Made it to the ice sheet!! That's me in front of the C130. Today was our second attempt at the ice sheet...yesterday we ended up circling around above the station and had to leave due to high winds. We ended up going back to Kangerlussuaq and went for a nice hike around the area. Today, we tried again and luckily were able to land! I've now been here for about 4 hours...had our orientation meeting, a GREAT lunch (biscuits, tuna noodle casserole, strawberries, rice...good stuff), and are now hanging out waiting for our equipment to show up. OH, and we also picked out our tents! Here is a shot of my home for the next 3 weeks...with the plane attempting to take off in the background (it took them awhile due to "sticky snow"). And, now we are hanging out and taking it easy to readjust to the 13,000 feet altitude (12,000 technically, but it feels like 13,000 due to heavy cold air, apparently).


The folks I've met so far have been really fascinating. We've been joking that almost all of us grew up in cold places...Alaska, Minnesota, Colorado, etc. I was bonding with a girl from Anchorage about waiting outside for the bus when we were growing up and having our hair freeze. The science groups here include one group from Kansas that are using radars to measure the ice structure down to the bedrock, on group from University of Washington measuring nitrogen compounds, a guy from France measuring mercury, a group of folks from Germany who are dismantling some equipment and returning to their lab, some construction guys from Alaska who are going to be elevating a building 20 ft due to it being buried in the snow over the years, and my group! It's about 1/4 gals, 3/4 guys. Everyone is really nice and welcoming. The U-Washington group is actually going to be here for the next two years, so we are making future exotic travel plans, like taking some time next year and kayaking around the Greenland coast. But first, I'd better get some work done up here. :)

I'm going to sign off here and go check out our equipment that just flew in on the 2nd plane. Congrats to Ty on the Worlds!

Brrrrrrrrr,

~ Gayle