It’s a very humbling experience to realize you are weaker than the air surrounding you. To have to fight to take a step forward because the force from the wind is so powerful, it’s something incredible. Capturing this feeling in a photo is difficult, but I think the two above photos can give you an idea of what I'm talking about. Abel took both of them. They are both showing the Twin Otter staging area, only the top photo is without wind and the bottom with. In the photo with wind, you can see how everything is sort of fuzzy. That’s from all the snow whipping across the ground surface and up and over the ridge crest. The winds in that photo are about 30-35 miles per hour. Abel and I were prepping some batteries today, and the gusts were up to 60. One of our windiest days here so far. In general, the past 3 or 4 days have been pretty intense. That kind of wind makes simple tasks a challenge, and really takes a toll on your body just fighting to stay stable when working. To prep the batteries today, Abel and I had to open a wooden box, about 3ft by 3ft, and take out 22 batteries, each weighing 72 pounds. The concept is easy enough, but we got annihilated because it was so windy. Just getting the top of the box off was a ridiculous challenge. You’ve basically got a giant wooden sail. Once that thing is free from its screws, it wants to whip up full force and fly away at 60 miles an hour. Then after you manage to get the top off and lodged inbetween something before it smacks you in the face, you have to immediately jump into the box and hold down half a dozen odd sheets of cardboard (from the previous batteries already removed from the box -each battery comes in cardboard) that are quite eager to fly off into West Antarctica. So finally you get the box top off, get all the cardboard pinned down, then you have to actually lift the batteries out and get them into a tent 50 meters away so you can work with them. All of this in 60 mile per hour wind gusts, and snow flying EVERYWHERE. I was completely soaked. It was like someone was taking a bucket of fine powder snow and throwing it in my face every 10 seconds. Into my ears, my nose, into my mouth, down in-between every single layer of clothing, frozen in my hair. Simple tasks like this become complete pandemonium when you factor in the weather. But to be honest, it’s actually quite fun. Don’t get me wrong, my description isn’t exaggerated, but the truth is, the shear chaos of it makes it entertaining! It’s fun to be in wind that powerful. You can lean back into it, like you are sitting in a recliner, and be completely supported by the force from the wind behind you. As long as the work is still possible, it’s a great time.