Bad Weather in Antarctica

Practically halfway through July.  Time is flying by.  At 1pm the sky is hinting at a light blue these days.  I was expecting to be thrilled that the sun is coming back but instead I'm a bit apprehensive.  The darkness has a nice mellow quality.  I don't feel bad just relaxing in my room or having quiet time.  It's OK if I don't want to go hiking or if I don't take a lunchtime walk for exercise.  It's dark and cold out!  You SHOULD stay in.  However, now that the sun is coming back,  it's almost like I can sense the coming frenzy.  In August our population with double and we'll have normal days and nights.  I am looking forward to it. Don't get me wrong but it feels like the end of a nap.    You know you'll be refreshed when you get up, but you'd just love it go on a little while longer.

I was worried our winter would pass us by without a good storm but we were given a doozy of one last Thursday.  We categorize our weather into three "conditions". Normal daily operations is Condition Three.  This is nice weather and we have no restrictions.  The parameters for Con 3 are: winds less than 48 knots,  visibility greater than or equal to ¼ mile, and Wind chill temperature warmer than -75°F.    Condition two comes with restrictions to recreational travel but work as normal continues about town:  Winds 48 to 55 knots sustained for one minute or  Visibility less than ¼ mile, but greater than or equal to 100 feet sustained for one minute, or  Wind chill -75°F to -100°F sustained for one minute.   It's not uncommon to have Condition two weather.  It's cold and windy but workable.  Condition One is rare.  This was the first time I'd experienced it here.  Condition One means you cannot leave whatever building you are in without a Search and Rescue escort.  If you are in the dorms, they set up rope lines between the dorms and the dining hall  so that you can eat but you have to travel in groups and check out with the firehouse when you leave and then arrive at the next building.   In this recent storm, it got so bad at one point that they cancelled ropeline travel between buildings as well.  Condition one parameters are: Winds greater than 55 knots sustained for one minute or Visibility less than 100 feet sustained for one minute or Wind chill greater than -100°F sustained for one minute.

The morning started out with bad weather.  We tried to drive up to work but couldn't make it.  At one point we tried to follow someone walking but once they got 15 feet in front of us they would disappear.   Finally we had to roll down both front windows and just drive hollering directions between driver and passenger.  We stopped at the first building we came to and walked the rest of the way.  About 15 minutes after we got to work, the operations manager called us to warn us that they would be changing the condition and we should head down the hill now.   It was 8:30am.   Travis and I struck out to get down the hill together.   Instantly, we were almost blown over and couldn't see any landmarks or buildings.  Instead,  we walked toward the hazy streetlight in the direction of town.  When we got there, it was not where i expected to be and only being able to see 20 feet in any direction, I couldn't orient myself. Thankfully Travis knew where we were and got us back on track.   We stopped in at the galley, gathered snacks and provisions and then went to our rooms to wait out the storm.  The weather continued to get worse throughout the day so we had a snow day!  It was great fun.  People came and hung out in our room, we made arts and crafts,  listened to music and generally just hung around.

While we had a great relaxing day, many other people got called out to deal with all the issues the arise from a Condition one storm.  One of the main issues is temperature moderation. The science building, IT building and NASA equipment is all very sensitive to temperature and with the winds blowing so hard and fast, it's hard to moderate temperature which meant that alarms were going off in all of those buildings all day and people had to be traveling back and forth trying to keep McMurdo systems up and running.  The galley, of course, has to go to and stay at work during Condition One, the Search and Rescue team is out and about escorting people to and from buildings with their GPS systems and fire dispatch becomes a hotbed of activity as people are calling in and out to walk between buildings, report alarms or  request assistance.

The next day is when the fun of clean-up happens.  Fleet Operations is the crew with all the big equipment to get out and plow town out.  The were in their trucks ready to start working at 7:30 on the dot.   When we walked up to our barn, we had a HUGE snowdrift in front of our barn doors. The smallest part of the drift was up to my hips and it started at the door and then came out about 25 feet.  Thankfully, because we have buckets for our loaders, fleet ops came up to help us get out so we could get to work helping to dig out town.   The winds were so intense that in some places there was no snow on the roads but in others it would be 5 feet deep.  Trucks were buried in,  cardboard had blown all over town,  many of our big shipping containers had been knocked around, off stacks or blown down the road, the supply crew had to take a full assessment of all their outside storage and, of course, everyone who was able was out shoveling.   While my co-workers were helping to plow, I had to cruise around town to hunt down all our lost or tipped trash bins and set everything back in order.  By the end of the day, remarkably, town was pretty much back in shape.  There's still a few things that need to happen, but mostly, it looks good.  This is very important because we have a flight coming in this week. The same crew that puts town in order also has to get the runway up and running.  With the condition one that we had, it means there job will be all the more difficult.   They will have to plow and groom the 14 miles of road that leads out to the runway and then smooth and groom the runway to the specific requirements of the AirForce.  Not only that, but out on the iceshelf, the wind really whips through so many of our building there are flipped over, moved and I've heard rumor that one is even lost.

For all that, it was really insightful to be in Antarctica during a Condition One.  It was a good reminder that this is a wild place.

After the walk back to town through the nasty weather,  I went to take my pants off but the zippers were clogged with snow and ice. That was from less than 10 minutes walking outside.  Snow gets everywhere.  It is insidious! 

Our friend Dan standing outside our dorm door during the storm. 

A short progession of the snow accumulation inside one of our windows. 

A nice fine cover. 

