WAIS Divide: November 9th to December 3rd




My tent on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet with a sun dog in the background.

Trying to schedule and fly in Antarctica is often an epic failure of grand proportions; so much so that veterans on the Ice wear their failures like medals of honor.  Our crew, destined for WAIS Divide, became the special forces of failure, a grand and shinning example of the power the Antarctic factor has over life on the outlying continent.



The LC-130 Hercules.

Leaving McMurdo turned out to be a comic tragedy of compounding issues: busted planes and ridiculous planning and the ever violent weather of West Antarctica. Three of the eleven carpenters destined for WAIS left McMurdo on time without a single hiccup. The remaining eight, including myself, were scheduled to depart three days later to join our comrades. It took us nearly two weeks to reach WAIS, all the while the first three inserts were working like stolen mules.  My confidence in the LC-130 Hercules has since been restored, but try taking off not 1,2,3, or 4 times...but 9 failed attempts spread across three different planes. Most of these planes have seen action in Vietnam, they come here to retire and also fly people across Antarctica. Feels like going to a nursing home, picking the feeblest senior, getting them drunk and then road tripping in a Pinto across the Sahara: confidence low, surprises eminent. We would shuttle out to the airport on the sea ice and board a plane, wondering if this would be the one. Strapped in and donning ear plugs we would cautiously listen to the old machine lumber to life, Air Force personnel scouring the inside flipping levers and pushing buttons. The lumber would wind up to a high pitch and then...boozzzzshhhh...the sound of a dying engine. Groans and knowing glances meet each other from faces all too familiar with that sound. Back on the shuttle, back to town. Often we spent several hours at the air strip, once forgotten in a holding pin disguised as a terminal for the entire afternoon. Ouch. However, the airstrip is full of machines busying themselves at our bidding, except for the Hercules, and there's a great view of the mountains. Not the worst place in the world to be stuck and I've always had a fondness for airports and the promise of adventure that airplanes bring.  

McMurdo's airport.

From my seat in the cockpit for take-off.

From the cockpit.

So, we danced this dance for 12 days, a waltz of broken planes and dodgy weather and finally took to the air on November 9th. I finagled my way into the cockpit for take off and got to properly see my way out of McMurdo en route to WAIS Divide.  



The LC-130 that actually took off looking badass!

So much of Antarctica is a featureless plateau of ice and snow, miles deep and growing. Flying over the continent is the only way to appreciate the vastness of this frontier. Although completely void of anything except frozen water, the endless white world holds a shocking and mysterious beauty. Antarctica is a testament to the dynamic planet we live on, proof of the inevitability of change and the awesome power of nature. A land once like any other continent happened to be on the tectonic plate that shifted south, ever south over eons until the continent that was seething with life is now silent and white; yet pockets of curious humans attempting to understand this enigma break the silence scratching at the surface and plying the skies with our noisy minds and machines. This landscape always defines an appreciation and admiration I hold for what we are trying to understand, and what we fail to, about the nature of a planet that builds and destroys organisms and entire continents, shoving them about like lily pads in a pond while life clings to their violent surfaces, evolving with them or destined to be partners in demise. For me, Antarctica is easy to love and will forever be intriguing and haunting.

Ice core samples.

 WAIS Divide exists so tubes of ice a meter long and about the circumference of a CD can be pulled from miles below the surface and examined. WAIS (West Antarctic Ice Sheet) Divide is the barrier where the ice sheet moves away from itself, one side towards the Amundsen Sea, the other towards the Ross Ice Shelf. Movement, although imperceptible, is constant with ice sheets. Ice sheets move much like pancake batter on a hot skillet, spreading out in a slow steady march from their thickest point. The nature of the land they slide across is unknown; we simply lack the technology to understand it. What we do know is that under the enormous pressure of miles of ice the continent is far below sea level, pinned down into the crust like a raisin in a muffin. WAIS Divide station is at 1833 meters, yet the drillers have reached 3400 meters and are still shy of bedrock! Near bedrock, due to pressure and proximity to the warmer rock surface, the ice becomes slushy and viscous; drilling into or past this barrier is currently unexplored. What makes the divide a target for ice core drilling is the nature of the divide itself; as the sides spread the middle changes very little. The ice at depth here has been there a while, about 70,000 years. Ice cores hold gas deposits as well as ash layers from global volcanic events. By studying them, scientists are attempting to gain some insight into the nature of the world in the past and how it has changed over the millennia.



Rac-Tents in blue, Jamesway in green.

All that being said, I found myself staring across the wasteland of West Antarctica wielding a toolbag, 4 cases of beer, a bottle of vodka, a duffel bag of clothes and books, two pee bottles, a sleeping bag and a tent. We arrived at midnight and were told we could sleep in a Rac-Tent (heated Quonset hut) and put up our tents in the morning. Nonsense says I, if Rocky were here, he'd sleep in a fuckin tent with a smile on his lumpy face! Crunching across the snow with my goods (not my beer, it would freeze) I walked as far away from station as was allowed and put up my home for the next 24 nights. Securing a tiny tent against the expected, and received, ferocious winds of the West Antarctic is not a task to be taken lightly; my first night in West Antarctica was a lesson that won't need repeating. After erecting my tent and rain fly and putting a berm of snow about a quarter of the way up the tent around the perimeter I opted to not "dead man" my fly into the snow. A "dead man" is how we secure all structures big and small against high winds. Basically, a peice of wood, usually a 2 x 4 or length of bamboo, is buried about a foot deep paralell to the structure. The wood has a piece of strong rope through it and the looped end sticks out of the snow and is used to tie off the structure using specific knots that we learn in survival school. Confident in my prowess as an amateur meteorologist I gaze up at the deep powder blue sky, face directed at a gentle 5 knot wind from the south and think,"aw, it'll be fine."

