The traverse to NGRIP departs

The traverse departs

The big event of the day was the departure of the surface traverse to the previous drill camp NGRIP 340 km away. The PistenBully pulls three sledges, the first with the small red round building (the tomato) used as sleeping and kitchen quarter followed by two sledges with fuel, equipment and a snowblower. The hours of departure were like preparing a family for a camping holiday – Sverrir, Lars and Anders kept running back and forth after this and that! The traverse departed at 10:30 and in the evening at 21:00 the traverse reported back that they had made 100km and spent the night at waypoint 53. In camp the permanent kitchen had reached a point where we moved downstairs again for the meals. Preparations of heating and water systems continued. The firn-gas program and the ice core processing continued. In the drill trench the long casing tubes, to be placed the first 80m in the borehole, was lowered one by one using a cable from the beams in the roof to carry the weight.

S2 (Mainly used for the European Gas Programs) Gas pumping at 19.75 and 27.54m Processed ice core: bag 39 (depth: 21.45m) S3 (Mainly used for US Gas Progams) Gas pumping at 34.8m Processed ice core: bag 63(depth: 34.65m) What we have done today: Cased the borehole. Worked on the exchange system of heat from the generator to the snowmelter Continued the construction of the permanent kitchen Cut 2.5 cm water isotope samples and measured ECM on S2 and S3 ice cores Firn-gas pumping successfully operating. S3 (US) depth: 34.8m, S2 (EU) depth 27.45m Traverse departs Leveled the floor and placed the Viessmann cabin for the drill workshop in the drill trench Moved the lathe and other heavy equipment down into the drill trench

Casing the borehole

Weather: overcast, -12 - 6 C, wind 10-17 knots from S, visibility unrestricted