Pressured

Behind the New Zealand Station there is a beautiful phenomenon which we've come to know as "the pressure ridges". The movement of the sea ice against the shore has created great forces and pushed it upwards. In places it looks like frozen sea waves while in other spots big chunks of ice have been pushed upwards. Alternating thawing and freezing has also created beautiful icicles.
In years past you were allowed to walk freely in this landscape, but for some reason (maybe a minor incident like someone twisting his ankle) it was deemed too unsafe. The Kiwis for years have been allowing their people to do this and have been doing regular safety inspections of the route to make sure that unsafe areas were marked with black flags. So after much lobbying and the appointment of official "guides" the route was opened again for Americans who could sign up for it on the sign-up sheet outside the Rec office.


More pictures on our picture website:
http://michielandsherithepictures.blogspot.com/

Helo Ride to the Ice Breaker!

Happy Holidays! We enjoyed a quiet and well-needed rest during our 2 day weekend for Christmas. The station had a huge holiday party - complete with Santa, door prizes and eggnog - as well as a big holiday dinner with lobster tails and duck.

We went for a couple of walks (and saw a lone Adelie penguin), played games and watched "Weeds", my new favorite cable series.

The season is ramping up to a fever pitch of activity as the ice breaker ship approaches. This annual event signals the approach of the re-supply vessel and the fuel ship. This year, the NSF contracted a Swedish ship, the Oden, to break the channel through the ice from open water. The ship had several scientists on board who needed to fly out to New Zealand, so I was invited to go on board to do the "bag drag" for the departing passengers. Bag drag is the process of weighing passenger's checked bags as well as the passengers themselves with their hand-carry bag.

The ship was only 5 miles from the ice edge, so the only way we could get to the Oden was by helicopter. Helicopters are used extensively by the US Antarctic Program to get scientists and their field support teams to various field camps. This was my very first helo ride in Antarctica, so I was very excited!

We traveled 15 minutes over the ice and spied lots of Weddell Seals hanging out by the pressure cracks as well as a group of about 9 Adelie penguins scattering from the sound of our rotors. We landed next to the ship and enjoyed great views of the freshly created channel at the stern and the large chunks of ice churned up next to the vessel.

We got a short tour of the boat after doing our work and I was particularly impressed by their 2 pine saunas and snazzy bar. As you would expect from a Swedish ship, we were offered Wasabread and coffee :)

Here is a short movie (high quality for fast internet connections)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6N1lJ1nEYg

Same movie in low quality
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uojQ_I0_dME

Update on the MSNBC.com situation

The uproar is dying down on station as the reporter mentioned in our last posting as made a sort of public apology by way of his most recent article on MSNBC.com. We did get to meet him briefly, as well as his photographer (who seems like a pretty cool guy). Our photo is included in the Slide Show on the right hand side of the article (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15834019/). We were photographed while doing our weekly volunteer duties in the greenhouse.

In order to not be confused with this spurned and ridiculed reporter, the visiting PBS crew has taped "We are not from MSNBC.com" signs to the back of their parkas!

Whiny Reporters

We are all hopped up on sugar from the many shipments from loved ones and friends at home of candy for the holidays. The holidays are a time when people focus on internet shopping, two day weekends ahead (for Christmas and New Year's) and packages from home. This year, unlike other years, we are actually celebrating these holidays on the correct days. In the past, all holidays would be celebrated on the closest Saturday....it felt especially silly on New Year's Eve!
Did you know that we can receive mail and packages down here?
Michiel Gitzels (or Sheri Bluestein) , RPSC
McMurdo Station
PSC 469 Box 700
APO AP 96599-1035

I'm writing today to share the ridiculous article in MSNBC written by a reporter who arrived yesterday. This article been circulating around here in email with the subject line: "Mr. Poopypants" as the piece is simply his whiny description of how difficult his trip here has been. One of my co-workers is the "snoring" roommate and has cancelled any personal guided tours he would have done for the guy. He has also pledged to get really drunk tonight so that he REALLY snores tonight.

