7 December, 2002

Underway Again

Date: 12/07/02

Latitude: 80=B0 08=92 58.06=94

Longitude: 119=B0 00=92 18.81=94

Temperature: -20=B0C/-4=B0F

Wind speed: Calm

Wind Chill: -20=B0C/-4=B0F

Wind direction: North

Visibility: <1km

Conditions: Foggy, Cold, and Crisp

Meters of ice collected so far: 71m

By Dan Dixon

Finally, we are underway once again. The new wide tracks and Aalaner=20 fuel sled seem to be doing the trick. We left Byrd Surface Camp about four hours ago and we haven't been bogged down once. We are managing to maintain a blinding speed of 9 km/h!

The snow surface seems to be slightly firmer than it was over a week ago, this is probably due to hardening from the wind and melting from the sun. It feels really good to be moving on and gaining ground again, everyone seems a lot happier now that we are progressing. Gordon, Mark, Andrea, Blue, and I spent the first 10 km of the trip on the roof of the blue room. We witnessed some fantastic phenomena from our bumpy perch. The first unusual thing we saw was series of mirages these look like icy cliffs in the distance. Next we saw huge patches of fog stretching all along the horizon, the fog shimmers in the sunlight and looks like icy water. At one point, the leading train completely disappeared from view as it drove into the fog. As our train entered the fog, it became clear that the fog was actually extremely fine diamond dust (ice crystals). The air all around us was shimmering

and sparkling as if it was raining glitter. As we drove further into the fog bank, beautiful fog bows (similar to rainbows) appeared with all the colors that one could imagine. After a few hours of roof riding, we all began to feel a bit chilly so we retreated back inside to the warmth of our shelters.

While we were busy admiring the ice-sheet phenomena, Brian was busy conducting deep radar surveys, Jim was inside the blue room operating the shallow radar, Karl was driving the first train, Lynn was driving the second train, and the surface snow sampling crew collected samples from every other way-point. The science never stops around here.

--Apple-Mail-2-845742270

Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

Content-Type: text/enriched;

charset=WINDOWS-1252

<fontfamily>GenevaUnderway Again =20

Date: 12/07/02

Latitude: 80=B0 08=92 58.06=94

Longitude: 119=B0 00=92 18.81=94

Temperature: -20=B0C/-4=B0F

Wind speed: Calm

Wind Chill: -20=B0C/-4=B0F

Wind direction: North

Visibility: <<1km

Conditions: Foggy, Cold, and Crisp

Meters of ice collected so far: 71m

By Dan Dixon

Finally, we are underway once again. The new wide tracks and Aalaner fuel sled seem to be doing the trick. We left Byrd Surface Camp about four hours ago and we haven=92t been bogged down once. We are managing to maintain a blinding speed of 9 km/h!

The snow surface seems to be slightly firmer than it was over a week ago, this is probably due to hardening from the wind and melting from the sun. It feels really good to be moving on and gaining ground again, everyone seems a lot happier now that we are progressing.=20 Gordon, Mark, Andrea, Blue, and I spent the first 10 km of the trip on the roof of the blue room. We witnessed some fantastic phenomena from our bumpy perch. The first unusual thing we saw was series of mirages these look like icy cliffs in the distance. Next we saw huge patches of fog stretching all along the horizon, the fog shimmers in the sunlight and looks like icy water. At one point, the leading train completely disappeared from view as it drove into the fog. As our train entered the fog, it became clear that the =91fog=92 was actually extremely fine =91diamond dust=92 (ice crystals). The air all around us was shimmering and sparkling as if it was raining glitter. As we drove further into the fog bank, beautiful fogbows (similar to rainbows) appeared with all the colors that one could imagine. After a few hours of roof riding, we all began to feel a bit chilly so we retreated back inside to the warmth of our shelters.

While we were busy admiring the ice-sheet phenomena, Brian was busy conducting deep radar surveys, Jim was inside the blue room operating the shallow radar, Karl was driving the first train, Lynn was driving the second train, and the surface snow sampling crew collected samples from every other way-point. The science never stops around here.