Castle Rock

It has been a relatively uneventful couple weeks out at work, just settling into the daily grind. Wake up at 630, eat breakfast, 1/2hr ride to work, eat lunch at work, leave work about 530, 1/2hr ride back to town, dinner, try and find something to do for about 2hrs, then go to bed. Been playing some ping pong and pool, and played basketball once.

I actually got a day off last weekend, so me and 3 other guys decided to go on the longest hike you can take around McMurdo Station. It is called the Castle Rock Loop and it is about a 9 mile hike from start to finish. The route starts in McMurdo Station (near sea level), eventually reaches Castle Rock, then a climb to the top of Castle Rock (which is 1361 feet above sea level), then circles around back to McMurdo. The first part of the hike was absolutely grueling. It is pretty much 45 minutes of an almost 45 degree incline, and it was cold - wind chill was about -20 degrees. The middle part of the hike is still slightly uphill, but not too bad, and the temperature warmed up to a very pleasant 5 degrees. The hike to Castle Rock is across a glacier and you cannot stray even a little bit off the route because you run the risk of falling into a crevasse hidden in the snow. 2 people actually died on the trail about 5 years ago when they went off the marked path.

After about 2 hours of hiking, we finally reached the base of Castle Rock. Castle Rock is basically what's left of an ancient volcano that has eroded away over the years. It was about a 200 foot climb from the base to the top. The climb up was not extremely difficult - they have ropes installed along the path to help out. After reaching the top, the views were absolutely amazing -great views of Mount Erebus, Ross Island, the Ice Shelf, glaciers, and the Transantarctic Mountains. Definitely worth the effort to get there.

We stayed up there for about 30 minutes before coming down and completing the loop. The entire trip was about 5 hours long, and will definitely be an experience I will never forget. Needless to say, I slept very well that night (and the night after). Below are some pictures from the trip.

Castle Rock from about a mile away

At the base of Castle Rock (that's me sitting on the rock in front)

Me climbing up Castle Rock

View from the top towards Mount Erebus

View from the top back toward McMurdo Station,

with the Transantarctic Mountains off in the distance.

The faint line in the glacier is the path we took

Me at the top!

Towards the end of the loop looking back at where we came from.

Another Year in Antarctica

Well this makes my second year in Antarctica. I can honestly say I was really not looking forward to this trip very much. Last time I came, I was pretty excited about coming because I thought it was going to be cool and a neat experience. It was all of that for about 2 weeks, then it seemed like I would never get to leave. This year I kind of knew what to expect. That being said, I am trying to make the most of it so the time passes by faster.

The trip down this year was relatively uneventful. The trip consisted of flights from Tyler, TX to DFW to LAX to Auckland to Christchurch, then 2 nights in Christchurch then on to McMurdo Station Antarctica. For the most part all of my flights were relatively on time. Had almost a 7 hour layover at LAX that seemed to last forever. Luckily this year, I was able to travel first class for the entire trip and I was able to use the ultra fancy executive lounge at LAX, eat some good food, have a couple of drinks, rest and even take a shower. Then I boarded the 13 hour flight to Auckland. I must say that the first class seats on Qantas are amazing. The seats are motorized and move in about 25 different directions, and even will lay totally flat. Might seem kind of unimportant, but I can NEVER sleep on a plane, and because I was actually able to lay down, I slept for almost 7 hours of the trip, and was pretty well rested by the time I got to New Zealand. The food on the plane was also excellent.

After about a 3 hour layover in Auckland, and a short 1 hour flight, I finally arrived in Christchurch. My time in Christchurch was the only part of the trip that I was even remotely looking forward to. Christchurch is an amazing city, and there is tons of stuff to do in the downtown area where my hotel was. I really didn't know what to expect this year though because in September they had a massive 7.2 earthquake that did a lot of damage to the city. Most of the damage had been repaired but there was still quite a lot noticeably different from my last trip. Still a lot of construction and some demolition taking place.

