It was a week of acronyms and snow surveys. Each year at the Pole, before the darkness of winter sets in, IceCube winterovers take advantage of the still available daylight to complete tasks that can’t be managed well in the dark. This week, one of those chores was surveying snow depths from accumulations around the IceTop stations (IceTop is the surface component of the IceCube detector). They got going after they drove an LMC out of the VMF (image above). VMF stands for Vehicle Maintenance Facility (you can see some indoor views of this place from a party held there last year), while LMC refers to Logan Manufacturing Company, maker of a polar track vehicle that for some folks is more fun to operate than other vehicles, since you use two throttle control levers to drive and maneuver it.
The following photos show winterover Stephan taking snow measurements along with some nice hazy views, first of the station, then of the IceCube Lab. Two years ago during this week, besides snow surveying, they were also getting in some good clean fun, which you can check out here.
