(L to R) Scott, James, and Ioannis kick back after completing the snow shelter. We decided not to build an igloo as it would obstruct our view of the inbound Twin Otter and also would increase the risk significantly that we’d just have a pile of crumbled snow bricks.

Hello all, Yesterday we posted how we were hoping to get moved today. Well, that didn’t happen due to some serious wind. Consider… James and Scott try to sleep as the wind bellows around them. The 30 KT wind with gusts up to 40 KTs flexes their tent and even knocks objects onto them as they sleep. 05:45 arrives and there’s a knock at the door. It is John, they already know what he is going to say. From outside their tent, beard flowing gracefully in the wind, ice already clinging to his mustache for added insulation, John informs that there will not be any flights today. (I felt inclined to write that bit in third person as it was more theatrical – thought I’d get that in the open so my sanity isn’t called into quetion.) The issue is not that it is too windy for the Twin Otter. Absent a runway, they can line themselves up into a strong headwind and land with a very low groundspeed. The concern is with the -25C temperatures and winds that strong, it’ll be bitterly cold and extremely difficult to both take down and set up camp. Alas, today is a another tent day. When we got up this morning there was a significant hard-snow drift outside our tent door. James bravely imitated superman, flying over the drift chest first. Upon landing, he laid siege to the drift with a shovel as he bellowed a war cry, and cleared our door for the time being. We also woke this morning to frozen pee bottles – a first for this trip and a testament to how much colder it was last night due to the wind. More on this topic coming in a future tent day blog post. We did prepare as much as we could yesterday for our eventual move. It took about an hour but all non-essentials are prepared and ready for a flight out. After wrapping up, rather than diving back into our tents for the rest of the day, James, Ioannis, and I started work on a snow-based shelter. This incredible invention of ice is amazing in its ability to shelter from the wind (and made me feel more Canadian as I cut snow blocks out of a drift created by our clothing bags). We took turns sawing snow blocks out of the drifted snow (we can add Antarctic snow farmer to our resume now) and stacking them up to make a horseshoe-shaped structure. It was a lot of work, but once completed, it was very relaxing to sit on the blue-ice floor and enjoy the view. It also will serve as a waiting spot for the final flight to our next stop. If the weather is fair tomorrow, we’ll relocate and can have our tent down and ready while we wait for the Twin Otter to make its final pick-up here. There is a great sightline for the area we’ve “flagged” as the runway and this is much preferred to playing a mole in whack-a-mole in the sense of popping your head out of the tent every 2 minutes to see if the plane is about to arrive and have the cold and wind blast you in the face. The wind has died down a bit so that bodes well for flights tomorrow to our next stop. Word is that we are heading to Nødtvedt Nunatacks next. If it isn’t tomorrow (Saturday), it won’t be until Tuesday at the earliest. We’re all really hoping to get moved tomorrow. I know I’m looking forward to a first change of clothes after the move is complete. Posted by Scott from Mt. Wisting on 2017-12-22 at 19:00 local. Photo Caption: (L to R) Scott, James, and Ioannis kick back after completing the snow shelter. We decided not to build an igloo as it would obstruct our view of the inbound Twin Otter and also would increase the risk significantly that we’d just have a pile of crumbled snow bricks.