Things are off and Running at WAIS!!!

Well...good news from the land of penguins!  The WAIS Divide Field Camp is officially open and ready for the science teams to start heading down.  Here is the official memo posted by Raytheon:

NOVEMBER 03, 2008

Update provided by Matthew Kippenhan

Good news from the field team at the initial put-in...
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WAIS Divide opened on Saturday, 11/01, via Basler at 2 pm. They refueled the Basler and were in the modules by 3 pm. They quickly turned on heat, got the generators going, and ran propane in the galley. Most things wintered well, although the vehicles were parked too close together and snow packed in between them. It took a lot of shoveling to free them of snow. Also, a vent cover blew off one of the perfection stove stacks and packed tight with snow. The arch has drifted a lot, but you can still see some metal on the smaller arch building.

All of the heavy equipment is running, as well as four snow machines. One snow machine is not working well and they may need to return it to McMurdo. The rest of the snow machines have not been found yet. Hopefully, they are buried nicely someplace on the cargo berm. The Tucker has a broken spring and the mechanic will replace it soon. The McM and WSD fuelies are setting up the fuel system today. The heavy equipment operator started grooming the skiway today to prepare for a backup flight in two days. WAIS is a primary flight on both Thursday and Friday and five missions are proposed for next week. It has been sunny but windy each day, between -32 C and -35 C. 

Nothing like a balmy -32 degrees C to wake you up in the morning eh?  I can't wait!!!!

Here's a couple of links to photos and videos:

WAIS Divide Photo Gallery

General Information and Climate Video for the WAIS Field Site.  Take note of the Bubbly thin section of ice.  These sections are what I'm looking at for my research. (Dr. Kendrick Taylor)