"July 4th, GRIP trip, and C130s"
Time on the ice: 6 1/2 weeks
Time left: not totally sure...but I think 3 weeks

Hey everyone! Lots of photos and news to share from here on the ice. This past Saturday, we did a pre-July 4th party up here and it was a blast. We decorated the big house...see below for Mike (U-Washington) helping me put up some American pride.

And we drank some punch made by the ice core drilling team, with some "party ice" that was about 2800 years old...see the floating ice core in the middle of the punch?

After a bit of grilling, eating, and drinking, I had fun playing with the drilling team. I went sledding with Jay and Nicolai down the "hill" (the camp staff were moving snow here to try to keep the camp somewhat level). It was about the slowest sledding I have ever done.

Played a little "cornhole"...which is a game that is apparently a hot ticket in Wisconsin (at least, the head drill dude, Jay, is from Wisconsin and built the entire game himself to bring up here). It is basically bean-bag toss with complicated rules. Here are Mike (drilling team Mike) and Nicolai throwing bean bags towards a board opposite them. One of the few other females here, Krissy, joined me as the "blond babes" team and we gave fierce competition to two of the drilling dudes. Sadly, we ended up losing 19-21...next time, however, we're determined to lay down some cornhole authority.


Then, on Sunday, I joined the GRIP expedition! GRIP is an small old European research station that closed down in the early 90s, located about 25 km from Summit and buried under about 30 feet of snow. Andrew, the medic/mountaineer, took 9 of us to the site and helped us get in and out safely. We took 2 snowmobiles, each dragging big wooden sleds (2 on the snowmobile, 3 on a mattress-covered sled) and used a GPS to track our way to the site. Then, we had to dig down to a piece of plywood covering the long hole to the underground station. Finally, Andrew set up some ropes and led the way down...here he is going down first into the snow - not for the claustrophobic!

I went down after Andrew, wiggled my way through the snow and through a roof hatch to the building, and had some fun exploring. It was cooooold down there - likely around -4o F. My camera lens actually froze up for the first time...but before that happened a buddy snapped a picture of me checking out some 15-year-old canned food.

It was actually pitch-black in there, hence the headlamp you can see on my head. It was definitely an interesting place - saw some old Russian newspapers, Danish food, research equipment, etc.

Now I am back to my regular work schedule again! We did receive an interesting piece of news up here the other day...apparently the LC-130s that flew us here (Air National Guard planes) are out-of-commission for about a month due to problems with their wing fuel tanks. So, now the camp staff and NSF are running around trying to sort out a new plan to get folks on/off the ice for the month of July. Apparently, I may now be flying out on a tiny little plane (a twin otter) and will then take a commercial flight from the coast of Greenland to Copenhagen...and then another flight to the USA. That will be interesting! I am hoping for a long layover in Copenhagen if we go with that plan - wander around in my long johns and check out the city. We'll see what happens!

Happy 4th of July to everyone!!