After several flight delays to the Ice Sheet, I was notified by team lead Mike MacFerrin via satellite communication, that the crew finally landed safely yesterday morning at Camp Raven, also known as Dye-2.
Greenland DYE Site Locations
Photo courtesy Babis Charalampidis, ACT 2013
However, not long after arrival, a problem was discovered: there was a leak in one of the fuel barrels; fortunately the hole was quickly patched. Chewing gum that was given to Mike in a care package saved the day once again! Interestingly enough, a similar situation occurred during the 2015 campaign.
It was reported that current weather conditions on the ice sheet are unusually warm for this time of the year, and the hope is that the early melt doesn’t cause major problems with the team’s research and equipment.
The plan for Monday is for six of the team members to traverse via snowmobile to KAN-U camp to work on various projects including compaction tower maintenance and removal of old automatic weather station (AWS) towers.
You can follow the team’s progress during their traverse via the “bread crumb” tracker site here.
Barbara, thanks for keeping us all up to date on their progress!