And then there were thirty-one. Last week brought the arrival of the first LC-130 of the season: replacement parts and science gear, fresh vegetables and dairy, and the big summer crew. We’d prepared for this flight for weeks: grooming the skiway, erecting tents and positioning the mobile bunkhouse, digging buried equipment out from the winter storage berm, and hauling up big piles of food from the freezer trench. And getting ready mentally to welcome dozens of new folks into our shared living spaces.
The flight was delayed a few days, while strong winds transformed camp into a skatepark of steep drifts. After the winds subsided, we got out heavy equipment and shovels, and moved a respectable quantity of snow to restore station to a working state. Totally knackered, I slept hard then awoke to receive the plane.
Flight day. An hour out. I changed into my grubbiest clothes and rode a snowmachine down to the flight line, then started digging out fuel lines and valves. Fifteen minutes out. I swapped my handheld radio for a headset, then staked out by the fueling area: my position for the morning. I’d trained with Rich on refueling the aircraft if they needed Jet A-1 to make it back to the coast, or transferring fuel from the aircraft to our storage bladders if they had surplus. I checked the position of around 40 valves, our two active reservoirs, and a couple hundred feet of 3-inch fuel lines. Then we all turned to searching the horizon for the aircraft: bragging rights for the first to spot it.
A faint contrail and a gleam. Soon right over camp, a huge thundering aircraft. The big cargo plane passed back and forth over us, surveying the untested skiway. They disappeared over the horizon for ten minutes, setting up their approach vector along the far end of the 16,000-foot seam of groomed ice cap. And with a tremendous flurry of snow, they touched down, wallowing as they made their way towards us. I stood by for an hour and a half, watching the new crew disembark and head up the hill, watching Rich unload and load cargo in the Cat 953, watching the LC-130 flight crew inspect the landing skids and backup JATO rockets on the side of the aircraft. In the end, my job wasn’t needed–no fuel was dispensed or received–but I got a great wing-tip perspective during the whole operation.
The arrival of this flight marks the start of the summer season at Summit. Carpenters are getting to work on facility upgrades and maintenance, heavy equipment operators are busy improving the skiway and exposing our near-buried camp structures, and lots of new operations staff are attending to the material needs of a big crew. For my part, the past week has been spent in a flurry of work: training my replacement tech, Hannah, installing equipment for new science projects and digging out old ones, and helping support a large population still acclimatizing to the altitude and the station routines. At this point, Hannah is ready to take over, and I’ll be leaving on a flight in the morning. A few hours to the town of Kangerlussuaq at the end of a long fjord, then after a couple days on the coast, a flight back to Stratton Air National Guard Base in New York.
