This is an update on the status of the mountain (CTIO) facilities and the prospects for reopening, which was received from the Director of the Cerro Tololo Observatory.
"Conditions are considerably better than in my last report and we are almost, but not quite, ready to resume regular operations.
After more than 20 days hard work by facilities operations staff and contractors the access road has been repaired sufficiently to allow safe access by staff and, importantly, by heavy vehicles. TelOps staff began recovery and planned engineering work at the Blanco telescope last Monday and teams from SOAR, Gemini and Rubin were able to get to Pachon for initial inspections last Friday. We were also able to resupply the generators on Tololo last Friday and trucked water from a new provisional well to refill the water tanks this Monday. You can find more information and pictures of the recovery work here
Because a new storm front was forecast to bring rain and snow again today and continue over the weekend we again suspended work on the mountain today for safety reasons. However, so far the front has been much weaker than predicted so we may be able to resume work tomorrow. FacOps have been able to provide hot lunches for the work crews this week and plans to resume full food and lodging services next week This will allow us to return to something more like normality with the full day crew going to the mountain each day and some staff staying overnight by the middle of next week.
So I hope that it will be possible to begin powering up and resuming operation of your telescopes on Tololo by the end of next week."
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