I got to my hotel around 4pm. I walked around downtown for a while, grabbed some dinner at a Japanese restaurant (the Asian food in NZ is very good), and went to sleep fairly early. About 5am, I woke up when my bed started shaking. It was a small earthquake, only about 3.8, but is was very shallow and very close so, it felt stronger. Being in a 10 story building, in a city that just had a 7.2 earthquake, it was slightly unnerving, but I quickly fell back to sleep. I ended up sleeping 13 hours that night. Travelling (in spite of the sleep I had on the LAX flight) is exhausting to me.

I woke up the next morning to great weather and feeling pretty rested. I wanted to walk around the city and do some sightseeing, but had to go the Antarctic Center and get my Extreme Cold Weather Gear that they issue us. 2 hours later (and 2 more small earthquakes later), I was back at my hotel and the weather had turned absolutely miserable - 40 degrees, 40mph wind and pouring down rain. It was brutal. I tried to walk around for a while and do some stuff inside. I went inside the Christchurch Cathedral and climbed to the top of the spire, went inside a small aquarium and ate an early dinner at a small Thai restaurant, and went in a few shops. The weather just kept getting worse, and I was back in my hotel by about 5, disappointed that I didn't get to do more. Hopefully the weather will be better on my return trip.

My flight to Antarctica was scheduled to leave at 11am the next morning. I had to be at the Antarctic center at 8:30. I was kind of dreading the flight, because it had been posted that the flight would be on a C-130. The C-130 flights last 8 hours, they are very noisy and very cramped. Instead when I got there, I was pleasantly surprised to find a C-17 waiting. The C-17 flight takes only 5 hours, they are much quieter, and have tons of room to stretch out and walk around. Ended up arriving in McMurdo Station about 4pm. Everything looks exactly the same as it did last time.

Will post more later. Below are some pictures of Christchurch!

A trolley in downtown Christchurch

Cathedral Square from the top of the Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral

Christchurch Cathedral

Cathedral Square and the Chalice

Some of the remaining earthquake damage. They are having to take this building down brick by brick.

Home at last...

Sorry it has been so long since I have posted. No, I did not just get back from Antarctica - I made it back to the States on January 5. I finally made it out of Antarctica after being bumped from 2 flights. After leaving Antarctica, I got to spend 2 nights in New Zealand and I was actually able to do a little sight seeing. Me and 4 other people that I work with rented a car and drove to the Bank's Peninsula about an hour outside of Christchurch. This part of New Zealand is absolutely beautiful. Although Antarctica was very pretty, after nearly 2 months of seeing nothing but a white and gray landscape, this place could not have been more different - the differences were dramatic, and seeing green grass and trees again was unexpectedly exciting. The entire peninsula is the remnants of an extinct volcano. On the peninsula is the small village of Akaroa. This is one of the few French settlements in New Zealand, and the town still retains much of its French heritage. From Akaroa, we took a boat cruise of the harbor, where we saw dolphins, penguins and a lot of birds. I actually saw more penguins on this trip than I did the whole time I was in Antarctica. After the boat trip, we drove around up in the mountains and down to a couple of the beaches. Like I said before, it was absolutely beautiful - I could have spent a whole week there. Below are several pictures from my trip to Akaroa and Bank's Peninsula.

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It looks like I will be going back to Antarctica this coming November. If so I will be sure and post some more pictures to this site. Also, I most likely will be going to Sweden to work for a few weeks in April/May. If that pans out, I will also be posting pictures of that. Thanks to everyone for reading and commenting! It made me feel a little more connected to home while being so far away.

Leaving Antarctica on a C-130

A view of Akaroa Harbor

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Another view of the Harbor

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One of the cliffs surrounding Akaroa Harbor. Hard to tell the scale of the picture, but this cliff is about 1100 feet tall.

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Le Bons Bay on Banks Peninsula

Coming Home ????

