Yesterday at DYE 2, bad whiteout winds kept the team pretty much hunkered down. They did however, manage to set up the latrine tent during the storm, but the strong winds ripped the tent door open. Visiting the latrine is now a “spin-drifty experience” as described by Mike.
Better weather was had today and was a very long work day for the team. They finished up around 10pm (local time) and were too exhausted to cook, so they settled for some Mountain House dinners — no musk ox tonight.
There is a possibility that if weather improves they could have a plane pick them up and return to Kangerlussuaq on Saturday, May 23, as long as all the work at DYE 2 is completed. At that point, two of the team members will fly home commercially from Kangerlussuaq and 4 others will remain to complete additional work at other camps located further north.
Here’s hoping for good weather, and perhaps an earlier return home for these hard working scientists!
DYE 2 . Photo by Mike MacFerrin, 2013.
DYE-2 is one of nearly 60 radar stations constructed during the Cold War as part of a Distant Early Warning (DEW) detection system that stretched across the far northern Arctic region of Canada, with additional stations along the North Coast and Aleutian Islands of Alaska, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland. The project was a massively expensive undertaking, and DYE-2 was one of its most vital links. It was abandoned in the late 1980s when satellites made the 200-foot-tall radar dome obsolete. Visitors to this site have described the interior as “creepy” and seems as though the former occupants just dropped whatever they were doing and left.
