"Go Time"

The team reports some good news. After 3 days of snow storms and being stuck in the same place, hey have been given a forecast of good weather for the next few days!  It cleared up this afternoon and they spent about 3 hours digging out camp and packing as much as they could to enable a 4am wake-up, with the intent that they will pack and hit the "road" by ~6am, get to ACT11-A by the afternoon, and start drilling ACT11-C by late afternoon.  

Further, it has snowed enough that the debilitating sastrugi are covered and it is smooth driving.  Evan said there is a chance the ACT11-A cores could be picked up on Sunday, so he states it is "go time."  Needless to say they are motivated to... move. 

Staying Put

The team is staying put for a day or two as a big snow storm has rolled in.  They are actually rooting for this storm to dump a lot of snow as it could cover some of the sastrugi and make driving a lot easier.  Also, they were able to haul all 18 core boxes from ACT11-C, which means they won't have to do any shuttling between sites... which they are quite happy about given their pokey pace!  All still sound great and in good spirits!.

Team makes it to ACT11-C!!! (Despite what the tracker may have us believe)

Great news from the ACT Team - they have made it to ACT11-C.  The core locations noted on the tracker are actually a bit...off.  We have alerted the tracker company and hope the core sites will be updated soon. Evan was very happy to report they had made it to an actual point on the map after several days of very slow driving.  They found their cache of equipment at ACT11-C, but are on the move again today as they will start drilling at their lowest elevation core site ACT11-A first.  It should take them at least 2 days to arrive at ACT11-A.  The team all report high spirits and are excited to be amongst their core locations!

High winds keep the team in place.

Evan reports that the team is staying put for the day because of high winds that arrived this afternoon.  The team spent the morning reinforcing the tents so they were able to hunker down when the wind came in.  They again stressed how the 2 ft - 3 ft stastrugi have really slowed them down, so even with calm winds, they'll be moving quite slow.  All are still upbeat and feeling well.

Holy Sastrugi!

The team reported slow driving today as they navigated through 2 ft. sastrugi on their route to the core sites.  They report sunny skies and COLD temps.  Despite the slow moving (only about 10-15 km/hr) and chilly temps, they all seem to be in good spirits.


Update on "Sastrugi" from Nancy Bryant:

"Are you kidding?  What average aquaintance or family member knows the meaning of that word?  I, of course know of these having read the troubles that Shakelton faced navigating these troublesome snow ridges and ripples that run, oddly enough, parallel to the wind direciton.  The singular form, zastruga, may be more familiar to our friends."

Team makes steady progress.

The team went ~90 km today averaging 25 km/hr. Temps are currently -36 C, with -30 C this morning and around -20 C mid day with light winds around ~8 kts.  The plan is to drive 100 km tomorrow,which leaves 50 km to their first core site, ACT11-C. They are also happy to report that the 48m of Raven core drilled yesterday is already in the freezer at Kanger!

ACT11 team is on the move!

Evan returned to Raven yesterday morning to rejoin the team after his week-long bout with bronchitis. He reports feeling well and is excited to be back with the group.  Clem, Brian, and Terry had remained at Raven and got a head start on the GLISN core, drilling 48 meters already.  The team was busy packing last night and this morning was able to leave Raven and move to their core sites, follow them at: http://www.datatransport.org/act/monitor .

Evan's Health Improved, Returning to the field Tuesday

Today Evan is much improved and has the official OK from the local medical technician to return to the field. Relapse into bronchitis at this point is extremely unlikely however possible in the cold. He is now scheduled to fly up back to Raven Tuesday, pending good weather. The rest of the team is now at Raven and is getting a head start on the GLISN core. They drilled 9 meters yesterday and have been drilling today as well. The current plan is to drill tomorrow morning and pack up the drill Tuesday afternoon. The traverse will then re-commence Wednesday morning, hopefully with good weather. The temperatures have and will remain un-seasonably cold in the coming week. Nights are still below -40F with wind chills around -60 to -70.

April 16th: Evan still healing, GLISN Core Starting today

Apologies for the lack of posts for the past few days. Evan was extracted from the field on April 13th and is now in Kangerlussuaq. He is recovering from acute bronchitis and hopefully will be ready to return to Raven on 109th flights planned midweek. The rest of the team is still in Raven and will begin drilling the first 50m of the GLISN core, a task that was originally slated for after the traverse. We still have enough time to complete all science goals, even with these delays. We hope to get started on ACT11 again as soon as Evan returns to Raven.

