Saturday, June 27, 2009

Antarctica Dates Set: 3 Months on Ice!



Just found out that my dates have been set for my 09-10 return to WAIS Divide. I will again be going alone for the I-168 grant number. Fellow Penn Stater Don Voigt will be joining me down there to help with the CRESIS Group again, and then help tear down camp at the end of the season. Don will be part of the opening crew next year. There will be several familiar faces this year again. Anais, Bess, Brian and Bruce will all be back....along with another group from Penn State working on the CRESIS traverse. Theresa ("T") will be the camp manager this year. Finally, there will be many Raytheon and ICDS drilling folks coming back. (ie Elizabeth, Todd, Dave, Jay, etc...)

My deployment is set for Nov 6th and departure for Feb 12th. This means I will be in the field for over 3 months this year (including McMurdo time). This also means that I will be arriving at WAIS Divide before the camp is fully set up and will be actually cooking my own meals for a while. Nothing like "roughing it" at a remote field camp in Antarctica.

This also means I'll miss Christmas, New Years, AND my birthday :-(
oh well....all in the name of science right? Let's just hope that I'll have defended my masters by then.

-john

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