Arctic Trucks

23rd Nov 2009
 
Up later than expected as we were all so tired. It was also very warm in the tent even though outside it was 35C, packed up rest of camp and started the 1500 km journey back to Novo. Followed our old tracks back which made going a lot easier.
Nobody or nothing can prepare you for the vastness, the whiteness, and the extremes of the Antarctic plateau. It was 100 kms of the same conditions, and when we saw a cloud it became a discussion point!
Started again having problems with coolant on one of the trucks.

Gísli, Freyr, Mike and Andrey have received the fuel that was dropped out of the plane and are working on burying the barrels into the snow. One Russian jumped out of the plane in a parachute, very successfully. They will now make sure the fuel area is ready for use for future expeditions.

They are planning to start driving back to Novo tomorrow. The track should be in good condition and the route they found is fairly secure. Nothing is guaranteed though and it is a well know fact that in expedition it is more likely that accidents happen on the way back.  The weather has been very cold, up to minus 50 at night and the thermometers in the cars almost never go below minus 40, which is the lowest they show. The temperature will go up when they get down to lower altitude but as you can imagine this are not the most convenient working conditions!

Hopefully the drive back will go well – we send them our best wishes!

 

22nd Nov 2009
 
Finished off the work after breakfast, and prepared for departure for Novo.

21st Nov 2009

It was decided to send plane today, arrival at +/- 1430. Set off smoke flares at each corner of drop zone as plane arrived. Seemed not to line up with drop zone, and starting dropping the fuel drums across and outside the drop zone. Drop was from a 450 m height and was spectacular though many of the drums were landing uncomfortably close to the tent!. Plane made several runs about 6/7 in total and dropped about 220 drums 8 at a time. Plane then made low sweep at about 50 m, which was very special. Plane went up to 2000 m then the parachute specialist made his parachute jump and landed close to the camp. He was the expert to check condition of drums and parachutes. He told us that he is the first to survive a parachute jump in Antarctica, which we had know this at first!

Had a 100% success rate, much better than last time, where several of the parachutes failed.
Started then to sort out drums and arrange them in piles, it was cold work as it was about -37C.
Used crane on trucks to lift up drums and move them around. Job went well and we managed to do 2/3rds by the evening. Decided to do rest next day.
 

Gísli Karel was supposed to fly out of Nova on November 20th. Because of bad weather the flight was delayed. Gísli Karel has been working hard for the last few days, with very limited help from the Russians. Both the cars are ready and for the last two days he has been doing some transportation for the Russians. After this hard work he allowed him the luxury of taking a sauna. The Russians told him that it would do him good to hit himself with branches. A strange experience, he said!
If weather permits Gísli Karel will fly from Novo to Cape Town on November 23rd.

18th to 20th Nov 2009

Weather still ok, but very cold, so even the -50C antifreeze is freezing. Packed up after breakfast, and made good progress, up to 45-50 km/hr at some times. However had problems with coolant on one of the trucks, leakage and air in system. Managed to sort out. Continued driving through small strusugi (blown snow features), then we had some problems with ice forming in fuel, but quickly managed to sort this and then continued. Still cold and nothing but blue sky and mirages

As we were making such good progress decided to continue on to the fuel drop area, and we actually arrived early in the morning on the 19th, and could see that it would be a good area for both the fuel drop and future landing area. We are at 83deg 20min south. Weather still cold around -35 – 45C, but we are warm in the tent…though the Vodka froze again…well this is a Russian expedition! Tried to get data link working but the signal strength intermittent, and bandwidth only bits per second at times!

The area we are at is basically featureless, a white desert that goes on and on for 100,s of km,s. The air is so dry at the altitude (2600m), you need to make sure that you drink lots of water. The weather is remarkably good with 24hr sun, and little wind. The arrival of clouds are always discussion points!

Prepared a 200 x 600 m drop zone. The drop is planned for the morning of the 21th, but may be delayed due bad weather in Novo. The plan landed there yesterday in 24 m/s cross winds on an ice runway!
Data link on Iridium phone is unbelievably slow and erratic so it’s impossible to send photos, or anything else that matter.

Talk with Gisli, 19.11.09 at 21:40 GMT

 

At 5am this morning we had found a great location for the fuel dump.  About 150 km from here we hit an sastrukis area which just continued and continued, I was getting worried that we could find a good locations for the fuel dump and where an airplane could land but finally as we got closer to 83˚20 the conditions improved and when we had drive about 20 km west we found the perfect location.  We had then been driving 550km in about 20 hours strait only taking fairly short brakes.  Since we left the crash site of the airplane we have only camped once, made two 20 hours runs, doing 500 km first and now 550km.   When we got here we slept in the cars for a few hours and waited for the temperature to increase, then we made camp, had something to eat and went back to sleep.  We have made some marking for the fuel dump and now we just have to wait for the Ilyushin cargo plane to dump the fuel.  We are here early so we will need to wait some days.   Once the fuel drop is over, it might take us 20 hours to gather all the barrels, hopefully it will not sink deep in the snow but using the crane we are not too worried.   

Currently the temperature is minus 37 degrees C, it actually feels fairly good.  The nights have been very cold so we have tried to drive through the nights.   When we were taking off from 78˚26 I was going to add antifreeze on the car but it was completely frozen and it is rated for minus 50 centigrade.  Luckily the sun started to warm things up a bit and we could continue.   Although we have used only sealed barrels we still have got some water in the tanks.  One of the car stopped running because of ice in the fuel but we could fix this fairly quickly.  Otherwise there have been no problems with the cars.  In this trip we definitely are adding more to our experience in dealing with this low temperature. 

We are all in very good spirit now and the team is great, everyone says hi.