We decide today is the last day for our camp, and we pack up and drive back to our base camp, the Central Transantarctic Mountain camp (CTAM). A sadness in a way, because it was our cozy home for a week. We ate, slept, and joked around here night after night. Also, we realize that packing up camp represents the end of the field season, except for one more day. For the last day of work we will fly by helicopter to the Achernar area from the CTAM camp.
The last day at Mount Achernar. We use the helicopter to go near the southernmost part of the area, near the Lewis ice tongue, which comes off the East Antarctic ice sheet. After a long day, we collect our last samples, and wait for the helo to pick us up – the end of the field work for this season. We realize we had a very successful field season. Not one day of work was lost at either Mt Howe or Mt Achernar (a very rare experience for Antarctica). We think about how we accomplished our goals in terms of getting to both remote sites and collecting samples.
Back at CTAM camp, we scramble to get all our stuff packed up ready to be shipped back to McMurdo. They are closing the CTAM camp for scientific work in a week because they need to take everything down by the middle of February. The middle of February represents the end of the field work for everyone in Antarctica. It starts to get too cold, and the sun starts setting in some areas farther north. People start to go home then and McMurdo gets ready for the winter.
We all fly back to McMurdo. A bed and running toilets (!) for the first time since we left for our camping trips. Also, the dorms have dark curtains that go over the windows. So, darkness, a bed, and a toilet – who would have known life can get so good!
Mike Kaplan (Lamont)
