Location: Summit, Greenland
Days on the ice: 3

Hey everyone!

Finally, I'm able to get some pictures for you to see...I'm on day #3 here on the ice.

Cruising around on the electric snowmobile...behind me is a sled full of equipment I'm bringing out to our satellite camp. Snowmobiles are waaaay too much fun.

Mike (my advisor) on top of the roof and Kevin (middle school teacher from Atlanta) setting up the wind barb on top of the Bally building out at our satellite camp. I'm inside the building wiring things together and setting up a computer program to stop our measurements when wind blows from the camp area...we definitely don't want to be measuring output from the camp generators!


Kevin showing his Artic Oven home. We each have our own...cozy and a little warmer than the outside (last night it was about -25 C inside, -35 C outside).

More to come!

~ Gayle

Hi everyone!

I am now up on the ice sheet and am having a great first day! We made it to Albany late Saturday night, then up at 4:30 am on Sunday to board a C130 headed to Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Sunday evening in Kanger consisted of eating at the Greenlandic cafeteria (a strange all-you-can-eat buffet that had unknown meat and lots of beets), hanging at the airport bar (the airport is the hopping place of the town), and getting our gear ready for this morning’s trip to the ice sheet. We boarded the C130 again this morning, this time with only about 12 of us on board (mostly ice core drillers and scientists) and successfully landed on the ice! First order of business was claiming our tents – the main strategy here is being close to the “big house” (kitchen + bathroom) and far from the outhouse. In “tent city”, I am now 3^rd back on the left side…an important thing to remember since all the tents look the same!

We had a big lunch, where I met a neat guy named Pat who had wintered over here (with 3 other men) and kept active cross-country skiing all winter…at temperatures down to -85 C (if I could capitalize those numbers, I would!)…and in the DARK! He would guide his way back to camp by using the stars. Now this guy has now won my highest ranking of hardcore people I have met. The guy in the Colorado Rockies who hiked up mountains with a broken hip…unfortunately has fallen to second. J I am definitely a softy! It’s ONLY -30 C here today. The air definitely has a bit more bite to it then it did last year in July when it was around -20 C. Apparently, it may get down to -40 C tonight…whooo! It was so cold today that my Nalgene dripped a little on my parka and then froze. AND, what is even more interesting is that instead of having a runny nose, your boogers just sort of freeze in place since you are breathing in such cold air. Thought you all would like to hear the fine details of just how cold it is up here! Luckily, I’m actually feeling fine and I think I have the right gear to be ok at these temperatures. Hopefully I’ll be still saying that in a week!

I’m off to go play a round of cards and then head to bed. Tomorrow we’re going to be riding a zero-emissions electric snowmobile around setting up our satellite camp…40+ big boxes to move and a lab to set up!

I’ll try to send another update later on this week! Right now, the internet connection is too low for me to upload pictures. I'll try to get online at some odd hour for the next update to have enough bandwidth for pictures.

Cheers,

~ Gayle

Location: Atlanta, Georgia

Hi friends and family!

I am kick-starting this blog with the next trip to Greenland! This time, 10 weeks! I will be spending nearly my entire summer camping on snow, skiing about a mile away to take measurements, and hanging out with the very interesting international crowd of scientists, construction crew, drillers, etc.

I will be leaving this Saturday (May 20th) to head up to New York to meet the Air National Guard plane that flies us all over to Greenland...should be arriving in Kangerlussuaq, Greenland (a small somewhat desolate town) on the 21st, and up to the top of the glacier the next day. A week from today, I will be curled up in my sleeping bag inside my tent, with my ski hat pulled down over my eyes to block out the sunlight (the sun never goes down in the summer!). I'm actually getting pretty excited to go! I have some buddies that will be up with me this summer and I'm expecting we're going to have a pretty good time!

All is well with Ty, as well! He has returned to Atlanta from his intense kayak training and has decided to move kayaking to the sidelines (well, "sidelines" meaning several times out on the water per week) and is beginning the job-hunting process. He's having fun putting his design portfolio together and is getting excited about the prospects of using his brain a little more than when he was full-time training in kayaking. I'll bother him to update the blog with his news as he goes along!

