On a Road to Nowhere

Working at Summit is great, besides the fact that there is no where else to go. In fact I've lived the last seven weeks within about a mile radius of the Big House, without driving a motorized vehicle. That changed yesterday as I helped record measurements for a project called ICESat. Using bamboo poles in the ground we were able to perform ground validation for a satellite that measures the ice sheet mass balance. The height of the poles determine the amount of snow accumulation and the red pod has a GPS tracker on it to correlate the location with the measured depth. Actually the red pod is also used for emergencies in case inclement weather rolls in unexpectedly. I hadn't really ridden a snowmobile before so it was fun to try and good to get away from camp for a few hours.

The expanse of white and feeling of solitude is tough to capture in a picture so I tried to do so in the following short video. The furthest away from camp we got was about 4 miles and we could always see the station in the distance. The flags are well spaced for the entire route since they take these measurements once a week year round even in the dark. Honestly, I'm glad I'm not one of the people to head out in the dead of winter. It cold enough in the summer.