condition fun...but not for everyone.

when I walked to work at 0515 this morning, the sky was a murky swirl of opaque gray. the wind was gusting out of the south-southeast, blowing snow and dust over the road and into the drifts. I had forgotten my hat, so I pulled my parka hood up over my head and buttoned it closed.

I checked in at the office, picked up my log and my radio, grabbed my ECW gear and got into the 18-passenger airporter van that the night crew had left running for me in the alley behind Building 140. the steering wheel was still so cold to the touch that I had to put my insulated leather work gloves on to drive.

the dash clock read 0525. I motored slowly down to DJ to pick up my first pax -- five cargo handlers, three weather observers, three airfield ground equipment techs -- and we drove out of town and down the hill toward scott base and willy field. I could just make out five or six flags at a time for the blowing snow. we were going barely thirty miles per hour, but the van fishtailed and swayed in the wind.

I arrived at willy town, let my pax off, and drove to the staging area. I still had about twenty minutes to wait before my scheduled departure, so I opened a book -- Big Dead Place by Nicholas Johnson. I was glad for some reading time. I was slated to drive pax to pegasus field this afternoon for a C-17 flight to christchurch. the station is dwindling in increments of 140 people at a time, the galley emptying out, the streets and bars drained of all but the most intrepid souls before the polar sun sets for good. today's flight would carry people away from the frozen continent, due north to lands full of trees, children, non-canned foods and water sports.

but it was not to be. as I sat reading, the following announcement came over the radio:

attention all stations. this is mac weather with the following severe weather update. condition one is set for the following areas: pegasus field, road to pegasus field. condition two is set for the following locations: williams field, road to williams field, scott base, and arrival heights. all other locations remain at condition three. please call mac weather with any questions at 2523.

condition one means that no one except 'mission critical' departments are allowed to continue working. condition two means that work is allowed, but not recreation, and anyone leaving the confines of the station needs to check in and out with the firehouse before each leg of their trip. the checkout protocol is as follows:

firehouse, firehouse. this is shuttle cindy on channel 1. copy?

firehouse copies, shuttle cindy. go ahead.

van 210 is departing willy field for mactown. there are two souls on board.
driver's last name is ogasawara, point of contact is shuttles at 2264, and ETA
is 0830. copy?

firehouse copies all, van 210.

and then, on the heels of that announcement, came another, which ensured the temporary frustration of 140 unlucky would-be travelers:

attention all stations. this is mac center with an aircraft movement cancellation. the C-17 from christchurch is on 24-hour weather delay. repeat: the C-17 from christchurch is on 24-hour weather delay. will the following stations please acknowledge when called. mac ops. MCC. raven ops. firehouse.

140 people, bound for christchurch on today's flight, went through a process last night known familiarly as 'bag drag'. bag dragging involves packing everything you plan to take to CHCH, and, like its name implies, dragging those items to Building 140, the MCC (movement control center). the bags and the pax are weighed to ensure that they fall within guidelines, all those numbers are added up, and the total weight given to the loadmasters so that they can plot the amount of cargo and fuel the C-17 will carry. it's a grueling process, and once your bags are checked in with the MCC, you do not have access to them until you arrive in CHCH. everyone is urged to have at least one change of street clothing in their carry-on, as well as toiletries and other essentials, because a cancelled flight is as common in antarctica as a casserole is at a baptist fellowship. by the same token, only a fool would make solid travel plans for new zealand that start the day after their scheduled landing, but some people inevitably do just that.

so, there were 140 frustrated and anxious people still on station today, living out of their carry-on bags, making phone calls and e-mailing like crazy. and rumor has it that today's condition one was merely a precursor to the real storm, which is apparently on the horizon and is going to mess things up even further. the end of an antarctic summer season is completely weather-dependent, and the harbinger and deciding factor is the Day the Pole Closes. once the temperature at the south pole drops to below -50F, the air national guard cannot safely fly their C-130 hercules aircraft there because the jet fuel becomes gelatinous. a few days ago, I asked some pilots what the temperature was. it was -45F.

once the pole is closed and flights there stop, there is little reason for many mcmurdoites to be here. no cargo pallets are built, no fuelies are needed to fuel the planes, no aircraft ground equipment needs to be hauled around. all these people are now technically superfluous. however, there is but one C-17 for our pax transportation needs to CHCH, and it holds 140 people at a time. so between passenger services, the air force (who flies the C-17), and other departments such as housing, finance and HR, there begins a delicate dance whose purpose is to get people off the continent in as timely a manner as possible -- if the weather permits.

I am scheduled to leave on the last flight out before winter. as of right now, that date is set for march 1. however, if pole closes on monday (as some have speculated it will), I could be out of here much sooner than that.

anyway, on to happier thoughts. here is a rather jolly picture of me and my friend kaya, who flew out on wednesday, at williams field. kaya was a vegetarian production cook in the galley who also lived in the same building he worked in. in other words, he hardly ever went outside. I took him and his co-worker doug (a baker) out to willy field with me on a shuttle run. you would have thought I'd taken them to mars. they were like two little kids set loose in a petting zoo. they ran around in the snow, took photos of each other doing silly things, and exclaimed over such (to me) mundane objects as the airfield outhouse and the garbage bins. happiness.

and here is a photo of me with two good girlfriends, erin and alison. alison has already left the continent for new zealand, where I hope to catch her on or around march 1. erin is a salad prep cook. they're awesome. they both have blogs, too. check them out:

http://alsicepage.blogspot.com/

http://epopelka.blogspot.com/

a picture of mt. terror, on a mostly clear day, with some strange high wispy clouds that looked like smeared thumbprints. you gotta feel sorry for the poor souls that were the first to set foot on terra australis incognito, or the unknown southern land. when you're naming gorgeous topographical features things like 'mount terror,' you're almost certainly not having a very good day.

me at the 'golf ball,' which is a NASA weather tracking device placed high up on a hill overlooking mcmurdo. we commonly get taxi requests to take NASA employees up to the golf ball. it's a good place to sit and waste a couple of moments with the camera. it looks like a giant beach ball is coming to run me over.

me and my delta, as taken by a guardsman who wanted to show his young son what he had to ride back and forth from work.

and finally, #4 in the series "Cindy and Some Impossibly Large Diesel-Fueled Snow-Tracked Vehicles". this is Red 4, one of the fire engines kept out at Station 2, the willy field firehouse. I have no idea why they named a green vehicle Red 4. one of my firefighter friends was taking it to the fuel pumps and let me drive around in it for a couple of minutes. here's the hero shot, which only shows the front half of this green beast:

enjoy!