Could make a snowball out of all that. 

This is our bedroom window.  I keep that wool blanket over the bottom half to keep out light and cold so that we can look at the stars while in bed.   This window also got a little snowy.

The light is about 5 carlengths away. There's a whole building there.

This is just one of 5 milvans that got blown around during the storm. One blew all the way down the road. 

This is the bathroom out at the airfield.   Thankfully all the good inside would have been frozen. 

AT Day 176 Roaring Brook Shelter to Standing Bear Hostel

November 2
Miles ~15

Gosh, it was so hard to get going this morning.   I've never hated hiking so much as I did for the first hour before my toes warmed up.   Ugh.  Wet socks in wet shoes at 48 degrees after a sleepless night in a cold shelter.   It was a rough morning. 
Thankfully, we got about 5 miles today below snow line so we had some easy walking but  I've (shannon) decided that I hate walking in the snow.  Especially as that snow turns to slush and we don't have great snow gear. 
SO, we've decide to skip the smokies which are 2000 feet higher than what we've already climbed and where we know there's lots of snow.  In fact some hiker friends of ours got stuck there during the storm and rangers had to go up and help them out. Right.  We know that the storm is over and that it's going to be 70 tomorrow.  We know snow melts.  But 3 feet of snow doesn't melt that fast and 5000 feet up in the air tends to be cold.   Also, when snow melts it turns into slush.   Which is wet.  ANYWAY.  We're skipping the smokies for now.  It will make us both a whole lot happier.  We'll come back when the weather is better. 

Snow! 

Top of Max Patch 

Snow walking. 

We got to this road and were all deciding if we wanted to hitch from here or  walk the last 10 miles.  We opted to walk. 

View from Max Patch! 

Relaxing with cats, pretzels, and beers and Standing Bear Hostel 

Shannon and Jamie Christmas Extravaganza

While we have already impressed you with a christmas post, we decided to do a second in honor of the epiphany, AKA "Three Kings Day AKA "Little Christmas." This one will be entirely dedicated to our personal christmas celebrations and adventures. So.

Welcome to "The Ultimate Christmas Story"

Christmas Eve:

Great. It all started on Christmas Eve. We both

had to work. Not a big deal. It was only until 12:30 and we weren't having a crowd for Dinner. Which brings us to the theme of our christmas. Eating. We have been eating non-stop since christmas eve. This post will mostly consist of our food menus.

Anyway, Christmas Eve we invited our ex-pat friend Chrissy over for Vigilia-Christmas Eve Fish Dinner for those of you that don't know the polish word.

We ate:

Pierogies (made from scratch- first time ever!!)

Baked stuffed shrimp (medium shrimp because we couldn't find jumbo, but still delicious)

White fish battered and fried (no idea what kind of white fish, we picked one at random)

Mashed Potatoes

Candied Yams

Stuffed Mushrooms

and Bernaise sauce! Yay! my mom sent us some in a care package. What's christmas dinner with out bernaise sauce?! Boring. That's what.

For dessert we had:

sugar cookies (boring i know, but we were going to be so full)

After Chrissy left we opened cards and gifts that we had gotten from our co-teachers and then we watched "A Muppet Family Christmas"

Christmas Day:

We woke up and opened stocking presents. Jamie got me a whole bunch of art supplies and candy and I got him a whole bunch of games and a waffle iron.

So. for breakfast we had:

Peirogies

Potatoes

Eggs (all with bernaise)

and Waffles! I found this great recipie online that is mostly all sugar and milk. Delicious.

We lounged around for a few hours called lots of family and friends and then had lunch.

A co-teacher of mine bought a MASSIVE about of bulgogi (korean BBQ) and gave it to me on Christmas Eve so we ate that.

And then for dinner we had Salmon, Asparagus, the rest of the pierogies and more potatoes. (and salad).

Second Day of Christmas

The next morning we were going to have waffles again, but realized that we had used all of our butter (2 pounds of it) so we suffered with omlettes and potatoes.

New Years Eve

For New Years we went Ice Skating at the Peace Gate in Olympic Park and made Mondu Gu (dumping soup) and White Russians for lunch. then headed downtown to have dinner and drinks with our friend Christina. We ended up at a cozy little Canadian Bar with live music, champagne at midnight and a fun crowd. We hung out, got our New Years Countdown and kiss and then packed up to go back home.

The Rest of the 12 Days of Christmas

Most evenings we've been sitting by the fire (Mom Keller sent us a DVD of a fire place), admiring our charming christmas tree, and watching christmas movies. We're watched one each night for the 12 days.

Little Christmas AKA The Three Kings AKA the Epiphany

In Shannon's house they celebrate three kings, so as you can see we've been celebrating all 12 days. But we also decided to exchange gifts on that day and have a delicious dinner/party. We actually had two. ON the kings we invited our Winter Camp co-workers over for drinks and on Saturday the 9th we invited our Co-teachers over for another little shindig.

Exciting things about the Ultimate Christmas:

Drinks:

We've learned how to make Eggnog from scratch! Of course, without a blender it takes some time, but it's certainly added to the christmas spirit and we're really excited about our new LionKiller Specialty.

Ice Skating:

Super Cheap (1000 won included skate time and rentals) and in korea, the one syllable word "skate" becomes 4 syllables. "suh kA ee tuh"

Snow:

Not a super amount but enough to cover the streets and sidewalks. And thankfully in korea they dont' seem to plow or salt so it feels like a winters worth of snow your trudging through!