You are currently viewing May 30 and 31: “A beautiful early summer weekend”
The winch slowly getting moved closer to the drill tent with the assistance of the Pistenbully crane. Sepp is observing from behind, while James, Grant and Thomas are assessing the progress.

May 30 and 31: “A beautiful early summer weekend”

Saturday started windy and cloudy, but during the day the clouds gave way to sunshine, the wind decreased, and suddenly it felt like summer here at GRIP with low winds and up to -7C on Sunday! Hence, we managed to get a lot done during the weekend. First of all the drillers made good progress, which is detailed in the specific drillers report below. Thomas levelled snow drifts around the dome, and in general around camp. The power cabling also progressed, with Sepp reaching the first weatherport and inflating and covering the t-shaped balloon to make both a horizontal a vertical cable duct there.
Around the dome, Charlotte, Rahul, Jonathan and Carlos, levelled the surface even further, so they could put up the scaffold for the solar panel project with help from Anders. Chantal thoroughly cleaned the dome, while being on the mend from the cold we have had circulating in camp, thus having to stay mostly indoors. Bo was also mainly inside the dome catching up on logistics plans and reporting, but he did manage to get outside for some routine outhouse servicing.
For our Saturday dinner, Carlos took the lead in preparing a delicious Colombian 3-course menu for us, with Jonathan and Rahul assisting him in the kitchen. The impressive menu we got was a starter of Arepas with Hogao, Chorizo and cheese, main course of Coconut rice with shredded chicken and avocado salat, and Arequipe with cream and cookies for dessert. Again, we had great fun with both Charlottes guessing game and Anders’s music quiz. And with the weather having turned sunny and calm, Sepp managed to get a nice outside group photo of all of us, while Julien made sure we also had a photo documenting the happy group around the Colombian dinner table.
This Sunday, Anders again spoiled us with both delicious brunch and the best pizza’s we can imagine, so another nice weekend for all of us here in camp.

What we did this weekend:
1. Prepared groomed path and ramp to pull white garage tent up on drill tent berm
2. Assembled drillers control cabin
3. Prepared beams for pulling winch into drill tent.
4. Pulled and pushed winch from sledge, all the way into the drill tent.
5. Initial work on new logger commenced.
6. Leveled surface around dome and put-up scaffold.
7. Continued making power line trenches.
8. Had wonderful Saturday night dinner and party.
9. We were again all treated to both delicious brunch and perfect Pizzas on Sunday.

Ad 1-5: Drillers report from Grant:
Saturday was all about preparing for the upcoming big installations: The second white tent will be craned into position along the first. So, Thomas prepared a snow ramp up to the top of the berm to drive the PB and tent for final placement. Thomas pulled the heavy sled with the winch into position in front of the berm and made an off-ramp. Julien, James, Carlos, and Jonathan prepared the ramp to the sub-frame with timber rails. Julien, Chantal, and many others completed construction of the drillers control Viessmann. Kevin completed power distribution connectors, there is now power to the drill tent. Sunday, all the drillers participated in moving the deep winch from storage on the heavy sled into the drill berm, with help from Thomas and the PB Hiab crane. The winch and airforce pallet was pulled down a ramp and rotated into position in front of the berm opening. Then come-alongs and snow anchors did the final positioning, with a little elbow grease. Meanwhile, Kevin began initial work on the new logger.

Weather: Saturday starting windy and cloudy, but with the sun dominating from the afternoon, Sunday sunny all day. Temp from -23C to -7C. Wind 10-14 kts, gusting 19 kts until the afternoon Saturday, then decreasing to 3-8 kts in the evening, and Sunday until the evening when we had complete calm. Wind between NNE and ENE all weekend.

FL, Bo Vinther

Left: Anders presenting his traditional Sunday evening pizzas. Right: Our Saturday cooks, Rahul, Carlos and Jonathan, prepared a delicious 3-course Colombian dinner for all of us.
Group picture in the nice evening weather in front of the dome. Apparently so warm an evening, that some people are choosing to be outside bare feet!
All of us assembled around the Columbian Saturday dinner table, from below and clockwise: Carlos, Rahul, Sepp, Anders, Kevin, Charlotte, Chantal, Julien, Thomas, Grant, Bo, Jonathan and James.