April 13 – Last full day at Camp

Today is the last full day at camp. The morning was spent packing up all the big equipment, loading it into cargo containers, and getting it out to the runway. It was the usual bustle of trying to find all those little things you had brought with you. Each item had met its maximum entropy and was scattered somewhere within the camp. The only loss of equipment I suffered was my little red shovel which I was quite fond of, but I am sure that it was one of those early snow mobile rides that caused its demise and so I have accepted it as a sacrifice to the Arctic terrain – not a bad way for a Norwegian field shovel to spend it remaining days.

Following the packing, Robert and I also took some time to go around to each building and mark the north corners of each with a GPS position and record the size and relative location of each to get a lay of the camp. We also took a series of stereo photographs around the perimeter as a means of reconstructing the camp layout. We hope to use these and maybe an aerial shot to make a 3D fly-through of the camp at Chandra’s lab. We had a quiet lunch with only a third of the scientists left.

After lunch we walked down the end of Line #6 one last time to check out the developing ridges, especially ridge number 6.1. The snow mobile tracks were so set at this point that they have become stable trails for one to walk comfortably along without worrying about burying one’s leg up to one’s knee in soft drift. We could feel that it was our last day especially after the gear was packed. We only had cameras at this point so we did some stereo photography of 6.0B, JR1, and 6.1. Then Robert and I took a relaxing walk back. It was actually so warm and sunny we had our coats completely open and were still sweating like crazy. We stopped by the ice mass balance buoy and Andrew’s meteorological station and took stereo photos of them as well. At 3pm we felt the need to return to get some water because we were soaking with sweat.

We returned, drank tons of water, and started to download the data when Jen came in and asked if someone would like to take a walk to go see the Pablo ridge one last time. The last time I walked that way was a week ago so I did want to see it one last time. I dressed lightly as it was still hot (30F) and went with Katharine and Jen. At about 400m along Line #4, Jackie and Bruce were standing there watching a ridge form. We all watched for about 20 minutes while the ridge flooded, creaked, groaned, slide, heaved, you name it. I had a camera with me so I tried to get as much video as I could. Then we walked the rest of the way to the end of Line #4. The 2 liters of water I drank after the early afternoon walk had caught up with me so I actually had to (for the first time) find a ridge to relieve myself. It was an interesting experience trying to find a suitable place. Sort of like being on an unstable rocky sea shore and needing to go. But, I suppose it was bound to happen. Besides this is one of those questions that everyone seems to ask, so ... yes, you do have to improvise when out in the middle of nowhere and make do with whatever is available at the time.

It was a good walk and a good chance to spend time with the core folks on the team to walk one last time together and watch the ice deform and marvel at the incredible structures. We were like little kids all over again, watching the way the ice behaved, it was just wonderful.

Dinner was great and we ended off with a toast to the success of the field work. Tomorrow morning I need to wake up, eat breakfast, pack, and get on a plane possibly by 9:30 am. I have to go over shipping issues with Bruce to be sure the hazmat stuff stays separate from the other shipping. Once that is all taken care of, we have to head over to the Prudhoe airport and find out about standby on the return flight to Fairbanks. Once in Fairbanks, we still have about 3-4 days of wrap up and continued packing but it works out well that way. In this setup, I should have 3 days of high speed internet at ARCUS and IARC to sort out e-mail and the next round of science planning before I head back to my family. I will spend the rest of the week at home to help out there and then it will be back to work on Monday in full swing to my usual job.

I think I will need those 4 special days with my family to get reconnected with them and to shift gears back from this vast open wilderness. The project was great, but it is also very nice to get back home again.