You know the phrases 'From bad to worse', 'Couldn't get any worse' and 'And to top it all off'? Well...take your pick. Friday was an adventure to say the least.
It all started with the fact that we have a tech up right now for a week. He's just here to calibrate and perform routine maintenance on our Ozone and Mercury instruments. The next piece of the puzzle was that Byron and I have put off/been unable to go out to do our monthly permafrost measurements and needed to do it ASAP. There...the stage has been set.
Act 1: We drive Patrick out to the lab first thing in the morning and then leave him there to go do permafrost. The weather wasn't as bad as it was on Thursday (-21°C, 75km/h winds, -55 windchill), but the winds were still enough to rip the truck doors out of our hands and buffet us around a bit. We got through that part of our day just fine (if a little windblown) and returned to Station for lunch.
Intermission: Lunch. Byron attends fire team training. Graham sleeps on office couch.
Act 2: Byron and I head out to the lab to do our normal Friday checks and filter changes. As we had some compressed air cylinders to take out there, we decided to drive all the way into the lab. Normally we stay 600m away to avoid contamination, but with the hurricane winds directly from the South we could have had a bonfire on the North side of the lab that wouldn't have been registered by any sensors :D I drove us in, and then backed up into the lab. The normal large drift had formed near the doorway, and as I drove up we kind of slipped sideways along it. We didn't think much of it at the time... **ominous set-up music**
Act 3: 5:30, the end of a long day at the lab. We are scrambling to get home for Friday supper (pizza, wings, etc) and we're cutting it close. We figure that since the truck is at the lab and we don't have the 10 minute walk out to the TX that we'll be fine. I hop in, start it up, and then as we try to drive out while sloped 15° to the side we sort of stay in the same position while the tracks dig themselves into the still semi-fluffy drift. Below is an older picture of our truck, so that you can envision it better. We're on the top of a 5' drift. Each of those tracks has just dropped a foot straight down. We're resting on the undercarriage of the truck. It's at this point that Byron mentions that he had just realized it was Friday the 13th.
It all started with the fact that we have a tech up right now for a week. He's just here to calibrate and perform routine maintenance on our Ozone and Mercury instruments. The next piece of the puzzle was that Byron and I have put off/been unable to go out to do our monthly permafrost measurements and needed to do it ASAP. There...the stage has been set.
Act 1: We drive Patrick out to the lab first thing in the morning and then leave him there to go do permafrost. The weather wasn't as bad as it was on Thursday (-21°C, 75km/h winds, -55 windchill), but the winds were still enough to rip the truck doors out of our hands and buffet us around a bit. We got through that part of our day just fine (if a little windblown) and returned to Station for lunch.
Intermission: Lunch. Byron attends fire team training. Graham sleeps on office couch.
Act 2: Byron and I head out to the lab to do our normal Friday checks and filter changes. As we had some compressed air cylinders to take out there, we decided to drive all the way into the lab. Normally we stay 600m away to avoid contamination, but with the hurricane winds directly from the South we could have had a bonfire on the North side of the lab that wouldn't have been registered by any sensors :D I drove us in, and then backed up into the lab. The normal large drift had formed near the doorway, and as I drove up we kind of slipped sideways along it. We didn't think much of it at the time... **ominous set-up music**
Act 3: 5:30, the end of a long day at the lab. We are scrambling to get home for Friday supper (pizza, wings, etc) and we're cutting it close. We figure that since the truck is at the lab and we don't have the 10 minute walk out to the TX that we'll be fine. I hop in, start it up, and then as we try to drive out while sloped 15° to the side we sort of stay in the same position while the tracks dig themselves into the still semi-fluffy drift. Below is an older picture of our truck, so that you can envision it better. We're on the top of a 5' drift. Each of those tracks has just dropped a foot straight down. We're resting on the undercarriage of the truck. It's at this point that Byron mentions that he had just realized it was Friday the 13th.
Act 4: Now, Byron and I are much too proud to call Recovery and anyways, it's the middle of dinnertime on a Friday. We grab the shovels and get to work. We dug out the better part of the drift and then tired again. We didn't dig out 'enough' of the drift. Instead, we just dug ourselves in another few inches. At that point, I radioed Site Manager to get a BV on the way out to pick us up. Keep in mind that we are literally as far from Station as you can possibly get. Now that we know help (and extreme ridicule at TGIF) is on the way, there's nothing left to do but keep digging. Eventually we knew that help would arrive, or we'd just dig out the entire 5 foot drift.....well, it took about 45 minutes to scramble a driver and for him to get to us. Two strapping young lads can move a lot of snow in that amount of time (even when the smaller, more Geography-centric one had just got his H1N1 shot that morning and couldn't lift his left arm). Finally, with bare dirt visible under the truck, and the light of the BV on the horizon, we give it one final gun of the engine... **queue triumphant victory music**
Act 5: We BURST from the perfectly truck-shaped hole we've dug into the drift (see below) and keep driving until we're out into the flat where the snow is harder. There are many unique situations in life that provide tremendous adrenaline rushes: The birth of a child, winning the big game, your first kiss......getting a truck unstuck through 2 hours of manual labour is right up there :P
Act 5: We BURST from the perfectly truck-shaped hole we've dug into the drift (see below) and keep driving until we're out into the flat where the snow is harder. There are many unique situations in life that provide tremendous adrenaline rushes: The birth of a child, winning the big game, your first kiss......getting a truck unstuck through 2 hours of manual labour is right up there :P
Dénouement: Of course, with having to radio back to Station, everybody knew what had happened. So, even though we didn't 'technically' need recovery, I felt obligated to ring the bell for Recovery of the Week. That night I also won Frozen Chosen for my help to Byron with the Olympic stage, so I figure 'complete embarrassment' and 'triumphant recognition' cancel each other out and yesterday was, karmic-ally, a draw :D
Graham
Graham
You definitely googled how to spell denouement.
ReplyDeleteMaybe :D
ReplyDelete