Check it out at: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15834019/from/ET/

You can also check out the response on Big Dead Place, a website written by the author of the book by the same name, who is a former Antarctican with plenty of harsh words about life here. http://bigdeadplace.com/frontierwatch.html

Snubbed by Werner

There have been two film crews down here working on documentaries. One is focusing on human life at McMurdo and is being directed by Anne Aghion, an award-winning film-maker who has done several films on the post-genocide trials in Rwanda. She and her her crew of 2 (one sound guy and one camera guy) arrived in August with the small group of employees in charge of getting the station ready for it's main season (Mainbody). Those of us who arrived in October for Mainbody were surprised (to put it mildly) to have a camera and boom mike shoved in our faces as we greeted old friends. I did enjoy, however, seeing one of the Rwanda documentaries and listed to Anne describe her experiences there.

Two weeks ago, Werner Herzog, the German film/documentary maker - best known for "Aguirre: The Wrath of God", "The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser", and most recently "Grizzly Man" - arrived on station. He is planning to do a documentary from out in the field about the natural beauty of this land. Before he heads out to the field, he has been hanging around town and doing some filming. He brought his cameraman to last weekend's talent contest and got up on stage and in people's faces while they performed (I was surprised at how close you have to get a microphone to someone's face in order to get good sound). The winner of the talent contest called Freak Train, by the way, was a woman who did a Tina Turner impersonation. Excellent! But I digress....



I was excited about having him here on station as I had really appreciated his perspective and treatment of Timothy Treadwell in "Grizzly Man". I found the film to be thought-provoking and balanced.

Last night, Mr. Herzog screened a film from 1932 about circus freaks called "Freaks". He gave an introduction to the film and discussed why it was meaningful to him as a film-maker and how he, like Tod Browning, the maker of "Freaks", tried to show the humanity and beauty of subjects seen by society as ugly, scary and freakish. He compared this approach to that of some of his films. After the film, he mingled and I asked him if "Grizzly Man" was also of the same vein. Perhaps I offended him by suggesting that Timothy Treadwell was a freak or perhaps he snubbed me because I was so mainstream as to only mention his most popular and accessible film. In any event, he turned away from me, looked at someone else, gave a short response and then changed the subject.

Nothing like meeting "a star" in real life to shatter any positive feelings you might have had.....

Castle Rock Outing

Yesterday was a gorgeous day - lots of sun, blue skies, 20 degrees F(-8 degrees C - downright blamy!) and little wind. We took advantage of our day off and the great conditions to do the longest marked (note the flags along the route in one of the photos) hike in our vicinity called the Castle Rock Loop. The entire hike from the Fire House, where we are required to check out and receive a radio, to Scott Base station (the New Zealand base) is 7.8 miles (12.5 kilometers).

Here are some pictures from the day.

Our life on the ice

Our life this season isn't terribly exciting - except when we scavenge Gear Issue for fun party clothing and then come back to our humidified room. Generally, since we both have fairly stressful jobs, we don't have a lot of free time. We get up at 7 AM, eat breakfast in the room or at work, put on our parkas and walk to work. I work until 7 PM; Michiel has a bit more flexibility and can work later but take some time off during the day to go for a run. We generally grab some extra food at lunchtime and eat "supper" at work. After work, we go to a yoga class, take a hike or a walk, watch a movie (documentary nights are on Fridays), go to a lecture or a travelogue or go to the wine bar or regular bar. On Saturdays, I work a half day and will probably work a couple of hours in the greenhouse around lunchtime with Michiel. We get a day off on Sunday and usually start the day off with brunch. Since we have had so many large military cargo planes flying here from Christchurch, we have a steady supply of kiwifruit, apples, oranges, plums and bananas. At brunch, we are also treated to melon, pineapple and papaya - quite luxurious, really.

Sunday afternoons are set aside for activities like playing music, playing basketball, running, hiking or going on special trips like the one we went on this past Sunday to Cape Evans. In 1910, Robert Scott built a hut at Cape Evans to support his push to reach the South Pole with ponies. Wiht our dry, cold climate, the wood of the hut and all of the products within have been perfectly preserved (even the wheel of Dutch Edam cheese from Rotterdam!)



We have a great room this season - with high enough season to accommodate a loft. We've created a sitting area underneath with a "borrowed" couch from elsewhere on station. It makes a huge difference having a comfy and "warm" space to come home to.

