Just five weeks remain until departure to Siberia with the Polaris Project team! Here are some of the details I have learned about the trip:
My General Itinerary from Denver for the Polaris Project to Siberia
I will leave Denver, Colorado on Tuesday, June 26, 2012 to meet the American members of the Polaris Project 20112 team at JFK Airport in New York City. From New York, we fly overnight to Moscow, arriving on Wednesday, June 27. In Moscow, we will meet up with other Polaris Project members and we will have just one evening to take a quick tour of Red Square and see some of the major sights in the Russian capital. Then, we leave on Thursday, June 28 on an overnight flight to Yakutsk, the capital city of the Sakha Republic, Russia. We arrive at Yakutsk on Friday, June 29, and fly out to Cherskiy, the town nearest to the Northeast Science Station on the Kolyma River. We will travel up and down the Kolyma River from that point, as well as on its tributaries and by lands and in lakes near the Kolyma for more than three weeks before retracing our steps.
This map depicts the four flights from Denver, Colorado to Cherskiy, Russia. I will fly from Denver to New York City to meet up with the Polaris Project team. Then we fly on to Moscow, Yakutsk, and finally to Cherskiy - more than 10,300 miles total!
How far is it from Denver, Colorado to Cherskiy, Russia?
If you add the distances of each of the flights between Denver and Cherskiy, your math would be something like this:
1. Denver to New York - 1622 miles (2611 km)
2. New York to Moscow - 4668 miles (7512 km)
3. Moscow to Yakutsk - 3032 miles (4880 km)
4. Yakutsk to Cherskiy - 1001 miles (1611 km)
Check out this animation of the trip to understand the global scale a little bit better!
http://youtu.be/kJ3srQv424c
This adds up to 10,323 miles (16,614 km)! This is about four trips from Los Angeles to Washington DC! As I look at the globe in my classroom, I notice that it is considerably shorter if I traveled west from Denver to Cherskiy. In fact, it would be about only 3790 miles (6099 km).
So why do we travel east? There are primarily two reasons. First, since we will be working with students and scientists from across the United States as well as from Europe and Russia, it makes sense to assemble more of our team as we travel. Second, our Russian visas (which are currently being processed) will require us to enter Russia through Moscow.
There is a bright side to this. Just for fun, I “googled” driving directions from Moscow to Cherskiy. By road, it is estimated this route would be 7080 miles long and take about 9 days of constant driving to go just from Moscow to Cherskiy by their directions. Strangely, I don’t see too many roads on the maps near Cherskiy, so I think flying over these four days seems like a great idea! Below is a map of the suggested driving route from Moscow (A) to Yakutsk (B) and then to Cherskiy (C).
This is the improbable suggested Driving Route from Moscow to Yakutsk to Cherskiy. It is estimated this would be 7080 miles long and take about 9 days of constant driving, but I haven't found all the roads on any map!
Six Hours Behind, but One Day Ahead…
Thinking of the trip in a different way, I will be traveling 18 time zones to get to Cherskiy from Denver. If I want to change my watch to get it to read the current time in Cherskiy, I would need to set it ahead 18 hours, or better yet, I could simply set it six hours backward and one day ahead!
In my last journal in February, I asked the question “What did the polar bear say to the penguin?” This is really a trick question, as polar bears live in the northern Arctic region, while penguins live in the southern Antarctic region and never encounter each other in nature.
Stay curious my friends! - Mark Paricio