Well, it's New Year's Eve here on the Ice, and I know when I'm leaving, but I don't know when I'm coming home. I am scheduled for a flight out of Antarctica, back to New Zealand on Jan 2. The flight will be on a C-130 this time, so it will be much longer (8 hours vs 5 hours) and much more uncomfortable, but oh well, at least I'm leaving. That will put me in Christchurch on Friday evening NZ time, but I do not know when I will be leaving to come back to the States. The word from the travel office is that there are no available flights out of Christchurch until Jan 6, but I will have to wait until I get there to find out for sure. That would put me in New Zealand for 4 days. Before coming to Antarctica, if someone would have offered me a 4 day all expenses paid trip to New Zealand, I would have been more than happy to take it - but now I just really want to get home. Not sure what I will do there with all of the free time, but I have talked to some Kiwis (New Zealanders) here in Antarctica and they gave me some ideas.

Tonight for New Year's Eve, there is a big music festival called Ice Stock. They have a stage set up in town, and there will be live music all the usual New Year's Eve stuff. There are several other parties in town as well, so I probably won't be bored. Tomorrow I have to finish packing all of my stuff. I have what they call "bag drag" at 8:00 tomorrow night. This is when you take all of your luggage to be checked in and weighed and you confirm your flight for the next day. They have had to cancel several flights in the last few days for weather, so hopefully my flight won't get cancelled. I can't wait to get to New Zealand and be warm and see vegetation, but most of all I can't wait for it to be dark at night. I will let everyone know if I get any updates on my travel plans, but probably won't know anything else for a couple of more days.

HAPPY NEW YEAR'S!!!

Last one down...

We finally launched the final balloon. The weather ended up being pretty good for the launch. The winds ended up being calm at the launch time and the temperature today actually made it up to a balmy 42 degrees. Now I can come home, and hopefully I can get a flight out of Antarctica on December 30. If that flight is full, then the next available option would be January 2. Either one of those flights would put me back in the States after New Year's unfortunately, but at least I am coming home soon. Below are a couple of pictures of today's launch of the ULDB balloon. This balloon is a little different than the other, so there is a second balloon called a tow balloon that is inflated to help support the weight of the hardware attached to the main balloon during inflation. The tow balloon is released prior to launch. I will keep everyone posted on my travel arrangements as soon as I know.
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Merry Christmas...

Merry Christmas to everyone! Yesterday was actually Christmas here, and it was actually a pretty good day. Christmas Eve, there was a town Christmas party, and Christmas day they had a big special Christmas dinner. The dinner was actually extremely good - we had prime rib, crab legs, roasted duck and tons of very good deserts. Also, there was midnight mass at the Chapel - this mass is unique, not only because it is one of the first midnight Christmas Masses in the world, but it is the only midnight Christmas Mass in the world to be held in the daylight. Of course, we had to work Christmas morning, but after work I was able to ride around on our snow mobiles for a while (very fun!) and when I got back to town, I went for a hike and watched some football. All in all, it was a pretty good day, but I definitely missed being with family - it just didn't really seem like Christmas.
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As far as work goes, it looks like the weather will start to improve somewhat by tomorrow, and we might have a shot at launching tomorrow evening or Sunday. It doesn't really look all that promising at this time, but it is definitely the best weather we will have seen since we launched ANITA 5 days ago.

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Here are a couple of new pictures. The first one is a picture of me and Henry Cathey (one of our NASA engineers) at the Christmas party on Christmas Eve. The second is a picture of some very cool clouds over Ross Island yesterday. Again, I hope everyone is having a very Merry Christmas - hope to be home soon.
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Balloon Pictures...

After the ANITA payload was launched yesterday and got up to its float altitude of 120,000 feet, the balloon passed almost directly back over the McMurdo area. The scientist in charge of the ANITA payload has a pretty high powered telescope, and one of the guys was able to capture some pretty amazing pictures of the balloon through the telescope. You can really see how big the balloons are when they are fully inflated. This balloon is nearly 30 million cubic feet in volume. The largest balloons we fly on a regular basis are nearly 40 million cubic feet, a third bigger than this one.
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The first picture is of the balloon at about 110,000 feet, just before it is fully expanded. The second is at the maximum height of 120,000 feet. On both, you can clearly see the payload hanging from the bottom. Just below the bottom of the balloon, you can see the orange parachute. For a size comparison, the payload is about 27 feet tall, and the parachute is 65 long. Everyone was pretty excited when they saw these pictures, as they are some of the most detailed taken of a balloon at its float altitude.

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