April 30, 2017

Cold and windy day

The skiway, ready to receive a plane.

It was a really cold Saturday night, and this continued thru Sunday. Temperature never went above -22°C. Work began around 9.00; but due to weather and snow drift, we could not do anything substantial on the surface. Luckily, the forecast was correct, and in the afternoon the wind dropped to 12 kt.
We groomed the skiway in preparation for the flight tomorrow. When the plane arrives tomorrow, camp crew will almost double to 20. With this number of people in camp, we do need a working infrastructure. First thing is to make sure that there are beds for everyone. Second thing is heating and running water, both for drinking and cooking (cook’s snow melter) and for washbasins, dishwasher, toilets, shower and laundry. Everybody put in a lot of hard work, and we are almost prepared for the plane tomorrow.

What we did today:

1. Work on activating main snow melter, new cooks snow melter and central heating in the main dome.
2. Outfitted four weatherports with heating, matresses, pillows and linen.
3. Cleaned out the entrance to the trenches and blew snow around weatherports.
4. Yanmar snowblower is repaired.
5. Cutting and removing snow blocks from trenches.
6. Groomed skiway, taxiways and apron. Adjusted skiway markers.
7. Making housing plan for camp when population is 20.

Ad.1: The main snow melter and new cooks snow melter are in position. We only need to connect them.

Weather today: Clear all day, but windy and cold with snow drift until evening. Temp. -22°C to -29°C. Wind: 12-29 kt from SW. Visibility: 3 km to horizon.

FL, J.P. Steffensen

Another look at the freshly prepared skiway.