Con and Johnny await their Basler this morning in camp.

Today was a glorious, low-wind, not super cold day. Even though it was still blowing ~10 mph at -3 degrees F, it felt balmy and calm compared to our past five days of tent-only weather. It was a great day for Johnny and Con to start their camp move to Elephant Moraine via McMurdo. We packed them and all of their gear onto our Basler (thanks Kaizer, Will, and Jason!). They’ll have the weekend to regroup at McMurdo before heading back out to the field in the Allan Hills area on Monday to do some recon. Those jerks have probably already taken two delightfully burning hot showers and eaten Frosty Boy (the creamy soft serve ice cream) like five times already. Already we feel their absence–Jim remarked today that it felt “lonely” with only six people in the field. Unless we get very lucky, we likely won’t overlap with them at McMurdo before we depart for home. The next time we’ll be together will be at LPSC in Houston. It seems strange that so much time has elapsed… tomorrow marks seven weeks since most of us left home to come here and exactly one calendar month in the field. Our season here is just about to wrap up. However, we weren’t content to rest on our meteorite hunting laurels this afternoon. After Johnny and Con’s departure, the remaining six of us went out and searched a nearby moraine and managed to surpass 500 samples recovered for the season. We may not have Frosty Boy but we are meteorite hunting MACHINES.

This is probably not what Scott meant when he said that his team was “man-hauling” to the pole: Jim hauls Johnny via sledge.

–Posted by Nina by the gentle hissing of propane melting ice, New Sparkle City, south Miller Range, 15 January 2016