The drill is naked

A slower start today, especially after the festivities for Mackie's birthday (one of our field coordinators).

We decided that the wind was low enough that we may as well take the tent off the drill. Lots of screws and fabric later, and the drill was left naked. A big thanks to David (an Arctic truck instructor) and the science team for helping us get it folded. David also taught us some fun tricks for rolling ratchet straps for storage.

A good day in the sunshine. Nice and warm, and we have made a good start on the packing. It is Sunday, so the Summit crew have the day off and they are spending it skiing the ski-way.

The un-tented drill parked next to the Mobile Science Facility (MSF)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A few new things

Image
This time, we have had to learn a few additional skills. The first is due to the visit of this fella last time I was up at Summit: Wildlife protection measures have been increased at Summit, so all field teams need to have a large caliber rifle (we have a Ruger M77 Hawkeye 30-06) and to have been trained in the use of said rifle. I have been traveling to Harrisburg most weekends to do 20 hours of rifle training with Green Mountain Defense, and my instructor Kent (who has kindly described me as competent with a rifle) Learning to shoot a rifle The chances of an encounter are very low, but the theory is it is better to know what you are doing should the need arise. We also did tower climbing and rescue training. The idea here is, if the drill breaks, we may need to climb the tower to fix it. We should know how to do it safely and how to rescue a teammate if necessary. Drill team members went to Blackhawk Tower for a three day intensive training course, and we are all now certified for cl...
Read more

Summit

Image
Made it to Summit, Some backstory: Managed to get to Udvar-Hazy - it is always fund to see the Blackbird and the Space Shuttle and then we headed to the airport to try this Iceland flight again. Made it to Iceland after another 2 hour weather delay in DC. This meant that Helen and I arrived in Iceland on July 7th and were not out of the airport until mid-day. Pouring rain in Reykjavik, but we went to see the continental plate divide (so much wind), a hot springs, and a waterfall before arriving in Akureyri around 10 pm. Beautiful place, but we were shattered so had some fish and chips and then bed. There was a fire alarm - just to keep things interesting, at around 2 pm. The flight to Summit on the 8th was a little delayed to let the fog clear at Nerlerit Inaat, the refueling point for out trip. For the second leg, we were treated to spectacular views of the Eastern Greenland mountains. We are here, it isn't too busy, and I have the same bed as last time (in the FLARM). So we ...
Read more

Weather delay

Image
I am in Washington DC with Helen. For those paying attention, this is not where we are supposed to be, but you may have also seen the crazy weather that has been appearing on the east coast. Allow me to summarize: July 4th - Late afternoon flight out to Pittsburgh. Helen and I said goodbye to the cat and drove to Pittsburgh airport, checked in and waited for our flight. The weather had mostly moved through, but our inbound plane couldn't leave DC - so we got canceled. We had a chat with a couple of lovely United people, got our bags back, were re-booked on the earlier DC flight the next day and drove home. July 5th - 3 pm flight out of Pittsburgh. Helen and I said goodbye to the cat and drove to Pittsburgh airport, checked in and waited for our flight. Mechanical issue with the plane caused a small delay, but we have a 6 hour layover in DC, so no concern there. Flew to DC. Storms roll in. We board, there are way too many carry on bags, so the flight attendants spend a while hold ch...
Read more