EGRIP on a snowy day

The deflated balloons lie abandoned but ready to be folded and packed once the bad weather passes.

The weather has turned bad. For a couple of days we have had increasing cloud cover and increasing snowfall. Today it has been worse. There is hardly any contrast outside, just white on white and the constant snowfall is annoying when you work outside.

Several things had to be postponed; but then we found other tasks in need to be done. It is a kind of anti-climax after excavating trenches, putting balloons in and backfilling. The picture of today, reflects the situation: White in white with a few forlorn looking soggy balloons slowly being covered in snow.

However, in this miserable weather we can count ourselves lucky that we managed to get the balloon job done in time. Weather cannot touch the trenches anymore, they are done and complete. We can now work underground and inside, and already today we pulled equipment from the cargo line to the trenches. There, we can now work independent of weather.

What we have done today:

1. Finished making doorways and removing excess snow from trenches.
2. Packed all hoses and pumps.
3. Transported staircase into trench.
4. Leveling surface above trenches with Pistenbully and Yanmar.
5. Repaired broken sled.
6. German pit studies.

Weather today: Overcast, snow and wind all day. Temp. –16 °C to -23 °C, Wind 10 kt from N turning E. Visibility: 0.5 - 1 km. Lousy weather.

FL, J.P. Steffensen