Greenland - 2026

The wind is still in the wrong direction, but we had 15 more people arrive on station yesterday on a LC-130. Mostly scientists, two of them from Leeds University. So the station is busy. The flight periods are always a chaotic time and we have 22 planes schedule to come in between yesterday and the 24th. My flight out is on the 17th with 24 other people. It is going to be a busy ride. The LC-130 is never very comfortable anyway, so I am sure we will manage. Anyway, we have permission to go out to the drill tomorrow, so we are going to start stupidly early (5:30 am) to give us the best change of getting the hole drilled and the rig towed back to town. Then we can finish the whiskey and commence packing. There is a pool going on about how many planes actually make it to Summit this flight period. Most of the planes are for cargo (they had a diesel leak on station for the past 18 months that they only just discovered so the contaminated snow has been barreled up and needs to be shipped do...

Storms - not that bad, but the winds were from the North and we were stuck on station. Delia and I walked the cargo line to try and find the things we need to give back to the team in Kanger when we return. We found our chainsaw (who knew that we had a chainsaw), and generally moved things around into more organized piles. I spent the afternoon working with Delia on models of the drill. We are supposed to be able to add supports to the cutter base to make the cuts more stable (they are called shoes). We have never really understood them, but now we have a plan to test them. Flights start again tomorrow (people are most excited about having real milk instead of powdered) and the station will get busy. 15 people are coming in and only 5 are leaving. We will be at maximum capacity of 52 by the weekend. We are hopeful to get off station tomorrow, but the winds don't look great so we will see.

Who tries to drill at the start of a storm.......yep, we gave it a go. Beautiful morning. Not too windy, clear skies. But the weather rolled in. We managed to get the tent up before the wind got too strong and so now we are attempting to drill the East hole at Station 26. It was sure interesting. It started out fine. Decent cuts, got down to about 20 m and then the drill started acting out. Short cuts, high currents, strange noises. So we decided to de-ice it and come back to the hole once the storm has passed. Turns out, the weather got quite bad when we were in the tent and we definitely had to rely on our GPS to get home. I had parked my snowmobile pointing towards the station, so we could have figured it out, but why not lean on technology. We are probably stuck on station for the next few days, but hopefully we can finish the hole on Saturday and then we start packing. Hole complete. You can see the other two holes in the background on the right and left Circumzenithal Arc at the ...

Hole 3 of Station 36 is done. That's 9 holes drilled by the team this season - 3 full stations. Storms are coming, so it isn't clear how many more holes we can drill, but we are going to move the rig tomorrow and then see what happens. We can't move the tent with winds above 15 kts So, two weeks left up at Summit (assuming the weather is suitable for the LC130) and probably, maybe, only one more hole to go. My body is very sore and it is looking forward to a rest, but it has been good so far. We drill - that's what we do Sunset soon (the 9th?) and then the eclipse on the 12th

One for the record books - just under 10 hours to drill a 100 m hole. The fastest ever by 2 hours. I would like to take the credit, but who know why the drill works sometimes. The talent show was fun. Much talent was on display and some of the crew brewed cider. A great night that ended with everyone lying on the floor wearing facemasks. Drilling today was tiring. It was a moving day once we finished the hole, and it was warm. Warm, it turns out, is a relative term, but -5 C and sunny is very much no jacket or gloves territory these days. It looks like the wind is going to start picking up over the next few days, so we may be starting to cool down some. The drill will be happy (or will it - who knows). We are 20 m into hole 3 on Station 36 - this will be the 9th hole of the season. We then need to decide if we got to the next station (26 for those who are counting). It is complicated, because we probably don't have time to do all three holes - a decision for the boss. Me on my ride...

Moving day, normally bad for the drill, but we managed to get the rig moved (under thermal blankets and tarps to keep it cool) in 3 hours, and then drilled the rest of the day down to 75 m. Unheard of drilling speed. Seems stopping the drill from getting warm is good for it. Long may it continue!! The base is doing a talent show tonight (which should be fun) and then we enter our final week of drilling. The Pisten Bully and drill tent under a Fog Bow The tent with a frosty guy line  A Fog Bow from base

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