Runway Shutdown

Hey folks! 

So they closed the ice runway for the season today. I had to go out and help secure some PC's so they didn't fall off of stuff when they moved the buildings over to the Pegasus runway.  It was kinda cool, once the last plane of the season left the runway they officially closed air operations. So they shut off the power and started taking down power, phone, and data lines with a bucket truck.  It's pretty amazing how quickly they can get things disconnected and start moving buildings. Everything out there is on skis so they break away some ice, clear out the snow, hook it up to a tractor and take off with it.  Then everything goes several miles over the ice to Pegasus which is on the permanent ice shelf so it's not going anywhere anytime soon. Then next spring they build a new runway on the new ice, bring all the buildings back, set it all up again, get the new runway FAA certified and start operations again. Sounds like a lot of work to me, but it works out. 

Some weird blanket of fog or something in the background...

A good one of Mt Erebus puffing away. I saw a pic of it at night during the winter and you could see the glow of the magma reflecting off the steam. I'd love to get a pic of that this winter...

 Last plane of the season waiting to take off...

 The building on the left is 1 of 3 buildings they stick together that make up the galley. The building on the right is the firehouse. They're taking off with them...

The LC-130 firing up so they can head over to the new active runway...

Cruzing down the run way to take off...

There she goes, last take off from the ice runway this year...