Back to McMurdo

Prior to heading back to McMurdo, we had to pack up camp. This proved to be not an easy task. We started this on the morning of Saturday January 25^th. John and I did some work on the Tall Tower AWS. This included removing the data card from the data logger. Over the course of a year, the AWS records all of its measurements to the data card. This past year, the AWS was not transmitting its data in real time, so this data card is our only source of the data. After we collected the data card, we upgraded the operating system on the data logger, uploaded a new program to the data logger (so that the data would start transmitting in real time), verified with our team back home that the data was transmitting successfully, and installed the new data card. Due to some computer complications, this took most of the morning.

Tall Tower electronics

  

After lunch, John and I removed the two Snow Web stations, which were each installed about 10 km from camp. This took us a couple of hours to complete, with most of the time spent snowmobiling to the sites.

After removing the Snow Web stations, John and I started helping Suz pack up camp (Suz had started this process that morning). John and I went to work digging out the snow anchors for each tent. Due to the fact that we had a lot of snow drifts in camp, this proved to be a tough job. Some of the snow anchors were located a few feet under the snow surface. After a few hours of digging, all of the snow anchors were free and we took a break to eat dinner. After that we took down the Arctic Oven and got it packed up. Then we helped Suz pack the remainder of the sleds. We finished up around 9:00 pm and went to bed, since we knew that Sunday was going to be a long day.

 Sleds packed and ready to go

 

We got up at 6:30 am on Sunday. We started the day with breakfast and then we each packed up our personal tents. The last tent to come down was the bathroom tent. Once that was down and packed, we hit the road (around 9:00 am). For the most part, our loads seemed fairly well packed and despite the flat light (which made it almost impossible to see where we were going), we made pretty good time. We made it back to McMurdo in about 8 hours and 30 minutes, which was much faster than the 10 hours and 40 minutes it took us to get out there.

Once we arrived at the Transition, Lee was nice enough to pick us up. John, Suz, and I were pretty excited that we made it back to town in time for dinner (which runs until 7:30 pm). Although we ate pretty good food at camp, it was nice to eat dinner at a table. After dinner, I headed back to my dorm and took a shower. After two weeks of not showering, the hot shower was really appreciated.

Driving from Tall Tower to McMurdo - the flat light made it difficult to see the "road"

 The black dot in the center is an Emperor penguin was saw on our way back from Tall Tower

Overall, it was a great trip. The logistics went well, the science went great, and I had a fun time hanging out with everyone in our group.

 John and Suz on our way from the Transition to McMurdo - Lee is driving the truck