For our meeting today, we gathered in Einar's suite at the Heritage Hotel in Christchurch—named the best hotel in New Zealand. Einar is staying in one part of the hotel which used to be a government building, and has a beautiful, two-story room complete with kitchen.  I think Einar is ready to lead a hip-hop lifestyle.  If he shows up with diamond earrings, gold chains, Versace work pants, and Louis Vutton luggage, I'll know he's ready to join Ice Cube's entourage.

The process was a little eye-opening since there is a lot that needs to be done.  I'll be helping Lou and Einar organize and pack all the food for the trip while we are in McMurdo, which involves rounding it all up and sorting it into individual boxes, roughly one box per week.
 It is fun going through the list and seeing the vast quantities we are taking. 1456 cookies.  36 pounds of butter.  1260 bags of tea. 300 pounds of coffee.  As Lou has often said, "we are not going to go hungry."  As Einar counters, "those boys can eat," referring to Kjetil, Rune, and Svein.  In the photo, Svein, Rune, Kjetil and Glen figure out what to eat first.

In addition to the food we will be gathering (mostly dry foods such as rice, tea, and crackers), and as a tremendous help to us, the winter-over galley staff in McMurdo has been making meals for us throughout their winter season, freezing the meals, and packaging them so we can re-heat them enroute.  This is very helpful because we do not have a designated cook along.  Ted Scambos from NSIDC (who will join us at South Pole for the second part of the traverse) is a wonderful cook, but will be busy collecting data and installing thermistor strings.  I am an awful cook, so this means that no one will be subjected to any of my culinary disasters (unless I'm making cold cereal for everyone - I'm great at that).  It's fun working with Lou and Einar and planning the food (they've done all the planning…a Herculean effort for sure), and figuring out a balance between American and Norwegian tastes. It's slightly more complicated than hot dogs versus sardines, but not much more.

The rest of the group got together to sort out what needs to be done at Camp Winter. We're expecting cold temperatures (around -60 deg C), which can make the already difficult work harder. We're hoping that the vehicles are not too buried; they were parked last year on raised hills of snow.  We are also hoping that everything is where we left it.  Back in Tromso, Stein is checking satellite imagery to try and see if anything has blown away. The first priority when arriving at
Camp Winter will be to establish a shelter and a means of heat.   Then on to get one of vehicles up and running.  Lou and I, on the last of the three flights we will have on a Basler aircraft from South Pole to Camp Winter, are going to work on drilling a 90 meter ice core and lower one of Atsu's thermistor strings down the hole that the core leaves behind.  Needless to say, we have a plan "A, " plan "B," plan "C," and a whole host of alphabet options.  We will continue to develop our plans in the coming days.

The Camp Winter brain trust, Svein, Rune, Kjetil and Glen pondering what to eat first. (Photo: Lou Albershardt)