rainy day

The forecast indicated that today would be wet, but it was sunny when we left. Apparently sometimes you should listen to the forecast. We needed to redrill the stakes holding the GPS antennas up today, as they have melted out at least 50 cm at this point and only have 50-100 cm still grounded in the ice. We also needed to run the PPK GPS.

When we arrived at the first GPS unit for redrilling, I opened the case to discover that the unit had turned off. The battery voltage had dropped lower than the solar controller would allow, so it had turned power off for the GPS unit. I rerouted the GPS power cables so that the solar controller wouldn't disconnect it from power again and tried to turn the unit back on, but it wouldn't start. Right about then it started to rain. I tried to fiddle around with things for a little while, but everything was getting wet in the box so I ended up closing it and leaving it. We'd have to come tomorrow on our day off to redrill all the GPS stakes and figure out how to get this unit running again.

We finished running the RTK GPS for the stakes below the first ice fall but decided not to head above today as we were getting very wet and cold. We packed up and headed home early. Our hotel room has almost no hangers for drying, so we made a larger drying line through the middle of the room. I keep running into it whenever I leave the room!