...and it is what we got stuck with. With a few days of seismic work left to be done, and then a couple of days worth of hard labor packing everything up for shipment back to McMurdo after that, Czar Shridhar waved goodbye and went off to "teach", or some such thing, back at Penn State. Isn't that just like a P.I. to leave when when all of the fun stuff is done??
The weather turned a bit nasty for the last couple of days of shooting. Above is the scene that greeted us one morning after our 35 kilometer run from Onset-D to the work area.
Back at Onset-D the wind proceeded to try and bury everything with drifting snow that we were trying to get packed, which I read that all polar explorers have to contend with. It rarely snows very much in Antarctica, but just about anything is capable of being covered and buried by the blowing snow, and sometimes in a surprisingly short amount of time.
Somehow -- with the help of the Onset-D camp staff -- we managed to turn piles of stuff like this...
...into this...
...and into this. We ended up with four "Air Force pallets" of stuff to bring back to McMurdo with us even with leaving behind things like the Ski-Doos, drilling equipment, and other items. Air Force pallets are about 2.5 x 2.5 meters, and can have stuff 2.5 meters high stacked on them.
After we were all packed the weather again turned nasty and delayed our departure from Onset-D for a couple of more days. Finally the day arrived when we were able to take down our tents, put everything on the plane, and head back to McMurdo.
We arrived back at Williams Field near McMurdo just in time to get into our rooms, get some dinner, and take the first real showers that we had had in a couple of months. The adventure was over. Just like any trip ending at an airport there was a bit of waiting around after the flight to get our luggage.
2018-03-05