We had a fantastic, successful and very long day yesterday, and since I saw it coming I decided to keep a timeline of events.

Monday (28 Nov), 5:45 AM  Woke up and after getting dressed, a visit to the bathroom and some final last-minute packing,  went off to the cafeteria for a big breakfast. Met John and Duck there (Brian is not an early riser or breakfast eater).

6:45 AM:  Went to our office in the Crary lab to send out a few last-minute emails and check if we were really going somewhere today.  Last night’s schedule had two flights for us;  John and Duck scheduled to put-in to Elephant Moraine for a 7-day reconnaissance trip,  and Brian and I to fly to Shackleton Camp where we would fly over most of the potential landing sites for our main season. Typically that schedule isn’t real until the bosses over at Fixed Wing Ops tell us so, and I called them at 7:05 as requested. They said “call back at 7:30”.  Sigh.

7:30 AM:  Called Fixed Wing and both flights are on!   Quick email home and hustle to room to dress for battle….er,  I mean “travel”.  Try on all three pairs of wind pants I own.  One pair fits.

7:50 AM:  Out at Derelict Junction for pickup and ride to Willy Field by a scheduled shuttle van. We’re all there and ready to roll. Driver asks good questions about antarctic meteorites, there’s a lot of folks down here very interested in our work.

8:30 AM:  At Willy Field,  dropped off at the Twin Otter shack.  John and Duck are hustled on to their aircraft, which is already packed and fueled up.  By 8:45 they’re on the way, and I wave Bye-Bye! Meanwhile Brian and I help get our aircraft ready;  the crew we fly with today (Pilot Troy, 1st officer Tyler and mechanic Larry) are very cool, very competent, but this is their first flight out of McMurdo this year so they’re double-checking everything.  I like that.   What I don’t like?  the nearest bathroom is literally a 55 gallon drum on a pallet with a funnel,  a slippery plastic chair to stand on (like the ones that cost $3 at walmart) and nothing to hold on to-  though if you did fall there’s a large bare electrical wire right where you’d grab first.  Let’s just say after a trip to that facility,  I’m ready to surf on a great white shark’s back.

9:22 AM:  We are loaded and take off southwards.  First 40 minutes of the flight is the familiar, beautiful scenery of McMurdo Sound- the Royal Society Range, Mt. Discovery, White and Black Islands, and lastly Minna Bluff.  After that we’re on the permanent ice shelf,  what Scott called the Barrier because it was sheer monotony.  We seem to be heading closer to due south than needed to get to Shackleton,  and I wonder what’s going on.

11:45 AM:  Now I know what’s going on.  We land at a gas station situated along the South Pole Traverse (SPT) road.  It’s really nothing more than 6 very large tanks and a row of flags stretching away forever. When fueling is done we talk about our reconnaissance flight targets while we wait for the noon weather update for Shackleton.

12:28 PM: Forecast comes in and it’s good news,  so we takeoff along the road and turn toward the southwest. Shackleton Camp here we come!

12:35 PM:  I dig in to my lunch,  bagged from the cafeteria this morning after breakfast.  Teriyaki meatball pita is not bad.  Banana is awesome. Juice box is very kiddish (you can’t look tough sucking a tiny little bendy straw). Ham wrap held in reserve. Ghostly Transantarctics looming in the distance to the west.

13:15 PM:  Transantarctics now only 15-20 miles off the right side of the aircraft.  Normally I’d be able to identify a few key peaks and glaciers and figure out where I am,  but not today- there’s been a fresh snowfall, and as that has melted on exposed rocky surfaces the evaporation causes beautiful fluffy little clouds around all the peaks, disguising them.  Tried to nap but failed-  legs are boiling from the plane’s heaters, arm is frozen from leaning on plane wall, and the air is so thin that I start skip-breathing when I begin to doze  (calmly breathe in, and breathe out, and breathe in, and breathe out, OH NO BREATHE IN AND OUT IN OUT IN OUT GASP!). That’s pretty typical on your first day going from sea-level up to 10,000 or 14,000 feet altitude.

