanging out all day outside, and I’m not going to disillusion them.

These two videos are time lapses of the guys working in the garage tent.

SOUTH POLE STATION, ANTARCTICA– Phase One of our traverse from South Pole Station to the Norwegian Antarctic base, Troll, is to recover the four tracked vehicles we are using, which are currently stranded 350 km from the South Pole. Svein, Kjetil and Rune are the cracker-jack mechanics who will fix two of the vehicles, which are currently non-operational, and replace the differentials (this being the part that broke several time last season) in all of the vehicles. Lou and I are going to drill an ice core while the mechanics do the repairs. The spot where we will be working is called Camp Winter, since that is where everything spent the last season.

Last week, a reconnaissance flight over the vehicles determined that the surface out there is too rough to land for the Basler aircraft we were scheduled to take on Saturday. This is because there has been more than one main wind direction, which results in sastrugi (wavelike ridges on the surface of hard snow) oriented in different directions, and a rough landing for any plane.

Sastrugi at the South Pole.

The Basler has two skis and is heavier compared to the Twin Otter’s three skis, lighter weight, and beefier suspension. The pilot on the recon flight had done a “ski drag,” touching the surface, but not landing, to determine how bad the surface really was there. He didn’t even want to land the Twin Otter near Camp Winter, but saw a smoother area a bit further away where he planned to land, and then taxi everyone over to the vehicles. The crew on the recon flight took pictures of the vehicles, so we think that, at least from the air, things look ok, and nothing major is missing or completely buried. As Einar happily pointed out there are no “little black spots scattered all over the snow.”

The Twin Otter plane.

The plans were changed so that John, Kjetil, and Svein will fly out in a Twin Otter to set up Camp Winter with minimal gear on the first flight. Glen, Einar, and Rune will follow. The Twin Otter cannot carry as much cargo as the Basler, and so there will be 3 more Basler flights as soon as they can make a skiway (a snow runway) for the Basler. The South Pole has a clean air zone, which happens to lie directly in the path between the South Pole and our vehicles, and so the Twin Otter, an unpressurized plane, had to fly “over” the clean air zone, at an altitude of 30,000 ft. This means that the passengers have to fly with oxygen masks.

At Camp Winter, the plan is to open up the workshop module (all the doors have been screwed shut to prevent them from blowing off and to keep snow from blowing in) and start heating it right away using a generator for power. The next task is to get one of the vehicles running so that they can groom a skiway for the Basler aircraft to land on, bringing the rest of our cargo out to Camp Winter. Making the skiway flat enough for a plane to land on means that the group out at Camp Winter will have to knock down the same large sastrugi (snow dunes that form into the wind) that the pilot had a hard time landing on. Sastrugi tend to be very hard, as they are made from windpacked snow. The plan for now is to use the blade on Jack to knock over the tops of the sastrugi, then improvise some sort of grater using materials out at Camp Winter…2 x 4’s, the decking for the modules, or chain. In a few minutes, Lou, John, Rune, and Kjetil, who all have experience grooming skiways, were able to come up with several options using materials out at camp.

Just to set the scene for what these guys are doing…they are flying from the South Pole, already in the middle of nowhere, but at least the middle of nowhere with 240 other people, and a galley staff dishing out warm, hot meals, an extremely large, warm station, wireless internet access in our tents (our tents!) in Summer Camp, running water, telephones, a game room, a gymnasium and weight room, lounges and big screen TVs, a pool table, and 3 to 4 daily flights coming in to diminish the sense of isolation. They are leaving to go 350 km from here, to four vehicles that have been left on the ice sheet for the entire winter. We have the recon flight pictures showing that nothing has blown away, and that nothing is completely buried. But we don’t know if the seals on the doors have held, or if the windscreens on the vehicles have broken and everything is filled with snow. We don’t know if the vehicles will start or if the heaters on the modules will fire up.

The Jamesway tents in Summer Camp where I’m staying while at the South Pole.

John has considered all these scenarios, and we have multiple plans for the multitude of things that can happen. We are sending the first group in with medical supplies (including a Gomow bag, oxygen tank, and meds to deal with altitude sickness, the most likely major thing that would go wrong), several generators, fuel, emergency shelters, clothing, some water, and a minimal set of tools. That’s it!

The mood leading up to the flight is one of relaxed confidence that everything is going to work out just fine. I think this is part of the Norwegian character. All of our meetings and discussion have an element of humor (except the safety meeting we had in McMurdo…that was all business). Today, handing out the emergency communication devices to use in case of a plane crash–an Iridium phone, a PLB (personal location beacon) and radio–Kjetil jokingly gave Svein the PLB since it “only has one button to push.”

Glen, Einar and Rune wait for the second Twin Otter flight to load while Tom offers his support, and a few jokes to ease the tension.