No word from the 2015-2016 field team in the past 24 hours is almost certainly good news.

There’s no better word to use than “hustle” for this put-in period. The field team members are scrambling all over McMurdo to get their field gear together, their personal belongings stowed for their return,  clean up their dorm rooms, send those last emails and get to the MCC for transport to the airport. Then that all starts again when you’re at the airfield.  Do I have time for one last civilized pee?   How much juice should I drink before that earlier question becomes critical?  When did I sleep last?   When I’m on the plane will I be scared?   Where’s my camera! ………..  Luckily,  ANSMET folks tend to be well-centered and keep the train on the rails.

Greenland huskies on the ice early in Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition. Photograph by the famous Antarctic photographer Hurley, from the Lines on the Ice exhibit,  Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, Australia.

Meanwhile the leadership folks (Jim and John) are doing all that PLUS wheeling and dealing to get the planes to the right place with the right gear at the right time.  Even more important,  they work to NOT let critical stuff get separated from the folks who need it. Mawson learned that lesson 100 years ago;  don’t put all your food on one sledge.   Making sure every person has the means of survival in hand may not sound too hard (make a list, check it twice),  but when you’ve got multiple planes in motion, 8 people and 16,000 lbs of cargo moving in a complicated chain-of-custody gavotte, it takes a Santa-like memory.

So let’s all turn southward and send our best hopes and dreams to the team,  a little psychic energy to keep them calm and in motion.