Some of the team that was originally at the Quintino Sella Base Camp have finished sampling at Camp 2, and have moved up to King Col. This group of Fritz Koerner, Kumiko Goto-Azuma and Tetsu Yamasaki have joined the King Col leader, Chris Zdanowicz. Tomorrow, Monday 18th, they will go back down for a day trip for more sample pits and hand augering for ice cores.

At the Quintino Sella camp, the air temperature climbed to a warm +3.5 °C! The layer of dust blown in from the Gobi desert in April, initiates melting of the snow below the surface. Thus, the summer melt layer, which becomes a layer of ice at the end of the warm summer temperatures, may be greater in 2001 than the average for other years which have not had the unusual Gobi dust occurrence.

The warm temperature is having its effects on the ICE2001 team's operation of the power ice-coring drill at the 5,300 metre Prospector-Russell Col. Previously, the drilling had been done during a long day, with a rest at night. Now, the temperature is too high in the drill tent at mid day. It is not acceptable to drill in cold ice with a warm drill. So the team is now taking the middle part of the day off and drilling at night.

To further complicate things, fixed wing aircraft, like the helio-courier which is scheduled to return all ICE2001members as when jobs are finished, find it difficult to use the snow as a runway if it becomes too soft. While it is not possible to predict when, if at all, the glacier landing area is no longer usable it does add another touch of uncertainty to the project.