Hi all,  a short post to let you know we’ve returned to McMurdo after our shakedown trip.  The baseline purpose of this trip is to try out the essential camping gear the ANSMET team needs;  the actual, individual tents, sleeping bags, snowmobiles, stoves, propane lines, booties…..  all of it.  And while some do just fine with inspection of their gear back home, or in the warm spaces of the BFC or Crary Lab,  we know that a true ovenight shakedown trip away from McMurdo is the best guarantee that things work.   So that’s what we did.  We left McMurdo just before noon on Saturday and returned 24 hours later.  The itinerary this time wasn’t as deep in crevasse travel and rescue techniques as in the past,  but the need for that has diminished over the last decade. Those were designed to mitigate a serious threat during long (sometimes days-long)  overland traverses, which are now mostly replaced with air travel. In addition, an expanded obligatory schedule of meetings and training in McMurdo encourages us to streamline our own schedule so that we don’t cut into our finite and somewhat inflexible summer field season.

Here’s a few pics from the trip.

Heading straight at Mt Erebus, whose head is in the coulds. We had gorgeous weather the whole trip.

Can you drive uphill and sidehill and then downhill? Let’s test that by visiting Castle Rock (Some of us were brave enough to climb to the top. Some of us were courageous enough the stay behind without them).

Last but not least, a short promotional statement-  I am giving the Sunday Science Lecture in McMurdo tonight,  entitled “To Protect or To Swerve: ANSMET and Planetary Defense”.  If you’re near building 155 tonight at 8 pm,  please stop by!

-posted by RPH in McMurdo