1/15/2002, Meteorite Hills
Faster than a speeding ski-doo, more powerful than a Twin Otter, able to leap wide crevasses in a single bound, look, up on the ice, it's a seal, a penguin, no it's...
Johnny Alpine!
America is rich with legendary heros, people larger than life, like the cowboy Pecos Bill and the huge lumberjack Paul Bunyon. In truth, Pecos Bill was the town buffoon, and Paul Bunyon, well, have you heard the Monty Python Lumberjack song?
But John "Johnny Alpine" Schutt is the real deal. Being his tentmate, I feel it is my duty to publicize this legend.
Legend has it he was found as a baby, naked on the Polar Plateau. But this is not true. He showed up as a small boy in McMurdo Station clothed in canvas taken from a Scott tent. Scott's, in fact. His first words were "Is the galley open?" Fortunately for Bill Cassidy, the originator of ANSMET, child labor laws are not enforced in McMurdo, so he was able to hire him as the field safety officer at the tender age of [data corrupted].
He has been with ANSMET since. It's not by choice, we just can't get rid of him. When the ANSMET team arrives in McMurdo, John is already there and has most of the gear organized. At that point, Ralph, the current ANSMET head, doesn't have the heart to tell him he can't come with us.
It turns out, this is a good thing, but this is not always clear to Antarctic novices. For example, the novice might try filling his Optimus stove by just pouring the fuel all over it. John is always ready with helpful advice. He might say "That's one way to do it." Later, when the novice's tent errupts in a giant fireball as he tries to light his stove, the true meaning of John's advice becomes apparent.
John is in charge of field safety, which means it is his job to make sure we don't go wandering around stumbling into crevasses. He has done a marvelous job at this. No ANSMET team member has ever accidently fallen into a crevass. Joh has pushed a few in, but fall by accident? Never.
John also plays a big part in the day-to-day planning of the work - where we will go to hunt meteorites and how we will hunt them. He is also the master of the data. He collects most of the field data on the meteorite - the size, the amount of fusion crust (the glassy coating they acquire while passing through the atmosphere), a preliminary attempt to classify the rock, and the location as determined by Global Positioning Satellites. Finally, he works tirelessly to get the data into the database and the locations added satellite images of the ice fields. The success of ANSMET depends on a lot of people, and one of them is John "Johnny Alpine" Schutt.
We sincerely thank him for this.
Is this OK John? You won't push me into the crevass now, will you?
1/14/2002, Meteorite Hills
In lieu of our normal nightly post, I bring you - NOTHING!
Why? BECAUSE YOU'RE NOT WORTHY!
Actually, we had a long day. We got back to camp about 20:00. By the time we got done eating, doing camp chores, etc., it was way past my bedtime - it's 03:00 in Houston where I live. I decided I'd wait and do my planned post tomorrow. I was afraid if I did one now, I would end up doing a slipshod job of it. By doing it tomorrow when I'm fresh, I'll only do a shoddy job.
So tomorrow, we will bring you two posts, instead of one. That gives you another 24 hours to cancel your internet service.
duck of the Darwin
1/13/2002, Meteorite Hills
This is my first post. I was threatened with being staked out near a colony of ferocious Antarctic ants and honey poured over my body if I didn't do it tonight. So who am I? Only the Shadow knows.
Finally, we had a "windless" day. The first since December 26. By windless I mean it was only about 8-10 knots all day. So it was a nice day to search some of the far reaches of the icefield. We finished searching a large expanse we call "The Big Ice". It had taken the better part of two seasons to systematically search, but the effort was worth it as a few hundred meteorites have been recovered. Today the last portion of our target area was searched resulting in only 2 meteorites. Though one of these was a nice little achondrite that was found on firn about 90 meters from the ice edge, obviously having been blow down there at some point. Maybe even in the last series of wind storms we had here. Anyway it was another very serendipitous find. We also took the last part of the day and went further north to visit some unexplored ice. We found three nice specimens very widely spaced on a large expanse of bare ice. A couple of other specimens were found on the way home in areas that had been systematically searched last year. So, despite our low numbers of meteorites for the day, it was still a productive day. Now if we could only have a few more days like this one before we finish for the season.
1/12/2002, Meteorite Hills
What do you write about when everything has been said? In a way the other day's events reminded me of this surreal scene out of a Faulty Towers episode when we were all gathered around the poo tent culling over the events of the previous evening. Wind had played the upper hand and smashed and ripped the precious little gem we have all come to love, oh and I mean a visceral need that we all have to comfort the mere idea of not doing a dukey in the cold, well at least not the super cold. It was a circumstance that presented itself with poor timing since I needed to use the toilet and here we were standing around looking at the structure as if it were alive. In a way it was, the walls were flapping as if trying to free itself from the confines of being tied down, like asking "What part of freeing me do you not understand"?......
Alright enough on that subject, but like I said what do you really write about when you have nothing to write about. Last night I had a dream that Britney Spears had a crush on me - does this really mean I'm a vain individual, or desperate? "Hey Britney do you want to look for meteorites"? I'm sitting here with all the ladies looking at me as if I'm off my rocker to be be writing about this with so many serious things to be written about. Johnny's writing tomorrow's dispatch so you have to look forward too.
Today we found ten meteorites bringing the total to date 283, nearing our goal of 300. John and I thought it was going to be a wash today since the day started a little later with high gust this AM. When we did finally get organized we started with a little folly of retrieving all the items that had blown either apart, or away. The latter being mainly garbage bags that the MEGA WINDS decided to take away, do not fret Greenpeace we got it all.
Since the almighty John says these have been the higest winds to date that he has experienced, the remaining snow that is present is harder than heck! So as we drive over this terrain that is so freaking undulating, it causes severe back pains, wrist pain, and all sorts of other non mentionables. Just another day in the life of the ANSMET crew.
Man it was good to get out.
Jamie
