Lake E Daily News, 9 May, 2009
Russian Victory Day National Holiday (Den Pobedy, End of WWII)
Today represented our last day on the ice platform on Lake E. We all reacted to different things. For some it was the last bumpy bus ride, for others it was just disorienting to be on the ice pad without any containers or even the outhouse to orient with....only the mountains around us. We picked up the last of the 'human presence" on the ice -- bits of plastic, dozens of used ear plugs, candy wrappers, cigarette butts, odd pieces of wood, foam insulation, hardware like washers and nails etc. We all walked around picking up with buckets, shovels, and ice picks and dumped all of the waste into 2 large bucket sleds pulled behind the bus and dozer. The dozer was used to pick up the snow fences; two teams in the vezdahot and the Kawasaki Mule, picked up all of the road flagging. For Volker Neth, we took the final readings from the ice thermisters before they were removed from the ice. It was remarkable how much melting had occurred on the ice surface over the past few warm days, especially where it was darkened by bentonite mud. I am telling you all of this because, otherwise, it was a slow day.
Back in camp Pavel and Joey finished strapping many of the large items inside the containers so they aren't damaged during the rough traverse back to Pevek. Three more packing days left...The three easiest containers are left to do.
sincerely, Julie BG
