"Airplanes and Gene's Birthday!"
Time on the ice: 8 weeks!
Time left: 10 days (?? maybe)

This past week, we had our first incoming flight in nearly 5 weeks! The C130s are grounded and so the NSF is paying Greenland Air to fly twin otters up to Summit. With only twin otters to take folks in and out, the NSF cancelled about 30 people from coming up here...so camp is a bit smaller than originally planned! I believe there are about 30 of us here now.

Everyone was very excited when the first plane came...the whole camp (27 of us) ran outside to see a plane arrive. Hooray for the mighty twin otter!


Willow (a mechanic here who is totally awesome) and I hopped on the plane to check out the inside. It is definitely pretty tight quarters! They put extra fuel storage inside the plane (see the right side of the photo below) since the trip to Summit is somewhat long with often tough weather conditions. Here is Willow considering being a stowaway...

And, the sad part is having to say goodbye to great friends made up here! Our morning workout crew has reduced from 4 to 2...Mike and Andrew flew away and Leslie and I have now switched from "7 am martial arts" to "7 am snow hike". Here is our last photo together showing our martial arts kicks...

And, now we have a whole new group of guys here from NASA, testing out a future Mars probe! The probe is meant to melt through the Mars ice and take measurements of the composition to look at the planet's history. Two more from my team, Erika and Martin (U-Wisconsin) have also made it up here and are busy at work taking samples.

It is now a bit uncertain when I'm leaving the ice! So far, of 3 twin otter flights that were scheduled to arrive this past Weds-Friday, all were delayed and only 2 made it up so far! I'm currently pencilled in to leave next week from here on a twin otter and then from Kangerlussuaq on a C130 (from a different military base than the NYANG...not the same group that brought us here). However, there are quite a lot of us supposed to leave (15+) and it appears only about 5-6 fit well (with their bags) on a twin otter. With that and weather issues, I'll probably not know when I am leaving until about 3 hours in advance!!

And, Gene's birthday is today - Happy Birthday Gene! I didn't get a chance to take pictures last night...he received a fantastic assortment of momentos from everyone up here as b-day presents. The list included:
- a section of the deep drilling cable from the drill team
- a used spark plug from the Robin (mechanic)
- a 100 mL sample jar from me to be used for recreational purposes
- "Cat Butt Gum" from Brad (operator)
- "Cleanest snow on earth in a jar" from the Katie and Jeff (science techs)
- Autographed tighty-whities from Andrew (medic)
- Autographed latex gloves from Nick (the new medic)
- a small can of V8, M&Ms, and Andie's Mints from the Greenhouse residents
- a photograph of Willow flicking off the camera from Willow (mechanic)
- a 15-year-old plastic bowl from the GRIP site from Leslie and Marge (cooks)
And I believe more is coming! We were dying laughing as he opened up his bag of toys. It was beautiful.

Hope all is well on the homefront! I'm getting excited to see something besides ice! :-)

"Project website"
Time on the ice: 7 1/2 weeks! (yikes!)
Time remaining: about 2 1/2 weeks

I've been working on putting together a project website for our group...take a look! If anyone has any suggestions on improvements, let me know.

http://www.ce.gatech.edu/~mhbergin/Summit/

And, here's a picture I took yesterday...it has been foggy up here in the early mornings! 5 am fog view of the main camp from our satellite site...

The last Willis birthday of the summer! Allison is 24! Whoohoooooo!

I'm a day late in putting this up due to tortoise-slow internet over here...I guess I shouldn't expect too fast of a connection from up here!
When I came out to do a 5 am surface snow sample, I decided, hey, why not do some birthday gymnastics? My problem was that no one else was around...so I decided to use my camera timer and try to time out a handstand...

First attempt...whoops my sign fell down!

OK....set the camera timer....and...whoops didn't get my legs up...

Third try...almost there!

Fourth try...TA DA!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ALLISON!!!! I'm saving you a squishy birthday hug for August in New Hampshire!

"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!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY MOMMY!

It was a little nippy and windy this morning...you can't tell, but I am smiling a big happy-brithday-smile under the neckwarmer!

Mom, for your birthday, I found you some prime real estate up here.



I tried to get some shots of the inside, but it was blocked with snow and I couldn't get my shoulders through. But, it sounds like it will be a nice and cozy vacation home for you and Dad.

lots of love,

Daughter #2