A Beautiful Second Service Run

Tuesday was my second field day in Antarctica, and was quite different from the first. We were primary that day, so we were expecting to leave, and were much better prepared It was a Polenet site (as opposed to an AGAP site, which is what most of the stations are), so the setup was different, and the box we were working with was not buried. (Whenever we eventually have a no-fly day when I have some downtime, I'll post about some of the scientific and technical details on what we are doing.) And, it wasn't flat and white! There were some phenomenally beautiful outcrops - but I'll talk more about that later.

I had some concerns going into this site. It was one of two of our sites that requires a mountaineer to accompany us. I had to be fitted for a harness - in case it was necessary to walk along the cliff or crevasse prone regions to get to our site - and cramp-ons in case we had to walk across ice. It turned out that neither of these precautions was necessary. Due to high winds, it was necessary to land the plane at some distance from the site, but the pilots taxied the plane quite close to the site.

It wasn't very cold at this site - Pecora Escarpment, although the winds kept up the whole time we were there. Because the station was above ground, servicing was easy and quick. The only thing that took much time was tightening the wires that held the solar panels steady. For that, I learned to use a number of new tools in the rigging kit. I also learned that I really need to build up more upper body strength, in my shoulders and back in particular. I had to brace the tools against my legs while pushing them closed, which left some nice bruises - nothing too bad, but enough that I'm glad they're covered! In any case, it convinced me that I definitely need to work on strength training some more!

We finished the seismic servicing while Thomas and Mike were still working on the GPS station, so I spent some time taking some pictures before we eventually headed back to Pole. So, I'll finish up the post by trying to describe how beautiful it was. Pecora Escarpment is part of the Pensacola Mountains. (As a Floridian, it seems strange for there to be anything called "Pensacola" here!) They are only exposed at the surface in a handful of peak poking up through the ice, and the rocks themselves aren't particularly attractive. But, the way that the wind has carved the ice and snow away from the peaks makes them phenomenal to look at. on the upwind side, a gradual slope of snow builds up to the surface, and when the wind is blowing like it was when we were there, there is a constant sheet of snow being blown up this surface. On the downwind side of the peaks, there are sharp cliffs, and at the base of the cliffs and along the sides, the wind has carved out very deep, and often narrow, valleys and gullies in the ice. In some places, it looks like someone has deliberately been digging trenches around the peaks to excavate them.