You are currently viewing May 19: “Skier 22 making a flyby!”
Mount GRIP (the berm for the drill tent) is being leveled and turned into a Table Mountain. The “mountaineers” are Chantal, Grant, and James on the snowblower, while Julien is once again behind todays artistic shot.

May 19: “Skier 22 making a flyby!”

In the afternoon Skier 22 was scheduled to land here at GRIP, bringing much needed cargo as well as frozen food supplies to camp. Due to a maintenance issue the Skier was delayed until evening with a rescheduled arrival time around 21.00 local time. And indeed Skier 22 made radio contact with camp around 20.30L, receiving weather updates and exchanging information on the agreed unloading and loading procedure over the radio. Hence, we were all at the ready, standing by for Skier 22 to land. But alas, misfortune struck again with the maintenance issue recurring. The crew of Skier 22 therefore had to radio us with the news that they were unable to land, at had to return to Kangerlussaq with all the precious cargo!

And thus, the frozen food pallet meant for camp, again had to be broken down, so the food could be returned to our freezer there. This time Marie and JP were assisted. The three of them manged to secure the food, by working until well after midnight!

Here at GRIP, we still managed to get a lot done, despite the efforts going into receiving the unfortunate Skier 22. James has started hollowing out the berm for the drill tent, assisted by Grant, and Jonathan and Carlos made sure all the skiway markers were snow free. Furthermore the 5th and final Weatherport was constructed, and various radar and medical equipment not able to withstand the Greenland winter cold was excavated from a storage trench. The drillers also finished the construction of the drillers workshop cabin.

What we did this Tuesday:

  1. Prepared for receiving Skier 22.
  2. Watched as Skier 22 flew by camp.
  3. Cleared skiway markers from snow.
  4. Started to level and hollow out berm for drill tent.
  5. Constructed 5th and final Weatherport.
  6. Constructed ice core drillers workshop on heavy sledge.
  7. Excavated radar and other equipment from storage trench.

Weather: Tuesday was generally a cloudy day, with poor to moderate visibility. Temp from -25C to -16C. Wind increasing from 2-5 kts in the morning to up to 15kts in the afternoon, while turning from ENE to ESE. In the evening a further turn to SE and a decrease in wind strength to 4-9 kts.

FL, Bo Vinther