Tomorrow we build a balloon animal

Samples are taken from the wall of the excavation.

The excavation has now reached the floor of the future trenches. A few corners remain to be completely excavated. It will take a few hours. It all looks good, so tomorrow, we will mount the ventilation shafts that will be cast in the snow roof. The balloon equipment is ready, and we hope the wind will calm a bit down as we will be spending quite some time putting the balloons in place, mounting air hoses and pumps and hoses for pressure gauges. If all goes well, the balloons will be inflated by tomorrow evening. The team is hard working and quite a few good ideas for solutions have been discussed. We are all quite focussed on the task ahead. Still, there was time for a couple of persons to do a little science.

What we have done today:

1. Excavating of science trench complete, only a small amount remain in the tunnels.
2. Preparing ventilation tubes and hoses for trench.
3. Cooks food tent outfitted with shelves..
4. Stitching repairs on weatherports.
5. Setting up German firn laser based snow height sensor.
6. Collecting snow samples.
7. Moving the outhouse.

Ad. 1: A simple calculation reveals the efficiency of the Westa snowblower compared to the Yanmar: At NEEM in 2012, two Yanmars excavated 440 m³ of snow in three days. This is 220 m³ per machine. Here at EGRIP the Westa has removed 2400 m³ snow in three days, while the Yanmar removed 180 m³. Conlusion: The Westa snowblower has around ten times the capacity of a Yanmar.

Ad.4: The repair of old sticthings in the weatherports continues, one small bit at a time.

Weather today: Overcast in the morning, clear in the day and misty in the evening. Temp. – 16 °C to -26 °C, Wind 10-15 kt from W to NW. Visibility: To horizon, in the evening 2 km.

FL, J.P. Steffensen

The excavation is almost complete. The tiny vehicle is actually our big Pistenbully.