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Finally they lashed a sledge to each runner and lifted off--only to hover down again. But that was to retrieve another fire extinguisher. Then they were off. (Christina had asked to go as a passenger but it was easy to demonstrate no reasonable possibility).

It was just about 12:40 when they left. Time for us to get to lunch, a forlorn affair. Afterward I took a last bootleg shower, cleaned up, dressed ± for the field and stowed my jeans etc. in the cage. We loaded our frozen foods on the truck, & the toilet tent. Had a last minute contretemps when Bob found the Berg crew now had our cage locked w. a strange padlock. We expected to load for our flight ~ 3:30-4:00. But the helo returned earlier than that. Our personal gear was [[strikethrough]] left [[/strikethrough]] put in truck; rooms left bare, keys on table; went to Berg & had to wait while Steve [[Losorser??]] cut off the lock. Then to the pad.

The pilot said he would not fly back to the Allan Hills--cloud bank settling in. We were stunned. But, left w no choice, we drove back to the Inn and to Berg & off-loaded everything. Feeling disappointed,

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cheated, unlucky, abused. It was just after 4:00 and Bob declared coctail time. We both had a beer trying to think of something good about our situation. Afterward, I went to talk w. Neil Terry. I said I was sure he realized we had washed out. He said: "yes, and very frankly it doesn't look at all good for tomorrow, either." I thought he meant the weather. He meant helo schedule--a big backlog, and some people (Imre Friedman) stranded in the field. I reacted w. some astonishment. "When people washout, as we did, do we go to the bottom of the list?" "No", he said positively. He explained the uniqueness of this season's helo problems but said he would [[underlined]] try [[/underlined]] to work us in tomorrow after all.

I told this news to Bob and he was equally stunned. He had just expressed the opinion that, with half of our party out there, they will surely break their necks to get the rest of us out--a thought that never crossed [[strikethrough]] our [[/strikethrough]] ^[[their]] minds.

Bob & I went up to check on our frozen foods. Found Leslie had put them in the locker. I felt the need of a hike & we considered climbing Obs Hill, but it was too close to supper time.