More Halloween

Richard Simmons!



Groundskeeper Willy from the Simpsons


Winner for Sheri's Most Favorite!

Halloween

As always, Halloween is a very big event in McMurdo. The big party at the gym and the possibility of winning a fun trip if you are chosen as the funniest, scariest, best Antarctic Theme or best overall are good reasons for people to put a lot of time and creativity into their outfits. Here are some photos of some of the best:

The Biggest Loser - Before and After (by the way, we have a group of people competing in McMurdo's Biggest Loser competition. Each one is putting $100 into the pot.)




The lounge lizard won for Scariest Costume

Finally! A posting from Antarctica

I finally have enough free time at work to do an update from McMurdo Station, Antarcica. I arrived on the first flight of Mainbody and Michiel joined me about 5 days later. After my flight arrived, the weather turned for the worse (wind and low visibility) and the flights scheduled after mine were delayed. The passengers on those flights (including Michiel) enjoyed several extra days in New Zealand, jogging along the river, visiting the Botanical Gardens(see below) , eating goooooood Asian food, and shopping.



This season, I manage four people in the Passenger Services section of the Antarctic Terminal Operations department (basically – logistics). We specifically handle all movement of passengers from McMurdo to Christchurch, the South Pole and Field Camps. We enter info into our (very out-dated, DOS-based) passenger tracking software, weigh passengers and their baggage, coordinate shuttle pick ups and drop offs, order lunches (vegetarian or regular) and send out all of the communications on take offs and landings to the world. For passengers traveling to Christchurch, we request hotels and onward travel arrangements to the travel agency in NZ.

The biggest challenge is the number of changes to flights that we have to track and respond to and communicating those changes to the station, South Pole and Christchurch. We manage a PowerPoint presentation with updated flight info that is broadcast on the television and have several locations where we have printed out notifications.

My staff work 24/7 – each of them work five 12-hour days. Two of them work days and two of them work nights. We swap them halfway through the season. I am supposed to work 7:30 to 5:30 on Monday through Saturday, but I have been working far more than that. I have adjusted my schedule to 8 to 7 on Monday through Friday and a half day on Saturday. We’ll see how that goes…..

Michiel is working in the IT department as a System Administrator. He manages email accounts and updates and maintains servers (from a software perspective). I'd have to have him add more detail here! He works a normal shift - 7:30 to 5:30 on Monday through Saturday, but has a lot more flexibility to come in later or take a longer break during the day in order to go running (he is training for another Antarctic marathon). He'll make up the hours on Sundays and evenings when servers require maintenance.

We don't have much time to ourselves, but we both are trying to do some running (he is a lot more serious about it than I am - but I am training for the half-marathon) and go to yoga classes once per week. The picture below shows Michiel with his frozen beard, proving that that at the moment temperatures are quite chilly. (wind chills of -40f/ -40c) are not uncommon. In fact we are both wondering wheter it is colder than last year or whether we just chose to only remember the fine summer weather we left behind last summer. We have also been trained to work in the greenhouse and will be doing that once per week. We also try to squeeze in some movie time - Fridays are documentary night - and some socializing time and I am still trying to put together some kind of music project.

Sadly, we both need lots of sleep so we don't have as much fun and down time as we'd like.

Road Lottery in Denali

Every summer, the National Park Service holds a lottery for the opportunity to drive your own vehicle into Denali National Park. Normally, the 93 mile park road is closed to (almost) all private vehicles and travel in the park can only be done on park buses. The park officially closes on a Thursday in mid September and the following 4 days are open to 400 vehicles per day on the road. The fee for entering the lottery is $10 and this year, there were over 6,000 entrants. We had enormous luck - (perhaps it was fate's way of rewarding me for a season with lots of rain and some difficult clients???) - and won a spot on the final road lottery day.

Fall in Alaska normally starts in late August and is marked by lots of rain and cool temperatures. This year has been no different, but we managed to experience Denali in the best possible fall weather - blue skies, sunshine and late fall colors on the mountains and tundra blessed us for the duration of our stay.

