14 May, 2003

Weather for the 13th and 14th: 37knots, blowing snow reducing visibility, temperatures above 0F (warm).

New coordinates and new weather 71.26.00N 44.03.00W Elevation is 8958 feet.

Camplife

After drilling to 75 meters our confidence may have been a little to bold and Mother Nature decided to put us in our place. Mother Nature has the final will and the way, which she has expressed the last two days. Yesterday was spent playing scrabble and trying out Sue’s culinary creativity. We still had a frozen loaf of bread that she sliced and then made dry grilled cheese sandwiches with pieces of summer sausage and garlic. Pretty nice treat on a day when all you can do is check your math from the previous days data sheets and read books. During the days and nights when we can not collect data each person is doing a little napping, socializing and reading. The books are being finished rather quickly and are being passed from one person to another - A large polar book club. Dr. Greg Lamorey read two books in one day and the rest of us have read or are reading the book, ‘Holes’. Last night during our dehy (dehydrated) dinner we passed the book around and each person read aloud.

Throughout the night the wind and blowing snow did not let up and by morning we had huge drifts that had filled in around our tents, drilling site and processing area. We decided to dig out for a little exercise as well as set up a few tarps to cut the wind down. Bamboo has never been so useful! Even after digging out it was still much too windy and today has been set aside as another rest day! All of us are willing to work in the conditions but the real problem stems from the drill. As the drill is cutting through the layers of ice the tower blows a little in the wind causing the line that is connected to the drill to pull up. As the line is pulled up the core is broken apart and is not as useful as a whole solid core of ice. Hence, until the wind dies down some, the polar book club will continue strong…

Digging out the drill site included moving core boxes from one pile to another. Greg and Ryan using a banana sled to haul core boxes in the wind and snow. We had drifts that were about three feet high that covered much of our gear!

Sue with her world famous grilled cheese!

Blowing snow causing limited visibility