Punta Arenas, Chile

After a about 30 hours of travel, we made it to Punta Arenas, Chile. We met with Mark Whetu, our mountaineer for the season and Franco Sobrero, grad student at OSU. 

In Punta Arenas, with all our bags.

We have a few days here to collect remaining items (mainly Extreme Cold Weather clothing).

Mark Whetu at the USAP warehouse

Jim's ready

Antarctic Flight briefing at ALE's office

And we wait... 

Tropical Jim with his flip flops

Hotel Cabo de Hornos

Fortunately the life is pretty good in Punta Arenas!

Flying Day

And here we go… Jim picked me up at 4:45am this month and we headed out to the airport.

He was right. Traveling on Thanksgiving day is so good! Or maybe it was because of the hour…

Breakfast of champs

Denver to Atlanta. 7hrs layover. And some southern fried chicken. We could not find turkey...!

Improvised Thanksgiving lunch/dinner

Jim invested in a neck pillow

We met with Terry in Atlanta for a few drinks and took off for Santiago, Chile.

Sunrise over the Andes

From Santiago, we took another flight to the bottom of the world, Chilean version: Punta Arenas. 

Volcan Lonquimay... Lots of memories... 

Packing Day

Leaving in less than 2 days… Time to pack! 2 trips to plan. Antarctica and the Falklands. Fortunately... I am the Master Packer!

The Great Migration South...

It's this time of year. About to leave for Antarctica. I will be leaving for Punta Arenas, Chile on Thanksgiving day (November 28th) with my friend/coworker Jim.

After a week in Punta Arenas, we may fly, weather allowing, to Union Glacier Camp, our base camp for 5 weeks. 

From there we will be flying to remote sites on the Icy Continent to perform maintenance on GPS/Seismic autonomous stations for the NSF funded project, POLENET. 

(Photos from last Antarctic Season)

Boeing 757 on the blue ice runway

Union Glacier (UG) Camp

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Tent City @ UG

Map made with Great Circle Mapper.

Union Glacier Camp is operated by Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions (ALE).