Christmas in Antarctica!

Hello Friends!

First, a quick update from McMurdo, we're scheduled to fly out sometime very late tonight or early tomorrow morning. This schedule depends on the arrival of a C-17 from Christchurch to McMurdo, which is scheduled to depart Christchurch in about 30 minutes. We are all watching the flight information provided here to see if that actually happens! The weather is so warm (36 degrees F at station right now!) that it has been difficult to maintain a good landing surface at the airfield. Our fingers are crossed that we're on a flight tonight.


Back to our field season! So far, my posts have outlined our camp put-in by C-130, our traverse via snowmobile to our first field site, flagging safe travel routes in our first field site, and a typical day in the life of three Antarctic glacial geologists! After a week working in the Schmidt Hills, it was time to celebrate Christmas!

We returned to camp on Christmas Eve after a long day of work. Every meal we enjoyed in camp began with making water. Christmas Eve was no different. To make water in the field, we melt snow!

Seth gathering snow to make water. Note the crown! I brought a set of Christmas Crackers for us all to pop open in celebration; the contents included paper crowns. 

Much of our time in the kitchen is spent minding a pot of melting snow while it comes to a boil, as Greg is demonstrating in this photograph. Dinner and breakfast cooking duties were rotated daily between team members. We burn Coleman fuel or "white gas" in Coleman camp stoves to make water and cook our meals.

For the meat-eaters, Christmas dinner was pan-roasted cornish game hens, stuffing, jellied cranberries, and vegetables! (Thanks, Greg!)

For the vegetarians, Kat served orange-glazed tempeh and carrots in addition to the side dishes.

Gift-giving time! Kat made everyone neck gaiters:

Neck gaiters are designed to be worn around your neck to keep valuable heat close to your body. Michael and Seth are showing off an alternative, perhaps more stylish, use for the neck gaiter. I received a tiger-print neck gaiter as well!

Michael brought games for everyone which came in very handy during down days. Chris and I brought big bags of food delicacies including ginger chews, cookies, teas, coffee, and chocolate:

Here's Michael examining his chocolate bar from me. It had hot chili powder in it, which may be why he was confused.

As another part of the celebration, I wrote an epic poem with four or five verses about each team member. Here I am having a drink of wine before beginning my first recitation of the epic poem. I'm sure Michael's expression of disgust is accidental, for those of you who are wondering. (Photo: Kat!)

On Christmas Day, Kat baked soda bread in our cook-stove oven! (Photo: Chris!)

It was delicious! (Photo: Kat!)

To use the oven, you simply place it on top of the stove burner and wait for the temperature to increase to the level indicated by the recipe! (Photo: Kat!)

It works very well! (Photo: Kat!)

Otherwise, we spent Christmas Day relaxing in camp! We took a camp day for Christmas, for weather that prevented us from moving to a new camp or new sampling location safely, and to organize a new camp site the day after arrival. Out of 33 days in the field, we took 6 camp days total. In addition to working around the camp, we also find various ways of entertaining ourselves. For example:

My favorite part of camp days - hot lunch! Here's Seth enjoying a double quesadilla I made him! Delicious!

We also hang out outside to the extent that it's comfortable. This photograph is an excellent illustration of why we didn't attempt a 60 k traverse to a new camp location!

Organizing our freezer! (Photo: Michael!)

Playing chess! Note the use of Tabasco bottles as the king pieces. This improvised chess set also included wasabi peas, cashews, paper, and chocolate chips among other things. Michael was the chess champion of camp!

Work! We also worked on our "off" days. Here's Seth reviewing some radar data with Greg. (Photo: Chris!)

Crosswords! (Photo: Chris)

Reading! The Camp library grew to be at least 15 books strong by the end of the season. Note Seth's jacket - sitting in the cook tent can actually make you quite cold! (Photo: Chris)

Pudding! Seth and Michael and myself enjoying instant pudding with canned fruit and graham crackers. Delicious! (Photo: Chris)

Refreshing our calculus! (Photo: Chris)

Hanging out and talking! (Photo: Chris)

Making a duct-tape cape!

Yes, you read that correctly. Michael, with Seth's help, made a duct tape cape. Scroll down for his motivation.

We also spent some time playing in triwalls, those large cardboard boxes we packed our cargo in while in McMurdo (see earlier post).

Help! My team has trapped me in this cardboard box! (Photo: One of those people in the previous photograph!)

Seth spent some time trying to figure out if we could make a hot tub out of a triwall. I'll let you guess if he was successful.

Our camp was also briefly invaded by Ice Vader.

We were terrified for hours...

until we realized it was Michael!!

Then we returned to the cook tent for dinner.

We just got word that the plane we're scheduled to fly out on this evening has been delayed in Christchurch for four hours. This information is not a good sign, but anything is still possible! We'll wait to see if the plane adheres to its new schedule. If it does, we'll likely take off at ~ 3:30 AM this coming morning (Saturday the 22nd for us!). I'll keep you posted.

More coming soon. Hope all is well with everyone!

Claire