We drove 6.5 hours up to the park on Sunday, stopping for short hikes and lots of photos of the glorious colors and soft lighting that signal the end of the continuous sunlight of summer. We set up camp at the park entrance and got to sleep early.

The following morning was our day in the park and we got going before sunrise (at this time of year it's 7:30 AM). Within the first few miles, the pink glow of the rising sun illuminated the far-off peak of Mt. McKinley, the gem of the park and North America's tallest mountain (20,320 feet). As we drove farther into the park, the mountain became more and more glorious until it was almost too much for us to look at her anymore.

We spotted several wolves and even learned that there are several all black wolves in the park. One lone wolf even walked directly down the road toward our car as we gaped in awe. We watched beavers working diligently on storing away branches of birch trees high up a rocky slope (we had no ideas that beaers would or could climb so high and so nimbly). We saw several groups of grizzlies (mostly sows with 2 cubs) , Dall sheep, golden eagles, a fox trotting down the road towards us, and most excitingly, a wolf and a grizzly boar (male) having a stand-off over a cache (stash) of caribou meat taken from a recent kill.

Fall Fun

Since the end of the tour season, we've been lucky enough to have mostly fantastic Indian summer weather - sunny with clear, blue skies and warm temperatures - perfect weather for doing all of those activities we'd talked about doing all summer long.

We spent several days doing some work around the house for our landlady. Mostly, this involved splitting wood (with a magnificent machine that does the splitting for you with a big chisel) and, of course, stacking the split wood.

We also learned how to drive the 4-wheeler and had some fun driving it around the neighborhood.


Once we finished our duties at home, we did some wonderful hiking and really enjoyed the reds of the alpine tundra, the golds of the aspens and devil's club plants and the deep greens of the evergreens.




We were invited by one of Michiel's many employers to join him fishing. Jason owns and operates Angle 45 , a local fishing guide company. He took us out in a row boat to go driftboat fishing on the Kenai River. As we are both pretty sick of eating salmon (imagine that!), we were thrilled to discover that we would be fishing for Dolly Varden and Rainbow Trout. With Jason's expert guidance and excellent gear, Michiel got a trout within 2 minutes of leaving the boat put-in. Unfortunately, the trout was actually too large to keep (to Michiel's surprise and dismay). Jason released it and we spent the rest of the gorgeous day catching our limit of Dollys (1 per person) and trout (also one per person) and trying our hand at catching silver salmon (no luck). The day ended with a great boat run past a large brown bear doing his own fishing and swimming in the river. Many thanks, Jason, for a super day!

Michiel cooked up the fish beautifully that night and we had a truly gourmet meal of freshly grilled fish with sauteed green beans and basmati rice. YUM!

This month also featured an extremely high tide in the Turnagain Arm so a group of us did some canoe and kayak paddling from the Seaview Bar parking lot at sunset. We certainly surprised many of the locals, who'd never seen paddlers in the Arm - as it is known to have very dangerously strong currents and quicksand-like mudflats.

Dipnetting for Reds

One of the privileges of being an Alaska resident is being able to dipnet for salmon. With the appropriate permit, dipnetters use their own home-made nets to "dip" for salmon as they swim upstream to spawn and then die. Dipnetting at the mouth of the river in which the salmon are swimming allows the dipnetter to catch salmon at their prime - before they start the decaying and mutating process that accompanies the hard slog upstream. The type of salmon we were hoping to catch were the red or sockeye variety that are known as the tastiest of all Alaskan salmon.

We joined some other Hope residents for a couple of days on the Kenai River to try our hand at this uniquely Alaskan activity. We had the mistaken impression that we would put on our chest waders (waterproof overalls), lower the giant nets in the water and we'd immediately pull in dozens of salmon. We thought we'd reach our limit (25 fish for the head of the household and 10 additional for each family member) in a day or two.

We couldn't have been farther from the truth. We spent hours in the freezing cold water watching the line of fishermen and women to our left and right. We gauged when we got back into the water after a break by watching for when others pulled fish out. We'd stand patiently and I'd try not to let the incoming tide flow over the top of my chest waders until we felt a jerk in the net. The real trick was then to flip the net over and drag it over the sand until you got to shore. Most people lost their fish by looking in the net to check out the fish while they were dragging it in to shore.

