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> Thule Air Bast At Last!!!!, The final trip to Thule
John_Sode
post Jul 16 2005, 12:12 PM
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July 13, 2005


Thule!!!!!!!

Finally, we have arrived in Thule. Last night another plane arrived from Scratton Air Base. The science team now has a full complement of planes and air support. Some of the planes are taking gear, equipment, scientists, support personnel, and other equipment to Summitt. A great deal of equipment is going to Summitt this year because the main house at Summitt must be lifted to a new foundation and new stilts installed so that the building can be raised each year. The annual snow accumulation at Summitt requires the buildings to be raised about 1 meter each year.

The flight to Thule was much more comfortable than the flight to Kanger since we had only about half as much gear and only about 17 people instead of over 50. Most of our team slept on the plane. Everyone is both very tired and quite excited that we are about to land in Thule.

When we arrived in Thule the weather was typical high arctic. There was a brisk wind blowing, snow was still on the ground, and there was a steady rain. We unloaded our personnel gear and headed to the base commander’s headquarters. Here we meet the Danish liaison officer and his aide. The Commander checked our paperwork and passports. After making sure that we had permission to be in Greenland, Denmark, and the Thule theater of operations, we went to the our headquarters.

Our group is very fortunate in many ways. We are staying at the North Star Inn on Thule Air Base for part of our trip. Much of our work involves daily trips to research stations set up within the Thule theater of operations. Therefore, we are spending our days in the field collecting data but have comfortable evening accommodations. Those creature comforts will change somewhat next week when we leave for our trip to Green Valley. We will be traveling to Green Valley by helicopter and spending several days there, depending upon the weather.

After getting our gear ready and completing our check-in procedures, we prepared for our first trip into the field. By this time the weather was beginning to turn quite nasty. By the time we arrived on North Mountain above the base, the fog was so thick you could not see more than a few hundred feet at best. The wind had increased several magnitudes and the temperature was dropping. As we stopped to look at the thermal warming experiment on North Mountain, the rain turned to sleet. When we headed back to Thule we experienced more sleet than rain, more wind than breeze. We got a real indication of how quickly the Arctic can turn brutally, bone-chilling cold. Despite the cold, all of us are excited about being the Arctic and are ready to begin our experiments.
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