Finally, after eight days of waiting in McMurdo, there was no wind, there were no clouds in the sky, all the runways were perfectly groomed, it wasn't a Sunday or any major holiday, and the New York Air National Guard had run out of excuses -- they had to haul us from McMurdo out to Onset-D in Western Antarctica. Next year I suspect they will be complaining about there being too much ice on the Ice Runway.
Travel anywhere in Antarctica on one of the big planes is proceeded by a "bag drag". This was where all of your checked luggage was taken in to the Movement Control Center (MCC) the night before so it could be weighed and packed on to the plane. This meant that you had to hang on to enough clothes and stuff in case the flight was cancelled for a few days. You didn't get your luggage back unless the flight was cancelled indefinitely. All of the checked luggage for our outing for twelve more than filled the back of a truck. Remember, this was going to be a "Herc camping trip", and not your usual camping trip.
While our checked luggage filled a not-so-small truck, our carry-on luggage took up about the same amount of space. We were shuttled out to the ice runway underneath our luggage in a small bus.
We were stuffed into the belly of an LC-130 along with all of the other 'non-talking' cargo. This, of course, implies that passengers/"pax"/"self-loading baggage" are not always treated as though they are at the top of the food chain along with the rest of the primates. Most of the time it seemed to be all in good fun, but I did hear some stories...
The flight to Onset-D took about three hours. Onset-D is 1350 kilometers some-odd direction from McMurdo. I always referred to the direction as "clockwise".
There wasn't much to look at during the flight, except the engines, the cargo, and each other. Most of the flight was across the Ross Ice Shelf, and it was hazy or cloudy all the way.
We arrived at Onset-D at about noon. When the 130's land in places like this they don't usually shut down their engines. They are usually not there for very long. When you got on or off the plane you just had to stay clear of the propellers, which wasn't too difficult. The engines were very noisy.
This was some of our carry-on luggage. Good thing they didn't enforce the one-bag-per-person limit on intra-continental flights.
2018-03-05