Back to Raven

The team is headed back to Raven today as Evan's cold has not improved.  If Evan is not feeling well in 2 more days, a Herc will be flying in to Raven on the 13th giving him the option to return to Kanger for an extended rest period.

We're all sending lots of get well thoughts to Evan.

Update: April 8th

Evan reported this morning that he has come down with a small cold and the team is going to stay put for one more day.  They have two more days of driving to get to ACT11-A and they hope to get moving tomorrow morning.

Update: April 7th

Clement reported from the icesheet that temperatures started dropping today and the winds picked up late yesterday afternoon, so they made camp after moving 48 km from Raven.  Winds today were too high (40 kn?) to make any progress.  They stayed in tents and repositioned snow machines as winds shifted during the day, now out of the west at only 5 kn. Temps now -25C previously -35C.  Storm is forecast to hit the area 4pm tomorrow so they will get up at 6AM and get as far as possible before the storm.  It is forecast to last through the weekend so after tomorrow they may not be able to move again until Monday.  All are doing fine and in good spirits.  

The team made it to Raven - April 5th

The team had an on time departure from Kanger to Raven.  Clem stated their schedule for today is as follows:


Put in at Raven
Set up camp, have some water going
break down pallets
organize sleds
set up gps base station
set up hitches with springs on the sleds
leave pallets+ flags for Raven crew

If they need to stay extra day at Raven because it takes too much time accomplish those tasks, the schedule for tomorrow or in 2 days:

Break down camp
Organize sleds
Departure for 80km toward east following line.
Set up camp


___________________


This is Annie writing now - I'll update as often as I get reports from the field.  Good luck guys!!

Arctic Circle Traverse 2011 to Begin Tomorrow!

It has been a productive two days in Kangerlussuaq! Yesterday we succeeded in getting a single twin otter flight into our ACT11-B site. This flight cached the majority of the core boxes needed to drill our three cores. However the pilots found the ice surface to be extremely rough and were only able to put down about 4 km from our barrel cache. Today, we had planned a second twin otter cache flight but unfortunately a storm has closed in on the southeast and a landing was not possible. We have managed, however to get the remaining equipment onto herc pallets and we plan to traverse with all remaining gear. The herc arrived today and we are planning a departure around 2pm local time tomorrow! The weather looks good, and we are hopeful that we will be able to get in.

From now on out we will have no email contact and will update the blog though Annie via satellite phone whenever possible. Tomorrow we hope to enable the real-time satellite tracker which will post our location on this website: http://www.datatransport.org/act/monitor. The website will post our location, elevation and speed every minute in real-time! So this is a good way to keep track of our progress. Wish us luck!

Evan

April 2nd in Kanger

Another productive day in the warehouse leaves the ACT2011 team nearly
ready for departure!  We are feeling extremely well organized this
year.  Our twin otter operated by Nordland Air has arrived.  I met the
pilots today.  Our first attempt to cache the core boxes at ACT2011-C
(see map on old post) will be tomorrow 10am.  Weather odds are unknown
though good today.  Ground surface in the SE looks rough.  We will aim
to get as many core boxes into C as possible on the first flight.  The
pilots do not require our help on these flights.

Some satellite communications are still enroute.  The real-time
satellite locator beacon will arrive on Monday.  All of these items
will be off loaded from a Herc ASAP and we will have the evening on
the 4th to insure all is operational before our first potential putin
to Raven on the 5th.

Clem/Brian have been working on connecting the Trimble or a nav GPS to
the radar to simplify the GPR post-processing.  They have had limited
success, Clem will keep trying as time allows but our current plan is
to connect the Nav GPS to the GPR which will give us only limited
benefits over the original system.

The auroras were awesome last night!!!

Evan

    Radar sled looking good.

April 1st in Kanger

Today has been a good day, lots of progress in terms of packing and traverse organization. Both GPS base stations has been tested, gear for traverse have been weighted, and food has been organized.

A TO from Iceland is supposed to arrive tomorrow, at 2pm, hopefully we can have the 2 flights to C before we leave for traverse, if not, we will start investigating other options. We spent our evening cutting lay flats (180 pieces this year) and we had a huge present 20 minutes ago, auroras were showing up with this clear night. It’s beautiful! Thanks Greenland for this surprise!