Once on shore, you had to "bonk" the fish with a small bat to kill it and then untangle it from the net. Here I am with my one and only after getting lessons from a friend on how to "bonk" it and carry it. (Note the very feminine gloves.)










Sadly, the run was no where as strong as it should have been for that time of year and Michiel and I ended up catching only 3 fish between us (2 for him - he'll be sure I added this detail).

It was just as well, really, as each fish yields 6 fillets - more than enough fish to satisfy us for the rest of our summer in Alaska - and we had a great time camping out on the beach and spending time with our neighbors and friends.

The gulls had a great time, too. When fish were being caught and filleted on the spot, the gulls had plenty of opportunity to eat the discarded heads and guts.



Fortunately, we received some lovely recipe tips from Marie-Birgitte in the comments of the post "Getting Ready for the Ice" so we will enjoy our salmon in gourmet fashion. Thanks, M-B!

Breath of Life / Lost Lake Run

16 miles (26 kilometers) of cross-country running through beautiful peaks (highest point on the trail is 2100 ft (640 meters) and valleys of the Lost Lake area near Seward. 16 miles of running in a slow drizzle on a very, very muddy (it had been raining for days) and slippery trail.

August 26 was the day of Breath of Life / Lost Lakes Run. This is a run that donates all of its proceeds to the CF foundation (Cystic Fybrosis). This year was probably the last year of its existence as the 2 main organizers are calling it quits after 16 years of hard work. They went from raising $1,200 in their first year to $ 44,000 (if I remember correctly) this year.

Running a race is always fun because there are so many people running together; running in beautiful surroundings is even better ; knowing that your entry money goes to a good cause makes the enjoyment complete.



I didn't bring my camera so this picture isn't my own, but comes from their website http://www.lostlakerun.org














Dirty and tired, but satisfied and on my way to hamburgers and beer. My finishing time was 2:47.

















Brad "Chugach" ; I ran with you in mind. I hope you are doing well.

Getting Ready for the Ice

Summer is winding down here in Alaska - in fact the record-setting rains, early views of the northern lights and snow levels low on the mountains - tell us that autumn is upon us already.

I finished my last tour last night after a brutal stretch of nearly two and a half weeks with road washouts, rain, injury (not mine) and some exceptionally difficult personalities (also not mine). I am glad to be done and now look forward to spending some time with Michiel in Hope and eating the rest of the salmon we caught or were given over the summer.

We are also preparing ourselves for the upcoming Antarctic season. As we've written previously, Michiel will be acting as one of a group of System Administrators and I will be supervising the passenger logisitics department (I will have 4 representatives working under me).

If you also want to get "in the mood" to read more about Antarctica, please check out our friend, Antz Powell's time lapse footage of a year in Antarctica at: http://www.fugufish.org/frog/?p=56

Ice climbing! (is cool)

Last week we went ice climbing on the Matanuska glacier. Sheri's colleague at Adventure Alaska Tours, Joe, whom I finally got to meet was kind enough to take us and infect us with his enthusiasm. We made use of the camp spot overlooking the glacier to stay the night and thus had ample time for the actual climbing. Donned with warm clothing, boots, crampons, helmet, climbing harness, ropes, screws and ice axes we went on our way.






















The access to the glacier is really near to the carpark, so we only had to walk a short while until we had to put on our crampons. After reaching a suitable wall, we got a crash course in tying knots and roping up (and all the lingo that goes with it) and we were on our way to climb the wall. Kicking the points of the crampons in the wall and using the ice axes to hook into the ice; it is amazing how these tiny points of contact can bear your weight. Of course once in a while it doesn't (user error) at which point it is good to know that you are roped to the top of the ice wall and someone is belaying you to stop the fall. The equipment gave me such a confidence that I wasn't bothered by any fear of height and it felt good to go higher and higher. It does require quite some coordination and strength, so we were rather tired when we came back to our camp site. After climbing for a couple more hours the next day we were beginning to feel our muscles protest, but we had a wonderful time.








If the pictures aren't enough, you can watch a short movie at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dkpE2CQ4v0



Tremendous big thanks to Joe for all his patience and willingness to teach us and being a fun companion.