Final days at Summit

I truly cannot believe it, but my time at Summit is already up. Tomorrow (barring weather or mechanical complications), a Herc will arrive to fly our construction crew back down to Kanger, and all the luxuries of the civilization of the coast of Greenland (modest as they may be). The time up here has flown, a little too fast, actually, and I am really going to miss the friends I've made here. I've been trying to just enjoy/soak up the final days of the contract.

My friend B and I, who ended up with nearly identical cold weather gear, have been having fun twinning it up a bit:

We had a "block party" at the fish huts with some yard games and a very dramatic sky for a backdrop:

I also got to help launch one of the twice-daily weather balloons (Summit is one of 450 sites world-wide--including South Pole, if you remember--where these balloons are launched)...

...and I got to help set up scaffolding for the first time.

But the bulk of the last two days of work here were spent on a massive digging project, trying to uncover things that got covered in up to 5 feet of drifting snow over the winter. That was exhausting enough that by the end of the last day of work, I was feeling pretty glad to be done.

Finally, we took one more group picture of our construction team, this time inside the workshop. It requires a bit of explanation, maybe. :) First of all, Saturdays are work days for us, but to lighten the mood on the last work day of the week, there is a "Sleeveless Saturday" tradition. Which is why so many people in this photo are sleeveless despite freezing temps. The other thing you might notice here is the disturbing proliferation of mustaches. This past Saturday morning, our current crew leader came out of the bathroom at breakfast time having just shaved his beard into a handlebar mustache. By the time we all congregated at work less than an hour later, at least six other guys had shed significant parts of their facial hair, and all in all, it was a sight. So here we are, a crew to remember, one last time (with unfortunately poor photo resolution, oh well).

All right, I think that's it from Summit. It's been a joy and I still feel so lucky to have gotten to come here. It's not my last post from Greenland, though. I'm staying along the coast for the next week so will be back with more pictures from the not-completely-frozen part of the island.