Greenland - 2026

18 meters in 2 days.......we just did 80 meters in 9 hours. Whatever we did to the drill, it was very happy today. Good day drilling. Cold in the morning, but warm in the afternoon. Got back in time for the science talk - lovely. We had to drink grappa, to represent the two crap drilling days, and whiskey, to represent the great day drilling. Moving day tomorrow, but the 7th hole of the season is in, the 3rd station is started. Good progress. We probably have 9 days more drilling to go before we need to start packing. Me drilling for a change A beautiful morning Pisten Bully to work

After the greatest drilling day ever, we have had two dreadful days back to back. The weather is beautiful, and herein lies the problem. We headed out to site to lower the drill and move the rig to a new station. It was cold initially, but the sun did it's thing and everything was very warm by the time we got moving. We also had a visit from some mechanics to recover the snow mobile we couldn't start (battery and spark plugs apparently). Once at the new site, water was dripping out of the barrel of the drill. This is a real issue, because we can't leave the drill horizontal or else the water will freeze and the auger won't turn, but we can't leave the drill vertical without a hole to put it in (at least a 6 meter hole). So we drilled a hole, cause the ice that we cut to melt and then re-freeze in the drill and then we had to de-ice the drill. But we ran out of time (we have to be back on station by 18:30 everyday), so we were not able to de-ice the drill properly. C...

We did it. We drilled the fastest hole ever with the BigRAID drill. Less than 12 hours. Good drill. If only we knew why the drill was so happy. It was a long day (7:45 am to 6 pm - drilling non-stop), but we danced to a new playlist (thanks again Helen) and we got it done. That means tomorrow is moving day......so tiring. Pisten Bully driving away from the our generators Home - The Flarm is second from the left

We got up early ready for a day in the field (it's moving day - always a hard day to digging), and were about to head out, but a fog bank came in and we were put into Condition 2 - no off station travel. At least I could have more coffee. Eventually, we made it to the rig, lowered the drill, and disassembled the tent. You may recall the Science team helped dig in our anchors. They were not there to help them dig them out again. Delia isn't tall, but still...... Delia in a hole The tend came down nicely and the rig moved easily, but Delia found the only slope in the whole of the ice sheet, so the drill was nowhere near level. There are ways to level the drill, but they are very labor intensive. Delia now needs to scale the rig to get onboard. With the drill level, we started raising the tower when our winch battery died.....it never rains (ever actually), but it pours. We plugged in a new battery charger, had lunch, and then had enough power to raise the tower (which went really...

No time off station today. The wind is too strong to move the drill and it blows in the wrong direction. So time to do my other job - which means budgets. Way too much fun. Delia and I also coated some cutters in Nanomyte superAi to see if we can make the drill cut better (or worse). Just something different. A horrible chemical, but with wonderful anti-icing properties. Last night I was taught how to play Vietnamese poker while drinking Jägermeister - which I thought was very cultural of me, and the sun treated us to a light pillar. Hopefully, we can get back in the field tomorrow, but the wind is looking touch and go. Light pillar, with sun dogs on either side The light pillar with a finger sun shade

 So cold. I wore everything I had and had heat producing things everywhere and I was still cold...... The board we live out lives by in the SOF (Station Operations Facility) Despite the cold and a snow mobile that still doesn't start (for me at least - the mechanics swear it is fine), we got the next hole done. That is 5 for the season (4 that I have been involved with). The wind picked up when we finished the hole, so we were not able to lower the tent. I has a habit of being a bit of a sail......and the weather also looks bad tomorrow, so we might be stuck on station tomorrow too. Three weeks left up here on Monday. We are pretty much halfway. Two more weeks of drilling and then we pack. Frozen water bottle Pretty, but a cold day Drillers Our most recent hole

Cold today, -17 C initially and warming to -8 C. So cold the battery on my snow machine failed and I had to use one of the new ones (the new ones are miles better, unfortunately the Pisten Bully can only go 10 mph so I was forced to drive slowly. We finished servicing the generator by checking the spark plugs and then we drilled. We were expecting winds from the North, but they actually came from the West. Made our tent become a strange shape. Our drill tent in the wind Rubbish drilling all morning but then something happened and the drill found it's groove. As Delia put it  “It seems we found the settings that work at this time of today, at this depth, and at this geographical location, and with this weather” We managed to get down to 60 m before heading home for dinner. Good day in the end. Thanks to Helen for the playlist that kept us going!!!! Let's hope the drill is still happy tomorrow. Delia making the drill work A fog-bow over Summit Station - The Station Operations Fac...