13:35 PM: We reach the foothills of the Transantarctics and make a gentle turn uphill along a glacier.  This has to be the Shackleton-  there are gorgeous granite knobs and peaks and faces toward the bottom. Higher up the land is fully dissected into ridges and valleys, but the ridges are very sharp and the valleys deep and U-shaped as only happens in heavily glaciated terrain. The little fluffy clouds are all over the place here, all sitting right above exposed cliffs and moraines.  You can see snow falling from some of them, a perfect example of microclimate.

13:45 PM:  Definitely the Shackleton- there’s a magnificent meandering medial moraine (m^4) that can only be the Swithenbank Moraine.  It’s quite unique, stretching from a big bare valley called the Bennett Platform near the headwaters of the glacier all the way down,  and it’s serpentine twists resemble a whip uncoiling in the wind. Even though I haven’t been here since 1995, the terrain starts looking very familiar as the skis rise up toward the plane.

13:57 PM:  On the ground at Shackelton Glacier Camp (SHG)! Greeted by the camp manager and staff, it’s a beautiful place with 12,500 ft high mountains on one side and a long view up the Shackelton Glacier on the other.  The camp is much smaller than the last “big” camp we worked from, CTAM.  I think that’s on purpose, because CTAM was almost too big to be good at science support (it needed too much logistics of its own). More on SHG later…..

15:16 PM: After a lovely lunch of meat pies, soup and juice boxes (Mommy I want another one!) we reboard our plane (Tail number KBH) and prep for takeoff.  The cook from SHG is along for the ride- she’s been stuck in camp for weeks and just got done cooking her brains out for thanksgiving, so the camp manager gave her this surprise. I’m on the headseat for this flight since the first targets are the icefields our reconnaissance team (technically called G-058 B) wants to visit. Our main goal is to scout out landing sites, particularly for those places we’ve never been to before.  some comical chatter before takeoff- the plane can’t leave without checking in with McMurdo but nobody’s answering the phone.

15:38 PM:  Finally take off.  Chatter was getting less and less comical.   But here we go to Mt. Wisting!

16:40 PM:  Fly just N of Devil’s Glacier icefield.  Dissapointing- the satellite images (from last year) show what looks like patchy blue ice surrounded by massive crevasse fields,  but in real life it’s that almost-white ice where we rarely find meteorite concentrations.  It could be the little puffy clouds (which are abundant here) are just ruining contrast too much for color to show.  We’ll get another look after we circle Mt. Wisting.

16:45 PM: a quick counter-clockwise flight around the Mt. Wisting / Mt. Prestrud site, and we identify a nice landing area near the former.  When we were here in 1995 we camped near the latter, and we see the drums on the snow slope. The two mountains are separated by the Norway glacier,  which looks like the spillway of a frozen dam.

16:50 PM: a quick turn S and we’re at the Nodvedt nunataks.  Very nice looking icefield,  not very big and highly constrained with serious, wild crevasses on all borders, but within those borders and around the nunataks some attractive blue ice.  We find a decent landing site right between the two main nunataks and move on towards the uphill end of the Amundsen Glacier icefield

17:04 PM: the uphill end of the icefield is decent, with signs the recent light snow is being removed;  but as we move NE along the Nilsen plateau,  the blue ice gets less and less exposed and there’s a lot of terrestrial rock.  Pretty much if you can see it this well from the moving aircraft,  there’s a lot.  I’m disappointed, but not entirely-  the higher end could be good.   We didn’t visit the “upper Amundsen” icefield simply because I forgot about it.  In my defense I was giving the pilot the reins and I didn’t have an image of that icefield so it was easy to forget.   At the NE end of the Amundsen icefield we turn left toward Mt. Emily/Cecily/Raymond.

17:10 PM: we skirt the edge of the Devil’s Glacier icefield again.  Definitely white ice;  either that or I’m lost, but we can see for miles and there’s just no blue ice to be seen.

17:45 PM: this is an awesome flightline.  First we fly near Mt. Pratt and the icefield there.  Then right by Larkmann Nunataks, home of martians and lunars and lots of other cool stuff. Then the icefields around Mt. Mauger, Mt Block and Mauger Nunataks, with Mt. Bumstead nearby.  Then on towards…..

