Update 12: Back from T2!

[Paul Summers]

Hello All!

I'm writing from you know from WAIS Divide Camp again, with internet from the kind folks at Kenn Borek Air (KBA) who are sharing their internet wifi with the entire camp. Our team's Starlink is packed up and ready to fly back to McM. The entire TIME team is actually still here in WAIS, a nice reunion for me and the 5 others who stayed at T2 until our final pull out date. For the others on the team, its less exciting as they've been here for over a week awaiting a flight back to McMurdo that perpetually is scheduled for tomorrow. Though delays are not uncommon, this is a stretch of 30+ cancelled flights to WAIS, which is a little beyond typical. At this point, many of them were supposed to back in NZ by this date, so their less-than-excitement at seeing us is easy to understand.

Anywho, the rest of the time at T2 was mostly good, with some storms halting work (those who counted say we lost 1/3 of our days to storms) but overall a very successful and exciting season of science, given the constrains we had. The days after the storm were always my favorite, with lot of blue skies and finally some surface contrast for us to see how randomly we all walked around when we couldn't see a well worn footpath.

We successfully completed the seismic survey, installing over 1000 nodes, blasting 672 shots (photo from Rick, they didn't all look this much like a sourpatch kid but this one was fun), picking up all the nodes after, and Danny and I completed over 140 radar measurements across our favorite 7km of ice. A favorite past time of the radar team was pitching this cute little tent, called a Torino. It was given to us to test for its durability, and it failed horribly breaking a zipper on the first pitch and collapsing in light winds. After some so-so repairs and with adjusted expectations (who needs a closing door anyway?) we used this tent to keep our more delicate science tasks, like splicing fiber optic cable, sheltered from the wind and snow. Pictured here is Danny and Jaiden, another scientist who joined us on TIME radar team and our little Torino. Though we made it work and it holds a special place in my heart, I sadly do not recommend this tent to anyone.

 

We also cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner everyday, melted all our water from snow, and shoveled endless snow as it drifted over the doors to our tents with every passing day. Despite neither cheating death nor committing crimes against our guests, Antarctica seems to have punished us like Sisyphus with the endless digging of snow that would refill itself every night, if not every hour! As I mentioned we had 3 larger Arctic Oven tents, great for cooking and organizing our science equipment, but they drifted like crazy. I've included a view of the tent after a dig out, you can see the steps we have to cut to get down to the actual door and a photo of another tent before digging out. As you can see, if we didn't diligently keep the drifting at bay by digging out, we could quickly be entirely locked out (or in!) the tent. I also grabbed a photo of my side of the Scott tent, you can see between the -60F down sleeping bag and all my jackets as a pillow, I was not wanting for insulation and slept quite well and warm thankfully. The black mats on the floor are thick sleeping pads which insulate the floor as we pitch the tents directly onto the snow. The pockets around the tent are great for organizing all the little bits and bobs that otherwise would get lost quickly. Though they are quite heavy at over 100 pounds each, I would in fact recommend Scott tents as I was very happy with mine.

Inside the kitchen tents, of which we had 2, we cooked all our meals, had our daily meetings, and socialized before heading off to bed. When filled with 8 to 9 people they warmed up quite well, close to freezing usually, and warmer when we had the stoves on for cooking. These 2 photos cover all of the tent, and you can see all our cooking stuff and snack storage by the door, and all our seating is on the other side. We each has one little box assigned to us to use as seat, and also store personal items. We also charged our personal items off a solar charger in this tent, 24 hour sun has its benefits! The floor in this tent is thin plywood to provide a solid walking and seating surface, but it is not that well insulated. For this reason many of us snagged spare foam to either sit on, or put our feet on while we sat which made things much much warmer.

While at T2 we had some fun weather besides just blowing snow and storms, and by fun I do mean actually quite pleasant. We saw some beautiful sun dogs and halos which were always a treat, thought very hard to photograph well. We also had a few days of light, calm snow featuring some massive and beautiful snow flakes that I quite enjoyed admiring as they fell onto everything around. These days made for some incredibly fluffy powder, almost as light as down feathers! Sadly I have no skis here, and the glacier is entirely flat, but this snow would have made for wonderful skiing.

After 34 days for me, 41 days for the original put in crew, it was finally time for us to pack up all of T2, and begin our journey home to MCM and the US. It had been over 4 weeks without a shower, or even washing my hands in running water, and I was certainly beginning to notice. We all seemed to agree that though we had a good season, we were ready to start packing up and heading home. T2 had been a field camp for the last 4 years, but we are last year so there was LOTS to pack up, and nothing was to be left behind. We were able pack lots of this out in flights throughout the season, but the final day was still quite a chore, hand loading over 10,000 pounds of loose cargo into 2 planes, the Basler pictured here and a Twin Otter that carried the 6 of us passengers (plus Pete!) As it always the case, the final items included lots of random, weird things, like 18 shovels on the left of the picture, and also 4 snowmobiles which are just as to get onto a plane as you might imagine. Better yet, since we had 4 of them, 2 had to be driven backwards up the ramp into the plane. I was happy the pilots did this themselves. The twin otter flight to WAIS was less jam packed this time, so there was more leg room which is always appreciated, and Pete even got a window seat this time which he was very excited about.

As I write to you now I can gladly say I have showered a wonderful shower, and even done one load of much needed laundry so I am well on my way to feeling like a normal person again. The heated spaces and professionally cooked meals of WAIS Camp are a blessing and a welcome change. I am currently scheduled to fly on the 3rd LC-130 flight from WAIS to McMurdo. As 2 are scheduled a day typically, that could be quite soon, but as I said 30+ in a row have cancelled, so we'll see when I actually make it out of here. But for now, I am enjoying the warmth of a Kuma stove, the murmur of new friendly voices, and the fresh smells of my first shower of 2024.

Missing you all, and I hope to send more updates soon as I get back to McMurdo! We have another small science project in McMurdo that will keep me there until Feb 12th, so I'm sure I'll have at least a few more updates for you all.

Best,

Paul