First full day in Kanger

Our first day in Kangerlussaq has been very productive.  We are

completely ready for the twin otter flights scheduled to start on

Saturday, weather permitting, of course.  The twin otter flights will

cache remaining equipment before the traverse begins.  Tomorrow we

will continue preparing for traverse.  Today we packed and palleted

all 27 core boxes.  We prepared the drill for caching in the field.

Tomorrow, we will finish traverse inventory.  Clement and Evan will

work on radar setup, Clement will work on integrating GPS and GPR.

Brian/Terry/Evan will work on food preparations, and misc traverse

prep.  We will talk with Nordland Air pilots in the afternoon, and get

a weather update for the cache flight tomorrow morning.

 

Update from Clem upon arriving in Kangerlussuaq

The crew made it to Kanger!

Clem wrote:

We woke up at 4:30 am to take the military bus at 5am up to Scotia, at the National Air guard.  The plane was scheduled to take off at 8am and that’s what happened. Right on time! We flew up to Goose bay in 3 hours, had a short ice cream break over there, and then went back on the plane for 3 more hours to get to Kangerlussuaq. We arrived at 5:30pm local time; it is still winter here, snow on the road, snow on black ridge, Greenlandic driving snow machines around and pretty cold temperature around 0F. It feels great to be back in Kanger!

Good news about the lunch/dinner situation, this year CPS crew has greatly improved their system.  Last  year the ACT crew only had one dining option, which was primarily Danish cuisine complete with lots of Muskox. This year, they have the choice between the pizza Rio, the Polar bear (Thai food) or La Cantina.

Thursday schedule:

-          Break down pallet with science + personal gear (Team)
-          Check, Inventory depot from ACT-10+ identify missing items (Clem+Evan)
-          Get 27 core boxes ready (4” tubes,  black straps, foam) to go on the TO flight (Team)
-          Identify drill part able to go on TO flight with core boxes (Terry)
-          Sharing food in half, so it is ready to be ship if possible on the TO (Team)
-          Localize and identify GPS  + solar panels from UNAVCO, test gear (Clem)
-          Work on allocation list for camping gear, identify missing objects, test stoves and other gear…(Brian + Evan)

More thorough report at: http://bprc.osu.edu/wiki/30_April%2C_2011

Arctic Circle Traverse 2011

This year we aim to traverse from Raven Base towards the east coast just south of Helheim Glacier. The traverse will be about 700km. We will drill three 50 m long cores ACT11-A,B,C and a 300 m core at Raven in cooperation with GLISN (http://glisn.info/).
As we approach the coast we expect accumulation rates to increase to a point and then decrease rapidly as increasingly harsh katabatic winds sublimate accumulated snow. At about 1500m, ACT11-A will be the lowest elevation core ever drilled on the Greenland Ice Sheet.