Happy Thanksgiving to all back in the States!  It is Friday the 25th here.  We will be celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow, Saturday, in order to keep the workers here on schedule.  I happened to be walking by the McMurdo "Store" yesterday when they broke out a couple boxes of bottles of highly coveted red wine..   I bought one to have with Turkey dinner tomorrow and then watched as all the bottles were purchased and disappeared within about 5 min!  limited supply...

Starting to feel like we are stuck at the Hotel California, we checked in, still waiting to leave.  Weather was bad yesterday and as a result we once again had our flight cancelled, now it is Friday and the pilots and crew do not want to risk missing Thanksgiving tomorrow here in McMurdo and so we are not flying today either.  Sunday is a day off so the earliest we will make it to our field camp will be Monday!  Hard to believe I will have been here 10 days without even getting to our field site.  Things have the potential to move really slow...

Weather forecast that was posted here yesterday..

1/24/2011 4:22:44 AM
Low pressure continues to dominate the region with periods of up and down weather this morning, becoming ugly late morning into this afternoon in snow and blowing snow, which will reduce the visibility to marginal conditions. Expect this scenario to persist into Friday night.


I put together a kind of fun gallery of local "Culture"  have a look at the link here.  I annotated the photos a bit, most depict some version of irony about this place with an incredible amount of creativity.  I threw in cool pics of big trucks too :)

http://pyrat.smugmug.com/Other/Antarctica2011-MacTown-Culture/20252511_Vwv3qk#1601052875_DTQQQXT

Well, in true polar fieldwork fashion... our C-130 flight to WAIS camp today has officially been cancelled due to weather so we are here in McMurdo at least another night.  We are becoming well practiced at the "hurry up and wait" mode....

View from the Crary Lab - McMurdo.  Mount Discovery on the left, Brown Peninsula in the center and the Royal Society Mountain Range on the Right.

23Nov2011 - After a nice calm sunny day yesterday afternoon (see photo) weather has started to deteriorate.  Gary and I are scheduled to fly out to WAIS field camp this evening about 1800 so we are watching things carefully to see whether our flight will go.   Also, I have learned that I will have little to no internet access while at the camp so these posts may slow down significantly.  It is unclear whether I will be able to get email on my gmail or .gov account but I have been issued a camp email and will receive email there.  If you want/need to contact me that address is   urbanfr@wais.usap.gov   It will not be active until I reach the camp.

The McMurdo website has posted this notice about todays weather.. along with a satellite image of conditions.  So... we wait and see!  Gary and I are going to go over to the galley and sign up for Thanksgiving dinner (you have to reserve a slot so they can get everyone in) just in case we get stuck here a few more days...  

Regional Summary	11/23/2011 4:56:27 AM
Low pressure slowly moving up from the Ross Ice Shelf, so more of that white powdery stuff expected today, with deteriorating conditions by this afternoon as the Low approaches Ross Island. Tomorrow is looking even nastier…

Weather turned a bit dicey today with increasing clouds, consistent snowfall and generally crappy flying conditions.  Hopefully things will look better tomorrow.  We finished prepping and collecting all our cargo for our flight out to WAIS this coming Wednesday.  This is no simple task as each part and piece requires some running around town to different buildings, each with its own forms and paperwork and staff... Gary and I spent a bunch of time in "Psyco" (Science Cargo)... and the "BFC" (Berg Field Center, outdoor gear supply) - affectionately known by everyone here as "Building Full of Chicks", (see the BFC logo in the photo gallery below) as well as going to the science supply warehouse to pick up supplies.  

More training was also completed, environmental safety (Hazmat) and lab safety as well as a required laboratory walking and educational tour.

