High comfort at camp and preparing for a storm

Trevor and Simon with the borehole camera. The camera is the small steel cylinder hanging from the cable.

After a slow start, enjoying the warmth of the main dome, water in the taps, the dishwasher and the ability to relieve one self in-door, people went to work. Ali constructed a pulley system. Hans Christian and Lou revised skiway flags. Sverrir and J.P. tried to fix the Pistenbully. Sarah cooked and worked on food orders. Jeff, Sepp, Theo, Jay and Joe excavated. Simon, Steff, Jakob and Trevor worked in the drill trench and Matthias worked in the CFA lab.

The forecast from Marc de Kaiser is a bit gloomy. By tomorrow afternoon we may be hit by a blizzard that will last until Tuesday evening, and today we saw some signs that something is brewing. Clouds came in, our barometer has dropped and the temperatures became un-seasonally high. We have prepared for some snow drift.

What we have done today:

1. Successful deployment of borehole camera to 177 m depth.
2. Lifting and revising flags on taxiways and apron.
3. Working on food order for coming flight periods .
4. Excavating ice core storage cave, now 9 m deep.
5. Cleaning up in camp in preparation of possible blizzard tomorrow.
6. Un-packing in CFA laboratory.
7. Making a pulley system for the lid of the main snow melter.
8. Troubleshooting malfunction on Pistenbully. Not solved yet.
9. Film night. Today's show: Borehole video on the travel of 177m into the abyss of the bore
  hole.

Ad.1: The borehole video offers a fantastic glance into the top 100 m of the drill fluid. Fuzzy clumps of ice chips sit on the wall of the hole like growing mushrooms. At intervals, ice cobwebs cover the hole, but the camera can easily penetrate them. Also at intervals the fluid is milky with chips other wise it is clear.

Weather: Significant change today. At Noon temperatures increased to -13°C. Mostly overcast, - 30°C to -13°C , 9-13 knots from SE. Visibility: 2 km decreasing to 500 m due to fog. Several snow showers.

FL, J.P. Steffensen 
 

Theo and Jeff in the new ice cave. It is now almost complete.