December 2020 - Trip to LDC

Rocco Ascione, Station Leader in Concordia, wrote to Carlo Barbante: "It is all OK".

The journey was fast and safe, the road is in excellent condition as you can see from the photos. Arriving at the camp they found everything in order, the tents are standing in a good shape and the ITASE module is in perfect conditions.
Only the flags are destroyed but the opposite would have been strange. It was nice to see that the European flag in front of the drill tent, held up quite well.
They left all the tents closed, just opening the door of the recreation tent. The bad news is that the glasses of the doors on the north side of all the tents, are cracked or broken. At the first strong wind they will all come down. Probably the problem is due to the high contrast to the sun of the dark glass and with the summer they all broke down. Both those of the external doors and those of the internal doors.
If they stay like this next year we will find two meters of snow inside the tents next year. Rocco has already planned to return to the camp again, although he does not know when. The plan is to close all the windows with plywood panels to protect the inner part.
Rocco suggests that it would be probably better to replace all glasses with thick plexiglass panels that should no longer crack in the sun.
Other than that, the situation seems to be pretty good as you can see from the photos.