Today, after an early breakfast at the airport cantina, we left Kangerlussuaq bound for Summit on an LC-130.
We rode the bus to the airstrip and loaded up on the plane. We excitedly settled into our seats and buckled in.
We unloaded for a brief time while a radio line between the loadmaster and the cockpit was repaired, and then we were back on the plane and on our way. After we were airborne and at a certain altitude, we were able to get up and walk around on the plane and take photos of each other in the plane and of the ice sheet below from the windows.
We all got a turn in the cockpit too, thanks to Robbie Score, our logistics coordinator, and the crew.
We were told to buckle back up in preparation for our descent into Summit Station. When we were about to land on the ice sheet near the Summit Station, the plane’s ski got stuck into the new fallen snow. We didn’t make it as far on the runway as we had hoped so the station sent folks out to pick us up on ski-doos pulling sleds and also a vehicle called a Tucker took some of our team members.
We all were taken back to the main building at Summit Station (called The Big House) and had a delicious lunch of chili, a choice of salads, and dessert. The food was amazing.
We took it easy today, hoping to acclimate to the high altitude. We sat around the station, read, dozed, played cards, and even took a few walks outside in our arctic gear to get some fresh air. The students played in the snow, made snow angels, and took pictures, and went for a walk. We saw the plane finally take off, it had taken many hours for the plane to be dug out of the snow. Many people from the station helped the flight crew with the shoveling; it was a big job!
We came back into the big house and ate dinner. We had pasta, lamb cakes, salads, and chocolate cake. There were a lot of people here, scientists, plus our group, around 48 people and usually the station has 30. The station manager came out and thanked the people at the station who had pitched in to help get the plane out of the snow.
During our stay, we will be "House Mice" -- helpers in the kitchen, doing dishes, putting away food, and washing tables. The snow group or Aput in Greenlandic were the house mice today and were the helpers around the station.
At 8:00 we watched a movie on Century Camp which was a camp built in the late 1950's on the Greenlandic ice sheet about 800 miles south of the North Pole, where they built the buildings below the surface of the ice. It was a military base, but civilian scientists also came and worked at the camp.
After we watched the movie, we had a short meeting about where we would stay. Most of us felt tired today due to the high elevation (10530 feet), and a few had a headache but we took pain relievers and as we went to bed, we feel pretty good.
We are going to stay outside in Tent City., or as it is sometimes known, “The Pumpkin Patch.” We have two people per tent and we went and set up our sleeping bags and pads. We put our clothes in our sleeping bags to keep them warm for the morning.
Some of us came back to the big house to relax until we were ready to go to sleep. Others went to one of the tents and played a game of Cranium with some of the other people at the Summit Station. It was fun night where we got the opportunity to get to know each other. It has been an exciting first day at Summit Station.
Weather today at Summit Station is -9 degrees Celsius or 15 degrees Fahrenheit as of 8:40 P.M. Wind is 5 knots, 113 ESE.
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