9 June, 2000

Arrival at Summit

I arrived at Summit today to be greeted by a balmy day. The temperature was -13 degree C (which is approximately 22 degree F). It feels so warm that most people were in short sleeved tee shirts. I was definitely overdressed for the arrival. I immediately stripped down to my fleece pants and long sleeve tee.

To get to the Summit, we left Kangerlussuaq in a twin otter plane. A twin otter is a small plane (engine by Pratt and Whitney) that fits approximately 20 passengers. Today, in our journey was another scientist and me. The plane was empty except for our gear. We made one stop on the way to Summit to pick up my PI (principal investigator) Koni Steffen and his graduate student, Nick and lots of equipment. The stop was at Swiss camp, a very remote research site compared to Summit. The plane landed on the snow with skis. After loading the equipment, the four of us stuff into the remaining space and were off for a two hour flight to Summit. When we arrived we were warmly greeted by the scientists already there.

Today's activities consisted mostly of unloading our equipment, meeting fellow scientists and setting up our tents. I am getting a slight touch of altitude sickness with symptoms of a headache and slight nausea. The nausea is unfortunate today because it is our camp manager's birthday and the meal of the day is lobster, shrimp scampi, broccoli, and home made bread. For desert, key lime pie. Is this camping??

Tomorrow is a day of science. We will set up our weather stations and towers for monitoring the atmosphere. There is no darkness here because we are at 72 degrees north latitude, well above the Arctic Circle but my tent is dark green so I will be able to have a pseudo night.

Ciao, Cathi

PS The snow conditions for skate skiing are perfect. The only problem is that my skis are at Kanger and will sent up on the next flight which is Tuesday. We tried to save weight on the twin otter so unnecessary item have to arrive later next week. Unnecessary???