New staff=New Airfield

Well the arrival of the last of our staff has signaled the change of our airfield locations.  We are now operating out of Pegasus for the rest of the season.  Everyone down here is not looking forward to this move based on what occurred last season.  The impact to operations when the road and airfield melted is indescribable.  I know the staff that have worked endlessly trying to repair the airfield last season and getting everything back to normal this year.   I hope for them that things go well.  So far we have had a few wind storms come through but nothing that has shown any signs of black dust, so we are keeping our fingers crossed.

We had our Town Thanksgiving celebration last weekend.  The kitchen staff did a great job providing the food for our enjoyment.  It is hard to tell that Christmas will be he soon since we don't have normal commercials on tv here and all the adds in the paper along with the lack of Christmas decorations.  But it will be here before we know it and signaling that we are on the downhill side to the season.  Planning trips post season will begin and the thoughts of fresh food, warm air and our families will start to distract us.  Hopefully we all can keep our minds in check and get our jobs done safely and get home in one piece.

Other than the normal work routine nothing new is going on down here.  So now onto the pictures.

The first 5 I got from a coworker.

This is a satellite shot of the Ice Runway.

These next few are from another coworker that show the before and after at Pegasus and the hard work that they put into it so that we can fly there this year.

 This is the approach to the White Ice Runway, where our wheeled aircraft land.

And this is it now.  A big difference.

This is a core sample from the White Ice Runway.

Now all these photos I took.

The NASA P-3B for Ice Bridge.  Here is a link to explain a bit more about IceBridge and their time here.

http://blogs.nasa.gov/icebridge/2013/11/28/icebridge-antarctic-2013-a-year-and-a-half-in-the-making/

The airfield at 4:00 am

Just a little drifting but no black dust!

Some cool clouds about 2 hours before the last storm hit.

More interesting clouds above Mt. Erebus

The Ninja Hurc Returns

Had to go for the photo op while it is here.

Hope that this finds everyone in good health and spirits.  Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and thank you for reading.

Tim