I'll try to update the blog with some pictures from Kangerlussuaq when I get there - likely on Monday or Tuesday.

Hope all's well in your corner of the world!

~ Gayle

Location: Nederland, CO - Mountain Research Station

Hey all! Sorry for the slow update to the blog - I've been doing a pretty crazy schedule over the past week. BUT, I have a few pictures to share!


Here is me (standing on the ground in blue) about to hop on the snowcat that is heading up the mountain with our gear. This was about a week ago.

That's me in front dragging a couple boxes up the hill with a sled. This work will definitely get you in good shape!




Here's Mike skiing down the trail in cross-country skis. I have the trip down to about 1 h 45 min going up, 45 min going down. It's about 3 miles and goes from an elevation of about 9500 feet to 11,000 feet. The ski down is great when there is fresh powder and kind of frightening when its packed snow (many trees to avoid!)

Mike, Mark, and Gene at the research site. The guy in the middle has wowed us all with his mountain-manness. He is a staff member at the field station and bikes uphill every day to work, in snow. Then, he skis 3 miles up the mountain just to "say hi". Meanwhile, the members of our group have developed many strategies to making it up the mountain, including counting steps (Casey counted up to 5200!), counting songs on your mp3 player (that's one of my strategies), or finding landmarks to time out your trek.

The group at dinner. From L to R: Gene (Georgia Tech), Erika (UW-Madison), Martin (UW-Madison), Jack (UNH), me, and Casey (UNH). We have impressed a local Italian place with how much we can eat - the waitress remarked "No one EVER finishes their meal here!" 3+ hours of hiking up/down a mountain will help you consume a calzone pretty darn quick.


Mike on a hike with Gene up the ridge...because apparently the 2 hour hike up to the station wasn't enough to tire them out!

Finally, me hiking up the trail with my skis in my backpack. I had a "skin malfunction" this day...skins are sort of like velcro that you stick to the bottom of your skis to walk up steep slopes. When one of mine fell off, I decided to try to hike up the rest of the way...and soon found myself crawling/belly-sliding to get through the very very deep snow. I've found the solution to my "skin" problem...duct tape! I'm now trekking up each day with the skis on the whole way. Whew!

Well, that's it for now! A good story to pass on to you all that I've been giggling about for a few days - one of the three grad students here (Casey) snowshoes up the trail and then sleds down on your old-style family sled. Once in awhile we convince him to take a load down on his sled for us. The other day he was sledding down and carrying a big cooler full of sample bottles between his legs...and as the trail flattened out he had to push himself along with his hands...and then he encountered some folks on a nice backcountry snowshoe hike. He was too embarrassed to stop and explain so he just keep pushing himself down the path. Now, what would you think of a random guy sledding down the mountain with a huge cooler? Hee hee hee....

Location: Mountain Research Station, Nederland, Colorado

Hi friends and family!

I am about as physically wiped out as I've been in a loooong time. Today was our 2nd big set-up day up on the mountain, which includes getting gear/people up by snowcat (or foot for some of the people), then mounting gear on sleds to drag up the final 300 m to its final destination at the research station on top of Niowatt Ridge.

A couple "thoughts/things to share" from today:

• This is boot camp for graduate students.
• Why on earth did I volunteer to hike up the mountain to reduce the weight on the snowcat? And with my advisor who's legs are twice as long as mine? Picture me trotting up, him strolling. :)
• Screwdrivers + pump fans are bad news. Gayle's fluke accident (hopefully the only one) demolished the cooling system for a pump...that pump will now be designated to sit in the snow to stay cold enough (they automatically shut down when the overheat).
• Great folks here - everyone's helping each other out and is fun hang out with. My ski buddy and roomate is Erika from U-Wisconsin (its 2 gals, 5 guys currently). Jack from UNH and I played backgammon last night...though we weren't totally sure of the rules.
• A Nepalese restaurant exists in Nederland, CO, a town of 1300. Go figure!
• My tailbone is doing better today then yesterday...yay! For anyone confused, I busted it going snowboarding last week and have been pretty wimpy since then.
• This is WAY harder than doing work up at Greenland! (with the exception of the fact that we can run to Home Depot in an emergency here)
• I'm going to bed early tonight!

Cheers!

~ tuckered out Gayle