Road trip!

Yesterday I actually left the station proper. The Science Support staff loaded up in an LMC (an ancient tracked vehicle) and headed off for the SPRESSO Vault several miles from Pole Station. There was no groomed road, so we just drove across the sastrugi, which made for quite a bumpy ride. We had weather come through while dealing with some technical difficulties on the road, and it was interesting to feel the temperature drop as the breeze picked up and the sun got obscured by clouds.



Once we got out to the SPRESSO vault, 8 kilometers from the station, We had to dig down about three feet to find the hatch covering the entrance to the vault itself. I'm a total Indiana Jones nerd, so of course it was like uncovering the Well of Souls in "Raiders of the Lost Ark" in my mind.



The other guys went down and worked on the seismometers while I stayed up top to continue clearing snow from around the entrance and act as radio relay to somebody we were working with back at the station.



The view from that far out was pretty neat. The station was just a blip on the horizon, and once the really bad visibility hit it was totally obscured.