Last year, Jaakko, Greg, Dan, Jon, and Kate went down to the Dry Valleys to begin the project.  We left Seattle on November 26, 2004 and arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand on November 28 after a very long flight.  After picking up our Extreme Cold Weather gear (ECW) we spent the night in Christchurch.  We got up very early the next morning and flew to McMurdo Station in Antarctica on a C-130 cargo plane.  We spent about 10 days in McMurdo getting all of our equipment ready for the field and doing a lot of safety training.  Then, we spent the next six weeks camping in the Dry Valleys, setting up experiments and collecting rock and soil samples.  We then came back to McMurdo and took a long shower, the first one in six weeks.  We packed all of our rocks up so that they could be shipped back to Seattle and then flew back home.  To see some photos from 2004-05, click here.

We prepared a few powerpoint slides to show you what life is like in Antarctica

To learn more about how we got to Antarctica and how we got around while we were there, go to the Antarctic Transportation page.  The Camp Life page shows what we camped in and ate for six weeks.  The Field Work page tells you all about the experiments we performed and the samples we collected.