North winds - no internal combustion allowed, so we were stuck on station all day. A shame too because the weather is beautiful. Not much to report. We looked at a 3D model of the drill to try to optimize shoe size so that we could choose a pitch that cut good chips, but didn't draw too much power (one of our run termination conditions). I caught up on the work from my other jobs (proposal writing, labor distribution, budgets - all that fun stuff), and we generally mooched around. Weather looks better tomorrow, so we should be able to get out and start the next hole. Summit in the Sunshine Where I sleep. On the bottom bunk you can hang a sheet to have a little nook all of your own. Currently no one is above me, but that will change when the flight period starts in early August

Today we spent the day watching the drill being gently warmed by heating pads. Lots of icicles formed and we lost about 10 kg in weight, so hopefully we have managed to clear the blockage. Tomorrow will tell (although the weather may keep us on station - North Winds). The weather - the forecast has become terrible. They don't launch weather balloons from Summit anymore (US Federal budget cuts), so we can never be sure. We also changed the oil in the generator - exciting day. The Science team did come to see us through - they needed to survey the location of the two remaining holes that we need to drill. That done, they were more than willing to help us move the rig. Much digging done very quickly with so many of the RNO-G team helping out. The plan is to start the next hole tomorrow. Stay tuned to see if the melting day did anything so the drill. Who says I don't do suspenseful writing. Our cargo lines looking towards the Station Operations Facility Delia up the tower with a wa...

I am losing track.........first hole of Station 46 is now done. Forth hole of the season (although I wasn't involved in the first hole). It was a terrible pain to get it done. The drill is not happy and we think we have an ice block that limits our cut length to around 1.3 m. But we got it done. Tomorrow, we are thinking about heating up the drill to try to dislodge the ice, but it will take most of the day and the weather on Thursday looks terrible. It is probably the right call for more efficiency drilling in the future, but it is sad to lose a day (on the plus side it might mean I won't have to shovel any snow...... The day started with a fog bank sitting over the Station. Probably condition 2 (poor visibility), but we managed to escape before the station manager called it. The morning weather was wonderful. Still and cold (good for the drill). But the wind came in later and we had a torrid time coming back to station. On the plus side - I slept like a baby last night for th...

If I haven't made it clear yet, the drill is a touch temperamental. It doesn't like the cold and it really doesn't like it when it is warm. We were around -5C today and the drill was not happy. Everything we tried to make the drill cut a good length on each run failed. We tried different cutters, different speeds, different pitch, different shoes - nothing helped. So a long day and we managed to get down to 53 m (so not terrible, it just felt terribly slow). Ice was melting all around us on our drill rig. It is very unpleasant being wet and cold. I also managed to cover myself in gasoline - fun, fun, fun. Although very much a rite of passage. It looks like we are having a warm week, so hopefully today isn't an indication of what is to come. Our current hole Our carbide cutters on the mounting shoe

Not truly dead reckoning, but we definitely had to call upon those solar navigation skills....... Delia and I headed out early knowing that the weather was going to get worse in the afternoon and we wanted to move the Drill to the next station. We arrived at Station 45 with beautiful weather and had an uneventful time lowering the drill tent, hooking it up to the Pisten Bully and heading to Station 46 - guided by a handheld GPS. Turns out that Station 46 hasn't been surveyed yet, so we spent a lot of time looking for flags that don't exists. As a result, us drillers got to chose the first hole location. The scientists can figure it out (turns out our stations are great at tracking radio emission from planes and they can use that to locate the holes). Putting the tent up was far more challenging as the wind started up. It was a little hectic (lots of repairs on the fly), but we got it done and the tent is up. We then took a well earned break to discuss whether we should cut our ...

Station 45 is complete and we were treated to a beautiful sky. We drilled the final 10 meters this morning and packed up the rig. Unfortunately, the wind picked up and we were unable to lower the tent, so we decided to take the rest of the day off. Cue a rush across the ski-way to get back before the Twin Otter flight came in. Good job we got in too, the Twin Otter had a real hard time taking off - 22 attempts to compact the runway and take-off. Farewell our drilling friends. Just me and Delia left. Me, Delia, Jason, Jack, and Zoe Jack, Zoe, and Jason The Twin Otter Lots of new construction is taking place up here this year. Tim, the construction site manager, gave us a tour of the new berthing that will hold 14. It looks like it will be really nice.

The storm actually wasn't that bad, but the forecast was so we weren't let out. It meant we were able to organize our stuff so that when drill team 1 leaves tomorrow, Delia and I can figure out where everything is. We were also around for our PI to do a science talk  We went out to the rig today. The drill was already at 30 m, so we were expecting a routine day of auto-drilling. Unfortunately, the snow has other ideas: So we did some digging. The rest of the day was spent in auto-drill mode and we got all the way down 90 m. The hope is to finish the hole tomorrow. That competes the station, and then we head to Station 46. The issue is the wind is picking up, so we might not be able to raise and lower the drill tent - we shall see. Oh, and I did some washing!! The drill team (minus Zoe who became a science team member). Al Fredo (our mascot) can be seen Delia clearing snow Keeping out of the sun