Byrd and beyond!

Time to write!
But no time to write!

It's amazing how chock full your schedule can get anywhere, even in Antarctica. When I'm not working - I work 54 hours a week - I seem to busy myself with a million things, which means I'm not as punctual with writing about them here... I've been out to Byrd and back since I last wrote and I want to tell all about it. So here it is.

A sign left over from the 1997 "final" closeout!

Byrd is the word! This is a "new" camp in the deep field this year. New because it has been funded by the current US administration as a stimulating force in the world. Is it ever! New is a loose term the way I am using it however.

Arriving at the site just 6 weeks ago, at a point roughly between Mcmurdo and the Antarctic Penninsula, the camp managers are greeted with a little white spot on a gigantic white canvas. Guided by only satellites talking to their GPS devices, they find themselves next to a large mound. A hill really. But not too big.

This is an anomaly on the Western Antarctic Plateau, where grade is more of a sense you get if you look at the horizon really carefully and for extended lengths of time. Like one of those magic eye puzzles! next to the hill there were hundreds of little bamboo posts holding flags a scant couple of inches off the ground in the shape of an airstrip.

Coming to Byrd a couple of weeks into occupation, this is the view from the C-130's flight deck. See the smear? that's the airstrip. Light and dark spots to the right? Byrd Surface camp.

So Byrd has been occupied on and off for the past 60 years. It was one of the first stations on the continent, and for some time one of the biggest. From it's military beginnings in the 1950s the original station quickly found itself buried in snow from massive amounts of accumulation. Unperturbed, the military decided to build an underground station that could not be buried, because it already was. Quite a brilliant tactic, until the walls cave in! Through the the years and many incarnations of Byrd, more and more artifacts have been buried, abandoned, dug out, chutes and ladders galore, and now the main large station that once was is 6o feet deep. (Though we would all dig it out at the drop of a hat, entrance is forbidden for safety reasons.)

There are two parts of camp that stick out. Literally. A gigantic communications antennae and what was once a 70-80 foot ice drilling rig, now a scant 35 feet above the surface. The hill mentioned earlier, is not a hill of course, but a relic from some of the most recent stations in the past two decades. Byrd has been opened and permanently closed more times than some of the old timers around here can even remember.

Some of the coolest Ice Crystals I have ever seen, formed in our absence.

Why are we going back? Science of course! A great place to start. Two groups, CRESIS and POLENET are the main investigators. The main goals of these two groups lie in the movements of the ice sheet our camp is build on. Using seismic sensors, GPS locators, and GPR or Ground Penetrating Radar, these groups are able to map sub-glacial bodies of water, waterways, topography and keep tabs on where the ice sheet is going, and how fast it is getting there. From all this information and surely some other details that I missed, they will begin to formulate some glaciological hypothesis on ice movements, and possibly some hypothesis on the future of the climate change the earth is currently undergoing. These groups are operating all over the continent as well as in Greenland. Lots of info is online if anyone is interested in geeking out a bit.

https://www.cresis.ku.edu/

Two science support planes on a day of flat light. The smaller of the two is outfitted with radar devices running up and down it's wings.
The two fellas on the right were in charge of weather ops, but somehow could never seem to keep up with the current temperature. They had too many toys I think.

So the carpenters shop is charged with creating these camps, or at least setting up the buildings, outhouses, food storage, heat, and many other amenities for both camp staff and ultimately all for the science. We've learned a lot from those who came before us and we will now take all the buildings apart and winter them on a berm every year. Oi.

When we arrive there is usually little more than a couple of people living in small tents with big radios. When we leave, a small town has been erected where one can have warm (and quite good!) meals prepared three times a day, heated structures to work in, power (the sparkys, linemen, and diesel mechanics head this one up), internet connections, and sometimes even showers!

A temporary carp shop (used for science once we rid it of dirty socks) and the carp crew -1! We are standing in the longest Rac-Tent we believe to have been built. Ever. 112 feet long.
We got this far in one morning! Amazing the wonders we can work when cargo finally arrives!

Four steps in building a freezer cave. (To keep your frozen food extra frozen!)


1.Ya gotta start somewhere! How about... Here!


2. Two days later... How'm I gonna get outta this here hole?


3. Two more days later... Shelving and a staircase. Those carps really are something!


4. Wait for the right light to illuminate the largest sculpture you unintentionally made.

Standing, looking North. South. East. West? The landscape is at once desolate and stunning. Obstructions do not exist.

At times the light is so flat, one can not see a hole or small ridge right beneath them. Sky and ice are one. Shadow does not exist, nor texture.

Other times the sky is as big and blue as the world could imagine. Crystals flying by twinkle like the billions of stars overhead and out of sight. Snow all around sparkles white and blue, textures changing with light. Blown crystals form dunes more picturesque than National Geographic could capture. Freezing hard and solid as the crystals meld to one another, the dunes erode away by high wind, carving them to a perfect harsh. Over and over, buried deeper and deeper this place could disappear a continent. But your soul accumulates... space, silence. True silence. Thinking...

I could lay in this field and stare at these stars forever.

Don't forget to have fun and learn something!
1. It's always a good time for croquet! Especially if you paint the white widgets green!
2. Lessons on the hand drill - bamboo flag post and cedar shim. Sweat, but no coal.