Our old friend the Dome

We finally had our third Basler flight make it in last night around 6pm and now our population is 99. Replacements came in for IT, maintenance, the kitchen, science techs and the summer doc is now here.


Yesterday I had to retrieve some supplies from the Dome, some more sharps containers, one of the few medical supplies that we can safely store frozen outside.
This is what the inside of the Dome looks like now. It's just an empty space for frozen storage, mostly our food, and no buildings are left. Notice the hole in the wall that is letting sunlight through and a slow trickle of snow that has piled up over the winter.
The double wooden doors to the entrance of the Dome are still a bit buried but if this looks bad, take a look at what is just outside the doors:
The snow ramp that usually leads from the Dome entrance was not maintained all winter and a huge wall of snow built up in front of the entrance.
That's Froggy the equipment operator bulldozing away the snow. I'm peeking out of the door to take the picture in case the snow comes crashing down.
And this is what it looks like from the Galley window. Snow removal by heavy equipment is a full time job for an entire fleet of operators around here.
The dig out job is halfway finished. All of the snow has to go somewhere and what was removed from the Dome entrance was piled in front of the station in an irresistable hill.


It was gorgeous out last night and with winds about 11 knots, it was perfect paragliding weather for Robert Schwarz.



He got airborne a few times and dragged downhill at least one good time. Froggy said that he's trying to make the snow mound "as peaky as possible" and it's no coindicence that it's in perfect position in front of the Dome entrance to make a nice long sled ride from the top of the hill down the ramp entrance and through the double wooden doors to the Dome that will be open for the summer.