Yours truly at about km 3.
Ridiculously Photogenic James at km 3.
Finish line and point at which the transition from human to penguin gait began.
James fist-pumping the air at the finish line to the roar of the crowd. In the background, hidden by the dark-brown building, Barb and Juliane give warm water to participants.
From my experience, when James is looking closely at something such as rock, it is because he’s carefully examining a xenolith. If that’s not the case, the only other possible answer is he’s showing the admiring crowd his thick head of Chris Hemsworth-esque hair.
‘Twas the night before Shackleton, when all thro’ McMurdo,
Not a creature was stirring, even with the Building 155 ANSMET dorm nightly concerto;
The big reds were hung by the door with care,
In hopes they’d soon experience even colder air;
It was delayed at first then ultimately not meant to be,
As the TV came to say: “cancelled, flight SHG zero one three”.
We had heard weather would be iffy today but were still optimistic. Our flight was scheduled for 08:00 and initially delayed at 05:30 by two hours. At 07:30 it was cancelled due to weather. On the plus side, breakfast at 05:30 meant shorter lines. We’ll see what the rest of day holds. James was hoping to bike the Castle Rock loop and has been trying to recruit victims, err, volunteers. It is about 10 miles and would mean going up that dreaded hill to Scott Base that, with help from a 10 KT headwind yesterday during the run, really did me in. The good news is, by biking, at least people wouldn’t have to see my penguin waddle that is a result of sore legs thanks to yesterday. Perhaps we’ll get that game of UNO in we were hoping to have last night, time will only tell.
There’s currently nothing beyond today on the fixed wing flight schedule. We’ll look to update here or with a future post once we have more information.
UPDATE 1: SHG013 now scheduled for 17:00 today.
UPDATE 2: But only as a backup if a flight to Siple Dome is cancelled.
UPDATE 3: Editor fixes post that lost all the narrative under the opening stanza
-Posted by Scott from McMurdo Building 155 on 2017-12-11 at 09:00 local.
Photos by an unknown volunteer.