We also ordered our beverages for WAIS - this is a pretty cool system, you get online and download an excel spreadsheet and fill it out with items you want off the available supply list.. beer/wine/liquor/mixers etc... you then email your order to beverage supply.  They package and prep your goodies and put them in the system to be shipped (DNF - do not freeze) along with your cargo and they arrive with you on your flight to your field camp.  You then stop by their office in another building and pay them.  Gary and I decided on Sierra Nevada Pale Ale and Glenlivet Scotch.  We tried to get some red wine to have with Turkey day dinner but all they had was white.. we will have to make do...

There are some really neat things here in McMurdo.  In the Crary Lab building where I have been assigned a temporary office they house a wide range of scientists working on geological/geophysical, biological, astronomical etc.. projects.  There is a really neat lab that is essentially dedicated to marine fish and invertebrate biology.  They have a bunch of tanks and are conducting all kinds of experiments.  They circulate water from McMurdo Sound through the laboratory.  They have a small touch tank with some of the incredibly diverse invertebrate biota.  

Check out the photos in this gallery with scenes around "MacTown" and the Crary Lab including some great photos from the invertebrate touch tank... 

http://pyrat.smugmug.com/Other/Antarctica2011-Around-MacTown/20194232_WJCZkj#1595106461_TRBVc7F

My first day in Antarctica involved an overnight safety class called "happy camper" or "snow craft 1" which was essentially an Antarctic survival and preparedness course.  We camped overnight in small tents on the sea-ice at the base of the volcano Mt. Erebus. We dug snow trenches, practiced safety and rescue techniques and generally just learned a ton of great information on the subject from our instructors etc..   It was not very cold, about 10-15 degrees F.  A great group of people and we learned a ton!





Visit this Smugmug gallery for  some pics from the class...
http://pyrat.smugmug.com/Other/Antarctica2011-Happy-Camper/20192594_sPnMPR#1594894228_4VC2Tg6

First post on my new blog!  I have never published a blog but thought it might be a fun new way to keep friends and family up to date on my adventures.  Let me know if you have any helpful ideas on making it better and/or if it is not working etc..  I will usually try and post most photos on galleries at my smugmug sites so be sure to click those links.

 I am in the first days of a work trip in Antarctica.  I am part of an effort to measure a suite of properties of the ice sheet at the WAIS divide ice core location.  Specifically, my partner Gary and I will be measuring temperatures in the ice core borehole down to about 3300 meters.  This information will help to advise the drill team about how much deeper they can drill, and we will use the data to create a past climate history of that location back about 40,000 years.

I left Denver on the 15th of November.  I travelled about 20 hours via commercial airlines from Denver to Los Angeles to Christchurch New Zealand.  We crossed the dateline on the way and so we actually arrived on the 17th of November even though it was only 20ish hours later.  I then stayed a couple days in the great city of Christchurch enjoying fantastic hospitality, excellent food and beer, seeing the sites (the botanical gardens are the best I have ever seen by a long-shot) and dealing with science logistics before heading to McMurdo Station Antarctica via a U.S. Air Force C-17 cargo jet.  That was an excellent flight, took about 5.5 hours.

My first day in Antarctica involved an overnight safety class called "happy camper" or "snow craft 1" which was essentially an Antarctic survival and preparedness course.  We camped overnight in small tents on the sea-ice at the base of the volcano Mt. Erebus. We dug snow trenches, practiced safety and rescue techniques and generally just learned a ton of great information on the subject from our instructors etc..   It was not very cold, about 10-15 degrees F.  A great group of people and we learned a ton!

The remainder of our time here in McMurdo has been spent gathering supplies, taking other safety and training courses and working on prepping for our flight to WAIS divide.  That flight will be on a ski-equiped LC-130 cargo aircraft and it is looking like that will be on Wednesday or Thursday next week.

There is a great webcam here in McMurdo.  I will try and update the blog before we leave for WAIS, thanks for reading!

Visit this smugmug gallery page for photos from the first days of the trip.

http://pyrat.smugmug.com/Other/Antarctica2011/20175008_hvw6R4#1593275378_rTbpBvm

A bunch of these were taken with my phone so pardon the quality..