17 July, 2001

Yippee, Summit at last!!

After a short night in Kangerlussaug, today began with a trip to the clothing warehouse for some extra gear and bunny boots. Then it was back in the silver bus ( the herc) for the two and a half hour ride to summit. This time we landed on the snow! After landing, we quickly off-loaded the cargo and headed to camp for lunch. In fact some of the gear was “combat off-loaded” meaning pushed out of the back of the plane while we were still moving! Once we were off, the plane and crew stayed at Summit for an additional hour delivering fuel to the bladders to be used later by the winter over team. The plane will return two more times this week to delivering gear and fuel and to shuttle people back and forth. Then we’ll be all alone here until the next flight period in a few weeks.

This flight period has brought some people in for short one to two day projects. It is interesting to have so much science happening all around one place.

This afternoon I had the opportunity to travel out to the project of another scientist, Trina from Denmark. She is studying the bedrock composition of Greenland using seismology. Her instruments are buried under about one meter ( three feet) of snow about a half a kilometer from camp. Using a GPS, we located her instruments and then dug them out. (That’s me digging out the instruments...I couldn't wait to do some digging.) Trina’s experiment involves twenty seismographs placed throughout Greenland. From the information she gathers from this earthquake data, she is learning more about the composition of the rock beneath this 3000 meter layer of snow. More about this project tomorrow.

The rest of our day has been spent working to unload and set up our gear and tents. It’s warm and sunny. This place is great. I am looking forward to working on projects, skiing on the perfect snow and having fun. But for now, we are taking it easy while we adjust to the 13,000 foot altitude. I am hoping my altitude headache will pass by morning, so this is it for tonight.

Trina and her project