Working in WAIS

Last Friday they sent me out to lovely WAIS, a.k.a. the “Western Antarctic Ice Shelf”.  So on Friday morning at 9:00am, the seven of us…two electricians, a lineman, and a couple of “GA’s”, boarded the C130 and headed out.  Flying on a C130 was a cool experience, it is a little smaller than the C17 we flew in on, but the interior is similar and is basically the same set up.  Before we took off, one of the crew members asked my buddy Jacob and I if we wanted to ride in the cockpit, so we headed up there and we were able to sit right behind the pilots and experience the whole flight first hand, which was really awesome.  WAIS itself is about 800 miles into the continent from McMurdo, and the flight takes around 4 hours.  As we took off from McMurdo, we flew over Black Island for about ten minutes, and were able to check out some mountain views, but after that, it is just plain, flat, white, as far as the eye can see for hundreds of miles.  So after a few hours went by we set down on an icy runway in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a few “Jamesways”, and a group of tents in the distance.

The doors opened for us to exit the plane and we were greeted by high winds, low visibility, and temperatures in the neighborhood of –20F.  We grabbed our bags and were led to the “Galley”, which is a small Jamesway set up where all the food is served and is the main meeting area in WAIS.  We were then given some lunch and met the people in the camp, which included a handful of mechanics, carpenters, GA’s, and some camp management.  After which, we followed a trail of flags about 100 yards into the horizon until we reached “tent town”.  This is where all of the tents are set up and is basically home for the duration of our time at camp.  So I proceeded to set up my tent, which is not the easiest task in below zero temps, but I was able to get it staked down really well and the set up went fine.

The next morning, the weather had cleared up a bit and we had a meeting with some of the mechanics and camp management to go over the tasks we needed to take care of, and tried to come up with a plan and prioritize some of our workload.  The main reason we were sent out was to work with the lineman and provide power to the town and connect the drilling arch to the generator power.  The drilling arch is the building that contains the big drill that the scientists use to drill down into the ice and take core samples, which allow them to study climate change, etc.  The trouble is, this building is almost completely buried with over 40ft of snow, and until they dig it out, the only way to access it was by using an extension ladder set up through a small space at the top of the building. 

 So we proceeded to put a full day of work in on Saturday, and aside from some of our parts missing, everything went relatively well.  As it got later in the day the weather continued to get worse and the winds continued to pick up.  So I headed to my tent and tried my best to get settled in, but between the brutal cold temps and the wind blowing, I could tell right away that it was going to be a long night.  We were given two sleeping bags; one mummy bag and a rectangle bag as well, so between the two bags, I really didn’t get too cold, though it was a pain getting in to the tent and getting ready for bed.  The toughest thing for me was the wind, and the light.  The wind blew so hard those first couple of nights that it sounded like I was sleeping inside of a freight train, and much like Happy Camper training, it was tough to wake up at 2:00am and be blinded by the light shining through the tent.

When I woke up Sunday morning the weather had actually got even worse and the visibility was pretty poor.  I was able to follow the flag line back into town without any issues, but because the weather was now in “condition 2” we were not allowed to work, and everyone ended up staying indoors and basically reading magazines the whole day, which made for an extremely long, and boring day.  According to the weather report with the winds the temps dropped to around –35 to –40F, which is a new Antarctic low for me.

Walking to my tent from the outhouse in "condition 2" weather, WAIS. Wind was a little Brisk!

Luckily after that first initial storm came through the weather turned around a bit and we were able to start plugging along pretty well.  Between the lineman, Jacob, and myself, we had the town power up within the next couple of days and then we moved on to the arch.  The arch was actually really cool; we went down into this building completely buried by snow with a couple of flashlights and even though there was no wind it was still –20F.  Inside the arch it looked like a place where you might find some kind of Antarctic experiment gone wrong, or some kind of a creature, or alien, reminded me a lot of the movie “The Thing”, pretty cool  So, we inspected the electrical panels to ensure everything was ready for power and gave the go-ahead and fire up the generator. 

So after a few days of work we had pretty much accomplished everything on our list ahead of schedule, and even though we were originally scheduled for two weeks, we were able to catch a ride home this afternoon on another C130 that was bringing in supplies.  WAIS was cool to see, and wasn’t bad staying there for a week, but it would be rough to stay there until February.  It is brutal cold and windy, and not much to do other than work.  Too bad I wasn’t able to stick around to see the drill up and running, apparently last year they drilled down to the 2-mile mark.  It’s nice to be back at McMurdo tonight, hopefully I will be able to catch up on some sleep.