17:55 PM:  We’re over the target, circling around it’s northern end and flying south along the icefields on the western side of Mts Emily, Cecily and Raymond.  Absolutely gorgeous place-  really of the places I’ve been to  in Antarctica this is one of the most beautiful because of the views close and far,  the moraines and windscoops and really, really blue ice.  Lots of separate icefields too,  which makes it fun to explore.  I formally tell Brian (who will be field safety lead for G-058 A) that he won the coin toss this year.

18:08 PM: after examining two landing sites on the SW side of Mt. Raymond we turn back toward SHG.

18:16 PM: We’re out in the middle of the Mohn Basin. Awesome empty whiteness but with crevasses placed here and there to add an element of thrill-  the lion in the tall grass,  so to speak.

18:34 PM:  On the ground at SHG.  Just before landing we flew right over the Bennett Platform, SHG’s own Dry Valley.  Awesome.  Again G-058A are lucky- the flight between their target and SHG is only about a half hour. G-058B is more like an hour, but of course both are really short when compared to flying out of McMurdo.

20:06 PM: An LC-130 was scheduled to pick us up right about now and get us back to McMurdo tonight, a great help since we were worried about being back in time to meet the rest of the troops scheduled to get to McMurdo on wednesday.  But that LC-130 hasn’t left McMurdo yet, and the radio chatter is all over the place.  We eat a nice dinner that resembles a Chipotle rice bowl- mexican-spiced chili, rice and corn salsa. Ice cream and sweet potato pie for dessert, and more juice boxes.

20:19 PM: Official word comes in- the LC-130 flight is on a 2-hour mechanical delay.  They don’t tell us what’s wrong of course,  but that’s typical.  Brian settles in for a nap in the totally empty Science Hut. I can’t sleep.

20:21 A nice shot of really good rum courtesy of a kind stranger in Shackleton Camp.  Arrrr Matey.

21:40 PM:   word comes in again- new takeoff time is 23:00 hours.  Since it’s 2 hrs here and 2 back,  that means we arrive in McMurdo about 3 am.  I take out my contact lenses, which are getting itchy. Wait, it’s my eyes that itch, not the contacts.  Must be getting tired.

23:30 PM:  The LC-130 has left McMurdo and is on the way to SHG! I give up and go to the science hut to try and get 2 hours sleep.

Tuesday 29 November, 01:05 AM:  I made a big mistake.  Instead of laying out my sleeping pad and curling up in my sleeping bag,  I simply lay out my parka and slept on the floor.  Over the next two hours all the heat seeps out of me into that cold floor;  and when the camp manager tells us “15 minutes to landing” I jump up and start shivering.  this is a dumb mistake for me- I’m a veteran of 24 prior seasons.  But in my tired state I forgot the number one rule- don’t try to be tough, take care of yourself. I feel miserable, and the stoves in the galley can’t warm me up.  Teeth not quite chattering but serious achey and painey and cranky. I am in the middle of classic moderate hypothermia

01:15 AM: Standing outside waiting to board LC-130.  Now I am fighting the shivers.  Feet and hands are fine (the core shunt has already run its course). At this stage shivering is okay- it’s my body fighting to get warm again,  not giving up. My parka is in my bag that the loadmaster already took on board (another mistake, and a beautiful example of how two modest mistakes compound to make a bigger one).  When we finally get on board I am blissful that the aircraft is warm,  and I continue to recover, but I am fully into cranky, disoriented, and totally over-tired disorientation and psychologically I am cold even if my body isn’t.

01:30 AM:  Airborne for McMurdo.

03:50 AM:  On the ground at Willy Field.  Brian and I grab our stuff and hop out to a waiting shuttle.  both very tired,  and in particular I almost have to be guided to the van.  Scenery is gorgous, I’ve never seen the Royal Society Range lit up from this angle.

04:20 AM: Dropped off at our dorm.  Head up to room and quickly strip off outerwear, roll under covers and out like a light. Core shunts start up again as body tries to fully exit hypothermia.  I sleep until about 9:45 AM.

That was our 23 hour day.  I think it’s time to go to bed again, and yes,  I’ll put on an extra blanket.

-posted by rph from McMurdo