Week 8: WAIS Divide FINALLY! – Well, Sorta…

Monday was FINALLY the day Team 1 took off for WAIS Divide! The whole base was so excited for us that they made us a picture and THREE exclamation points when they were activated.

I am apart of Team 2, and as of now, we were originally scheduled to go out on Wednesday. Which means, I had to get everything ready to go for our “bag drag” on Tuesday. It was quite exciting to FINALLY see my name on the flight manifest.

Bag Drag is where you bring all of your luggage, ECW, etc to the transportation area to get weighed and tagged. Weight is very important for all flights down here and it’s pertinent to have accurate weight to calculate for fuel and takeoff/landing, especially on an ice/skiway. For our initial flights, our luggage weight was going to be very low, since we have still a decent amount of cargo needing also to get out to camp. We were authorized a total of 40 lbs. That includes your carry on AND checked luggage. We were then allowed a second bag to be checked, no more than 50 lbs, to be sent on a later flight (probably a month from now). All luggage, but our carry on will be stored outside. So freezing is a major consideration. I barely squeaked by with 40 lbs from my laptop bag (18 lbs) and my checked bag (22 lbs) and I’ll have another bag (24 lbs) coming out in the future. I guess it’s helpful to know I will be living in a tent, it’s going to be freezing, and hygiene really isn’t a priority and/or less needed, so less gear in general. But cold weather gear is quite heavy! I ended up leaving one of my 90L duffels locked here at McMurdo with most of my clothing and a few electronics since I didn’t have the “Don’t Freeze” space to come with.

What are we going out on? Well, a DC-3T Basler! Contracted bush pilots from Canada help get us out to where there is absolutely no runway on a 5 hour, non-pressurized cabin with no bathroom on board, but we each have two pee bottles to use at our leisure 😉 .

Operated by Kenn Borek Air (KBA) out of Calgary, Canada, the Basler is a medium lift aircraft generally used for larger teams requiring landings at non-established camps. The ACL (allowable cabin load) can vary greatly, and will depend upon distance traveled, availability of fuel caches, landing surface conditions, elevation, and current weather conditions. The Basler can hold a maximum of 18 passengers.

BUTTTTTTTT….alas we were cancelled for Wednesday (we were actually the backup flight for the day, but both were cancelled due to weather….and then cancelled for the rest of the week.

Working on staying positive. It’s hard when we want to be out there doing our jobs and now know half our crew is out there having to do ALL the work in the most remote place on Earth. I run through a gratitude list to keep myself in good spirits. I still current have indoor living with a warm bed, shower basically when I want, some internet connectivity, and I’M STILL IN ANTARCTICA!

As for my week, I was still fighting off this sinus infection so was mostly resting when I wasn’t working. Spent some time at the library and was pleased to find out that they had a whole bunch of eBooks that I was able to transfer over to my kindle, so I’m now well stocked.

We have a Christmas Craft Fair this weekend, so I’ll check that out and possibly head over to the Kiwi base for any last minute goodies. And then back to gearing up for the field.

For a fun share, here is the log book from the vinyl room when Anthony Bourdain’s signed in when he was here filming “Parts Unknown” back in 2017 (Season 9, episode 5), if you haven’t checked out that episode, you should! RIP

Signing off for this week. Really, really, really hoping to be in the field by this time next week…..