Thunderous vibrations had me bolt upright in my tent at 3am, a worried "what the fuck?" shouted at no one. Thirty knot winds were ripping across the open plateau pelting the fragile surface of my shelter with snow, threatening to send my tent into the stratosphere like a bright yellow domed rocket trailing bits of white rope that should be a foot under the snow. I scramble into some clothes, my hurried breath forming thick clouds of vapor that rise like smoke in a tee-pee to the crest of my tent. Poking my head out I quickly realize there is no fuckin way I'm going outside to dig holes and play Boy Scout for the next hour in a blizzard. So my first night at WAIS was spent wondering how I would explain myself for the disappearance of my tent and loving the sleepless night listening to the wind howl like a helo blade over my new home. I "dead manned" the shit out of my tent the next day.

Carpenters at WAIS are tasked with building a "town" for the scientist and support group to live and work in, including Rac-Tents for the galley, recreation, medical and communications. We also set up power for the town via two generators and thirty or so power poles. Building Rac-Tents is fun work; they are pulled off of the winter storage berms in boxes and assempled like giant Lego sets, and of course they are secured using several "dead-man." Getting paid to listen to tunes and build shit with your friends is always a blessing. Readying The Arch is also our responsibility, more on that later. In addition, every person at WAIS is required to shovel several barrels of snow daily for melting into fresh water used for cooking and drinking. House Mousing is also a weekly requirement that involves kitchen and general clean up. For Thanksgiving we had a grand feast, those that volunteered to make desserts the day before got free box wine. I don't know shit about baking but I'm an expert at drinking free wine and bullshitting my way through practically anything. One of the most legendary tasks at WAIS is "slaying the poonicorn." We don't have indoor bathrooms so we use outhouses. Avoiding excessive detail...frozen poop piles up from the bottom of the ice hole and forms a distinct stalagmite of stank that rises up towards the surface and must be "slain" before it breaches. Knight and squire always return from battle with victorious tales of valor and perseverance after facing the "poonicorn." 

Town (these giant halos are common in West Antarctica).



More Town, including two "Poonicorn," lairs.





Tent City



The Arch



Working in The Arch

Buried under several meters of ice lies the sole purpose for every person at WAIS Divide: The Arch. In 2006 when these two adjoining buildings were built (by carpenters), they sat atop the surface. Now, after enduring 6 years of West Antarctica, they are entombed in ice. It rarely snows here but the sleepless winds push snow around effortlessly all over the continent, enough to completely conceal a 50 foot building after two winters. The pressure of the snow on The Arch has caused the floor to buckle and the doors to blow out; something the carpenters have to fix every season. I spent the last week at WAIS in The Arch, rebuilding the floor and talking to drillers about the seemingly impossible task of pulling cores out of ice over 2 miles deep. Living in Antarctica I feel I will never tire of being continuously amazed by human ingenuity: thousands of moving parts, thousands of miles from anywhere, buried under ice at the bottom of the world. All busy exposing ancient chunks of ice that were deposited 70,000 years ago during a time Homo Sapiens faced extinction after the Mount Toba eruption plunged the earth into its harshest thousand years supporting complex life on record. An event that most geneticists believe is partly responsible for our lack of genetic diversity; a species brought to its knees with merely 15,000 or so remaining individuals created our current gene pool, compliments of a single violent act 70,000 years ago. All these cores harbor stories; stories of eons past and assumptions of the future. Nothing has, or is able to, disturb these cylindrical recorders of history buried in darkness away from the toils of our restless planet. When they are removed they are handled like fragile precious jewels, carefully packaged and sent to America under controlled conditions where are they are finally analyzed. It was an amazing project to be a part of and also the last year they will be drilling in this location.



Me standing on top of The Arch, checking out the view.

The Chief

When we weren't working, eating or sleeping, we played games, read, and of course told lies over bottles. The Chief is the arctic wigwam that the Carps call home away from home.  Seated on lawn chairs and crates we passed bottles of scotch and bourbon around bullshitting about traveling and our place in this world, and tying knots. Rock climbers, hikers, sailors, and general misfits seem to know about knots; so huddled around the stove, pilling slivers of cedar chips on its surface to curb the smell of unwashed people, we drank in merriment tying knots and getting to know each other. Shenanigans were more than common place and I'll never forget my time spent in The Chief in West Antarctica.

I've found myself over the years running in some very memorable locations, but I haven't found many as thought provoking as the runway at WAIS Divide. I found that the utter nothingness of a place is just as profound as an overwhelming abundance of sensations. When I was a couple miles from town I not only felt like the only person on Earth, but the only life form. An alien in a place that holds no resemblance to the green and busy place we all live out our busy lives. Something about running there made me just so damn glad to be alive and grateful to be where I was, where I've been and where I am.

The runway.



Leaving WAIS Divide



AMERICA!

I'll also be posting a few videos of WAIS Divide soon.