This is because there has been more than one main wind direction, which results in sastrugi oriented in different directions, and a rough landing for any plane.  The Basler has two skis and is heavier compared to the Twin Otter's three skis, lighter weight, and beefier suspension.  The pilot on the recon flight had done a "ski drag," touching the surface with the plane's skis, but not landing, in order to assess how bad the surface really was there.  He didn't even want to land the Twin Otter near Camp Winter, but saw a smoother area a bit further away where he planned to land, and then taxi everyone over to the vehicles. The pilot on the recon flight took pictures of the vehicles, so we had an idea that, at least from the air, things looked ok, and nothing major is missing or completely buried. As Einar happily pointed out there are no "little
black spots scattered all over the snow."

Today John, Kjetil and Svein flew out in a Twin Otter to set up Camp Winter.  Glen, Einar and Rune will follow tomorrow. The South Pole has a clean air zone, which happens to lie directly in the path between the South Pole and our vehicles, and so the Twin Otter, an unpressurized plane, had to fly "over" the clean air zone, at an altitude of 30,000 ft (about 9100 m).  This means that the passengers had to fly with oxygen masks.  At Camp Winter, opened up the workshop
module and started heating it right away using a generator for power. They called on the Iridium phone (a satellite phone) just a few hours after landing, and had already looked in all the modules, and everything looked just fine.  The temperature in the kitchen module was even a downright warm -16 deg F (-27 deg C) just from the heat of the sun baking the modules.  John had called us, since he had a hard time getting Kjetil and Svein to come in and stop working. After getting one of the vehicles started (Kjetil and Svein will begin with Jack), they'll start right away making a skiway for the Basler aircraft to come on Monday with the rest of our cargo, and Tom, Lou, and me on Tuesday.

Today John, Kjetil and Svein flew out in a Twin Otter to set up Camp Winter. Photo: Zoe Courville