May 2, 2023

Getting the drill trench ready

From left to right: Iben, Emma, Nico, Nicholas and Romain excavating surface installations to the trenches.

Making the most of a day with rather low wind speeds and a clear blue sky, the drillers and loggers where hard at work getting all the surface installations for the trenches dug out and covered by tents today.
Hence, now we have three new pop-up tents in camp: One for the elevator-shaft, one for the staircase and one for the rear ventilation system that also had to be extended. For Emma, it was a special day, as she drilled her first core – albeit only through the snow-cast roof of the drill trench, as a hole for a fluid-hose to the trench was needed!
On the surface Anna-Maria, Iben, Emma, Nico and Bo managed to finish two more Weatherports: The doctors clinic, and our smallest Weatherport “Stapi”. Furthermore, Jeppe and Anne-Maria got all the dry-food off the surface and organized and Sverrir and Sepp opened up our subsurface storage that we call the “Concert Hall”. Sverrir also enlarged the ramp to the drill trench using the Pistenbully snowblower.
In the drill-trench a first tower-test was performed and Grant was happy to report that only a small amout of ice-shaving is needed for the tower to move freely. All in all we are getting close to the point where we have a fully operational deep drilling camp here at EGRIP.

What we did today:

1. Opened the “Concert Hall”.
2. Enlarged ramp to drill trench.
3. Excavated drill trench surface installations and covered them with tents.
4. Extended rear ventilation to drill trench.
5. Drilled hole for fluid-delivery to drill trench.
6. Finished 2 more Weatherports (Doctors clinic and “Stapi”).

Weather today: Clear blue skies.Temp. -34°C to -22°C. Wind: 6-12 kt gradually turning from WNW to WSW. Visibility: Unrestricted.

FL, Bo M. Vinther

The drill trench with the ceiling still bearing the marks of last years extensive ice block cutting operation.