July 15+16, 2023

Rocking the ice

Steff, Trevor and Nan mounting the rock drill.

After receiving the rockdrill on Friday it was mounted on the skate section of the drill. A heavy dead weight was included to be able to put more weight on the rock drill while drilling. After trouble shouting a few issues Saturday we had the first run Sunday afternoon. Rock drilling is very slow and it took 7 hours before the dill was on the surface again after penetrating around 90 cm. We got a mixture of ice, refrozen ice with embedded pebbles up. No wonder the ice core drill was not able to penetrate any more. This is a very exciting phase of the project. An we drill through the layer of ice and pebbles/rocks?? How thick is this layer???
Regardless of the exciting drill situation Tour the France is followed closely in the camp. Especially at lunch time when the race is reaching an end in Europe an eager group of fans are watching. Denmark is our favorite team. Go Jonas Vingegaard !!

What we did during the weekend:

1. Mounted rock drill.
2. Drilled the first 90 cm with the rock drill.
3. Groomed the skiway.
4. Drilled a hole on the roof of the drill trench just over the drill hole.
5. Stapled the new rubber on the triangle where the rubber had fallen off during winter.
6. Documented in carpenters garage.
7. Organized medical equipment including first aid points in camp.
8. Calibration of old logger in stand (but failed to save data.. ).
9. Saturday night with Danish Christmas dinner (Flaeskesteg with white and brown potatos, Ris a la Mande).

Ad 5. Martin has used all the 14.000 staples to fix all the rubber to the panels.
Ad 6. The content of the zarges boxes in the carpenters garage are being sorted for return to Kangerlussuaq and items for the traverse in 2025.

Weather Saturday and Sunday: Overcast on Saturday clearing to blue sky with few high clouds on Sunday. Wind between 0 kt and 9 kt turning from SW to SSE. Temperatures between -17°C and -5°C.

FL, Dorthe Dahl-Jensen

The rock drilled ice and pebble mixture. The picture was taken in orange light and turned to gray scale.

The Logger calibration stand in low late afternoon sun.

Saturday night group picture.

Tour de France fans at lunch time.