Temperature -38.9 deg F/-39.4 deg C

The pilot told Einar that the surface wasn't the worst he's ever experienced, but it was pretty bad.  This is understandable, but meant that we had to scramble this morning to reprioritize what cargo should go on the plane (this is something that we've done several times by now though!). I personally, have dreams about stacks of wooden boxes on pallets and TCN numbers (the cargo tracking numbers assigned to all our boxes in the US Antarctic Program).   They too had to fly with oxygen, but we heard from John this afternoon that everyone has arrived.  They are all a little tired from being 350 m higher in altitude at Camp Winter, but they are getting everything going, and everything is in better shape than we anticipated out there.  I think we all have a little too much experience in fieldwork, and always just expect something to go wrong.

The task now is to get the skiway groomed for the Basler, which means that the group out at Camp Winter will have to knock down the same large sastrugi (snow dunes that form into the wind) that the pilot had a hard time landing on.  Sastrugi tend to be very hard, as they are
made from windpacked snow.  The plan for now is to use the blade on Jack to knock over the tops of the sastrugi, then improvise some sort of grater using materials out at Camp Winter…2 x 4's, the decking for the modules, chain, something that can be drug behind Jack to smooth the surface out so that the Basler can land safely.

Einar checks in with John at Camp Winter on the Iridium phone.