Yesterday was my last full day in Kangerlussuaq, the base camp of the NGRIP project and the location of the National Guard base that supplies it. Before breakfast, I went to to the NGRIP base headquarters to pick up a bag of Arctic survival gear I had left on the plane the day before. I arrived to news that after seven years, the drill had finally reached the bottom of the ice sheet. The depth was 3084 meters and 99 centimeters from the surface, one centimeter shy of the depth predicted by the radar team. Also, something unexpected had happened -- when the drill had been hauled up, it had brought back a sample of water from the very base of the ice sheet. J.P. Steffensen, one of the Danish leaders of the project, said a flight was leaving in about an hour. It would carry staff and their family members to the drilling site to celebrate the news. I was invited, too. The plane ride was the same as the day before. I rode in front, unable to communicate over the deafening roar. The back of the plane was filled with cargo. Upon arrival, the passengers and the site crew assembled in the drilling chamber. Sigfus Johnsen, the lead driller and a founder of the project, popped several bottles of champagne and toasted the team and its achievement. We all stared in amazement at the brown icicle stuck to the bottom of the drill. Sediment-filled water at the bottom had frozen to the cold metal. After the brief ceremony we were treated to a sumptuous buffet in a circular, roofless enclosure made of snow -- they called it the "snow bar." It was just below freezing, but in the middle of the Greenland Ice Sheet, it seemed balmy. We had hot soup, cheeses, cured ham, homemade bread, and two kinds off caviar. For desert we had fresh waffles made with a waffle iron on an extension cord. I took a stroll to inspect a polar bear snow sculpture several hundred yards from the festivities. But when I looked back, I noticed that people were already boarding the plane for the return flight. Fortunately, someone saw me as I sprinted back. She gave me a lift by snowmobile, just in time to be the last to board the plane, which promptly took off. The Drill Site Pictures from the NGRIP drill site. THE FLIGHT TO GREENLAND ARRIVAL ANTICIPATION THE DRILLING SITE STRIKING BOTTOM TASIILAQ - GREENLAND VILLAGE GREENLAND TO GREENLAND, VIA ICELAND SLEDGE PATROL NEW DIGS Vikings | Inuit | Wildlife | Ice Cores | Dispatches | Teacher Guides | Credits © Copyright 2003, WBUR