8 July 2011 "Bad Boy" Trouble at Summit camp, Greenland

Most of the time, we walk to our satellite camp. It is ½ mile away from the Big House. Today, however, we needed to move some big shipping containers and bring them back to the main camp so we decided to ride on the “Bad Boy”.

The Bad Boy is an electric-powered vehicle that has big tires to help get through the snow. It is like a four-wheel drive golf cart. It is great for pulling sleds full of equipment.

Hannah James drove us out to our satellite camp. It is a tricky drive. The “road” is just snow that has been packed down from our daily walks. On either side of this path is deep, soft snow. If you step in it, you sink to your knees.

Of course, Hannah did a fabulous job driving. She is from Maine so she is used to driving in the snow.

On our return trip back to the Big House, I volunteered to drive. After 10 yards, the Bad Boy skidded to my right and we ended up stuck in a three-foot snowdrift of very soft powder! I was worried that we weren’t going to be able to get it out of the snowdrift, but Brandon and I jumped out and easily pushed it out of the snowdrift. Hooray!

After lunch, Brandon got his turn to drive the Bad Boy. I could sense that Hannah was a little nervous. One southerner had already driven off the path and now another one was behind the wheel.

Do I really need to tell you what happened? Let’s just say Hannah was right to be a little nervous.

Look at the following picture to see what happened. Then, you can watch a video clip to see how we tried to solve this problem. Thank you, Hannah, for this video.

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The good news is that we finally got the Bad Boy back on the path. Brandon and I now let Hannah drive us at Summit camp!

Even with “Bad Boy” trouble, we were able to finish all of our data collection for the day and had some extra time to work on our igloo. Here are a few shots of its progress.

Also, here are a few more pictures from our work today: