Jase & airdrop

I have such a hard time even logging into my blog from here that I'm not going to dare to try to upload any videos. But Jase, one of our fantastic chefs in the galley here and a new friend of mine, manages to regularly upload videos onto his blog via Facebook. So for a new dimension if you're following this blog, I recommend checking out Jase's blog. 

The picture for this post is a C-17 aircraft--the kind that flew us from Christchurch to McMurdo, doing a fly-by of Pole back in November during a test run in which they were experimenting with making emergency rations drops here. In 2015, for the first time, there are going to be winter passenger flights in and out of McMurdo Station. But landing a plane at Pole the dark and cold of winter at 90 degrees south is still not a possibility. So just in case, it's comforting that they have now successfully experimented with a cargo drop (via parachute) that was retrieved from the far "backyard" of the station. And it was really impressive to see this plane make several passes over teh station one night.

Christmas at South Pole

Despite all of my vagabonding, this is actually the first time I've ever spent Christmas away from my family--a definite drawback to what would otherwise be a pretty flawlessly great adventure. For me, the holidays are pretty meaningless without my family around.

But there are definite efforts made at Pole to make the holiday season festive, and it ended up being as nice a Christmas as it possibly could have far from home. There is, for example, a tree made of "junk" out on the berms (storage area).

And, inexplicably, a cardboard cut-out Elvis in one of the lounges that someone added a Santa Hat to.

At the beginning of Christmas week, they set up a "mall Santa" display in front of the station store and recruited a good Santa and a bad Santa to pose for pictures. I had to run down during my dish pit shift so you get to see me in my dish-washing attire.

The next night, there was cookie-decorating in the galley, which was great fun, and satisfyingly colorful.

J. the Baker is a prize-winning gingerbread house maker, and usually at her bakery in Vermont they make enormous, elaborate gingerbread houses at holiday time. This year, without her back in Vermont, they made a South Pole station gingerbread house in her honor. And down here, she made a smaller but extremely intricate and gorgeous gingerbread house for us to appreciate.

And then on Christmas Day, most of the station had a day off and there were lots of festivities. In the morning was the "Race Around the World," a less-than-two-mile loop around the station area that went around the geographic pole so that technically, the racers went through all the time zones on the planet. People were encouraged to wear silly costumes, and they did.

I had to work for the day so couldn't participate but but to see everyone gathering to start from the window of the dining area. There was even a snowmobile pulling a couch. Sounds cushy, but it's better to be running than riding at these temps.

And then in the evening we had a really nice Christmas dinner.

There was lots of great volunteer help in the dish pit all day and especially in the evening, so it was fun rather than a hardship to be working on the holiday. If I couldn't be home, spending Christmas with the South Pole community was a pretty great alternative!

Red coats and berms

I am very happy to answer any particular questions people want to send me, either by e-mail or as comments to these blog posts. It will actually help give me ideas of what to post. So ask away! A couple Q/As to start.

F.M. from Portland, OR, writes: "I am hung up on how people find their coats after a trip to the coffeeshop. Is there just a mountain of red suits by the door? I kind of wish people had to have their names on their coats in regular life. It would help me out of a lot of awkward encounters."
So true, on all counts, dear F.M. At McMurdo, there were three or four alcove areas near the galley for people to hang their coats in, and it was just a sea of red, and several times it took me five minutes or more to find my coat after eating, as I couldn't remember where I'd hung it. Now that we're at Pole, it's not so complicated as the elevated station is ground zero for pretty much everything and lots of days I don't even go outside at all, so my coat just stays in my room. But it is super helpful, when people who have been outside come in with their coats on, to quick check their name tags to be reminded of their names.

To round out this post, I thought I'd offer up a picture of the "backyard" of the station, in particular an area called "the berms." this is basically a storage area, though there is so much kept out here that no one is 100% sure what is there and where, and there's someone working here this summer who has a job that half consists just of trying to figure out how to organize the berms. Kind of crazy, but also comforting that there are YEARS worth of supplies here to keep people going in case of an emergency.

 

It's a harsh continent

In most of the outside pictures I have posted, the weather here is flawlessly sunny and clear. And that is actually what it is like here 24/7, most of the time. Once in awhile, though, the wind kicks up or changes direction and something different blows in. The view out the windows looks mighty different when that happens.

(The plane in this shot is a tourist plane and the blue camp behind the flags is an NGO tourist camp; more on that later.) I love the thin stripe of blue sky visible just above the horizon on this one.

When the weather turns, it's a lot easier to understand the favorite slogan around here: "It's a harsh continent." That's the fallback excuse/explanation used whenever things get difficult or don't go our way down here. Through overuse, it starts to sound flat-out comical to me. But maybe it shouldn't, because ultimate it's just flat-out true.

Q&A & Zoinks

Q: From E.H. (Champaign, IL): “How many people are at the South Pole station, and how many of them are scientists versus support staff like you?”

There is a rotating population of nearly 150 people at Pole this summer. This (150) is the rooming capacity of the station, and in an effort to reduce human footprint here, there is a big emphasis on making 150 truly the max population. (In some past summers, Jamesways and other satellite housing has been used and the population has climbed to as many as 250 people in summertime.) I'm not totally sure of the science vs. support staff ratio, but looking at the list of people who are on base now, my best guess is that it's generally about 2/3 support, 1/3 science people. But it's usually the science people that are moving in and out (many are here for just part of the season) and that cause fluctuations in the station population and that ratio.

And, for your amusement: This is my fellow steward, Z, who has been affectionately nicknamed "Zoinks," likely based on her tendency to do things such as trying to convince the more gullible Pole residents that the electrician just installed special lights in the dish pit that require those of us working there to wear our goggles at all times. She only managed to keep up the ruse for an afternoon, but it was a pretty amusing afternoon.

Flatlands

Beside it being significantly colder at Pole than it is at McMurdo and the base being so much smaller (a summer population of 150 here as opposed to 1,000 there), one of the major differences between being at Pole versus McMurdo is that here it is flat, flat, flat--so different from the lovely mountainous setting of McMurdo. It has surprised me, though, that I find the flatlands of South Pole equally lovely. Doc Will (the station medical doctor ) said as he gazed out the window from the galley one day: "You can see forever...but there's nothing to see." That might kind of be true, but I really never get tired of gazing out the windows and remembering where I am and how completely amazing that is.

Shorts at Pole

Q: Can you go outside there?

A: YES!!! Actually, a lot of people who work here have jobs that involve them spending huge parts of their days outside. And we can all go outside recreationally whenever we want.

 

And you know those guys, those guys who wear shorts and t-shirts even when it's 0 degrees out in Wisconsin or elsewhere? Well, those guys come to Antarctica and do the same thing here. Shorts in -60F windchill? No thanks, but here's evidence of some people's determination.

Paying Respects

Out of respect for his family, we've been asked not to write all about it on social media, but it seems wrong not to even acknowledge that, very sadly, there was a death at South Pole about 10 days ago. You can read the NSF press release here. We all went out to honor the man who died (of natural causes) when they flew a coffin in from McMurdo and loaded his body to begin the trip back to the States.

So sad. I didn't know him beyond saying hello in the hallway, but he is only the fourth person ever to die at South Pole and it really sends shockwaves through a community this small.

Q: Have you seen a polar bear yet?

A: Polar bears only exist in the Arctic--that is, near the North Pole. No polar bears down here! There are, of course, penguins down here but I have not and will not see any, because South Pole is in the middle of the continent, far from any water, and penguins (and pretty much all other Antarctic fauna) are water creatures. Sorry! There is a CHANCE that when I go back to McMurdo on my way out of Antarctica, there will be penguins around. Fingers crossed.

In other news, check out the amazing thing that happens to people's hair (eyelashes, hair on their head, beards, etc.) when their breath creates moisture on it out in the cold!:

 

Ceremonial and questions from Aunt J

My camera finally unfroze, and on another weekend walk, got this picture of me (not that you can tell, but it really is me) at the ceremonial pole. That's the station in the background. So there you go.

In other news, I got an e-mail from my Aunt J in Ithaca, NY, that included the following: "I want to know such things as where your poop goes, how do you get exercise, are you teaching yoga, what are the other people like, what are you eating.  You know . . . All the nitty gritty."

Well, J, let me tell you:
1) Poop: there is regular-looking indoor plumbing here on this very comfy station. Unfortunately, answering where the poop goes is tied up with where we get our water from. But it's not as bad as it seems. As I understand it (though I probably should have asked the station engineer to write up a more accurate blurb), here's how it works: To get water at Pole is pretty easy since we're surrounded by snow that, when melted, gives us such incredibly pure water that they actually have to add minerals to it before we can drink it. To create the melting, they use a machine that I don't really understand but that is called a Rodwell; it heats the snow in a downward tunnel, and the resulting water is pumped out until the "well" gets too deep for the Rodwell to continue to operate. Then they start a new Rodwell system somewhere else and start filling the empty well left by the previous Rodwell with all the human waste created at the station. Which soon freezes solid and remains here forever. Gross. They're currently on the third Rodwell, and filling the well left by the second one. The first well of poop is pretty close to the "Beer Can" part of the station  (a cylindrical stairwell area with nearly 100 stairs connecting both levels of the station down to the vehicle maintenance and storage areas alongside/beneath the station) and creates an unholy stink in the Beer Can.
2) Exercise: Lots of people who work here work outside much of the day doing manual labor and get more exercise than they ever wanted--and we're all able to walk around outside the station whenever we want for some fresh air and exercise. There are also cross-country skis available, plus a little rock wall for climbers in a satellite building. But for those who want indoor activity at the station, there is actually a gym ("designed for all sports so perfect for none of them," I've heard said) and a weight room (plus treadmills, a rowing machine, etc.) that are available for everyone to use, 24/7 it's pretty great. And almost every night, there is an activity available to everyone, from volleyball to soccer to yoga. Which leads me to....
3) Yoga: I am teaching. Twice per week. So far it's been really fun, with 10-20 people attending the classes I'm teaching on Sunday morning and Wednesday nights. There's also a guy here who has been working South Pole summers for years and has long been teaching a Thursday night class, so I can also TAKE a yoga class once per week. Sweet!
4) The other people here are pretty darn fantastic. I cannot say enough about the galley staff that I'm working with; I'm having so much fun with these very interesting, funny, caring people. It's also fun to have people on base with such diverse skills/experience: cooks and scientists and heavy equipment operators and IT experts, all hanging out together three times/day for meals in the galley. Probably most of the people here are pretty atypical in their lifestyles and priorities compared with people who have more "stable" lives in the States or elsewhere, but of course this is right up my alley, and I love that you can sit down with any one of these people and probably be entertained with fantastic stories about life experiences, travels, etc.
5) If I tried to pretend that I am being deprived of anything, food wise, while I'm here, I would be mostly lying. Our galley staff of five chefs plus a baker take such good care of us. There are three hot buffet-style meals per day (yesterday, for example, there was Indian fare--chick pea stew, saffron rice, chapati, and so on) with left-overs available at all times in a communal fridge, fantastic eggs from New Zealand, "freshies" (fresh produce) coming in once per week or so by plane, and 24/7 juice, coffee, tea, cereal, toast, cookies, and more available to everyone. The freshies aren't always available, but there is also a greenhouse on the first floor of the station, so in another few weeks we should be starting to get some greens from there.

More soon, and feel free to post any other questions you want answered, o blog readers!

Thanksgiving

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving Stateside, South Pole celebrates Thanksgiving. Most of the station had the day off, and it was quite the festive weekend. A few days in advance, everyone who wanted was welcome to participate in making a couple dozen pies, which definitely helped to set the mood.

 

 

Then, the day of, a gaggle of other volunteers got the galley transformed with shocking speed. My favorite part is that all of the windows were blocked out so that we could pretend it was not broad daylight as always, and a video of a roaring fire was played on the info scroll screens.

 

With so many people to feed and the need for volunteers to serve wine and pie and bus dishes, there were two seatings.

And the food was pretty darn yummy.

That night, some of the rec volunteers even organized a dance in the gym, South Pole-style.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The South Pole...S

Did you know that there are multiple "South Poles"? It's kind of confusing. First, there is the ceremonial South Pole, which can be seen from the windows of the galley (dining hall) in South Pole Station.

Then there is the geographic South Pole, which can be seen out a different window from the galley. This pole shifts slightly each year since we are on a moving ice sheet. Each New Year's Day, as I understand it (I will post about it when the time comes!), there is a ceremony that everyone here participates in wherein the new geographic pole is marked with a new marker that was designed by the previous year's winter-over crew. (About 40 people spend the winter at South Pole each year; fewer people have done this than have climbed Mount Everest. Seems like it would be an amazing experience.)

There's also a geomagnetic South Pole, which is hundreds of miles away and all wonky. I don't even understand that.

So on my first day off (I have Sundays off this month; things will shift as my job responsibilities rotate; more on that later) a bunch of us bundled up (it was about -40F, with a windchill of about -60...so, cold!) and went out to visit the two poles that are right here at the station. The pole in the ground is the actual geographic South Pole as it was on January 1, 2014.

This shows the Pole marker with the elevated station that we all live in in the background.

And then we walked over to the ceremonial Pole. I don't have any pictures other than this because at this point my camera froze. It started working again about an hour after I came back inside and it thawed out! Will have to keep my outdoor photo opps short and sweet, I guess!

My room

Oh my goodness. I have been trying for a WEEK to log in and make a blog post, but the internet here is severely troubled and this is the first time I've actually been able to access the blog. Miracle! When we arrived at the beginning of the season, we had 14 hours of satellite internet coverage per day thanks to three satellites that are in range at various times. But there have been technical issues with one of them, making it not an option for the past week, which gives us 10 hours of very very bad, slow internet per day, half of which is in the dead of the night anyway. Sheesh! We're also losing the best satellite at the end of this month. A couple other fun telecommunication facts about life at South Pole:

 

- We have satellite phone access, and can call as if it is a free, local call to Denver area codes...but only when one of the satellites is in range and actually working.

- The vast majority of bandwidth available here is used to send the scientific data collected here off the continent; this is only fair, since the science is the whole reason for being of the USAP; but as a consequence, there is no type of streaming--so no Skype or YouTube or Netflix--allowed for casual use.

 

Anyway, before we lose coverage again, let me make this quick and just post a picture for you. This is my room in the station. Such a treat to have my own little cave to retreat to whenever I want to.

 

 

More soon, satellites willing!

 

South Pole Station

I am having great fun exploring this amazing, $150 million facility where the 150 summer residents of South Pole all live (and most work). If you're curious about the station, I really recommend the virtual tour of the station provided by this video on YouTube. It does a way better job than I could through pictures of giving you a sense of what the station I'm currently calling home is like.

I did, on my first weekend here, enjoy both a casual visit to and a formal tour of the "beer can" (see the video for context) which stinks horribly of the human waste that is buried not too far away. We also walked outside via the tunnels (where vehicle maintenance and all kinds of other work goes on) and explored the -60F (it was warmer outside!) gasoline storage area, which was completely covered in intimidating frost. No worries about a gasoline explosion, at least!--at those temps, there can be no gasoline fumes, which is the part of fuel that actually burns. And my final picture here is of one of the typically inexplicably weird things you might find down here. I don't know how or why people put pigs heads down in the storage areas under the elevated stations, and I'm learning not to bother to ask about the crazy things like this that tend to happen here when people get bored due to the isolation.

To South Pole

The summer season at South Pole was supposed to have started November 1. When we got delayed in Christchurch for three extra days, that schedule was already thrown off. So by the time I got to McMurdo on Nov. 1, there were already other Pole people there anxiously awaiting our arrival so that the first flight of summer personnel could get down there as quickly as possible. Instead, I got to learn first hand how very difficult it can be to reach the bottom of the planet. I guess that's appropriate, but holy moly! It was a Saturday when we arrived at McMurdo, and no flights are scheduled for Sundays. So first flight into Pole was on deck for Monday, and all day Sunday we were checking the flight monitors outside the galley as rumors about mechanical problems with the planes that fly to Pole were flying.

Monday morning our flight was still on the scroll, so the 35 of us who would fit on the plane with all of the cargo (including a snow melter, as the water system at Pole had been malfunctioning, plus many boxes of "freshies"--fresh produce--for the winter-overs who were probably desperate for it) got on a bus that headed away from McMurdo...

...and past Scott Base (which belongs to the Kiwis)...

Only to get a radio call saying the flight had been canceled. So the bus turned around and took us, dejected, 20 minutes back to McMurdo.

On Tuesday we tried again, and this time all the stars seemed to be aligned. We made it out to the airstrip (note Mt. Erebus, an active volcano, as the backdrop--and note that this plane is outfitted with skis, as it cannot land on the snow at Pole on wheels!)...

...onto the plane (significantly less comfy than the one to McMurdo)...

...and flew three hours to Pole, over this unspeakably magical, beautiful landscape. Sigh.

 Through our ear plugs, we finally heard the loadmasters tell us to get buckled in for landing at Pole, and we could feel the plane descending, descending...and then suddenly pull back up and circle around. And then again, descent, only to pull back up. After that second try, the decision was made: though we were only 300 feet off the ground, there was not enough visibility to land and the flight (as they say) "boomeranged" back to McMurdo. I guess I have nothing to complain about, as there are people who pay tens of thousands of dollars for the kind of flight-seeing tour I got that day! But it was a weary-ing six hours in the air. Mostly I was getting tired at the routine of every morning stripping my bed at McMurdo, lugging all my stuff up to the transport spot, and then in the evening going back to remake my bed and do it all over again the next day.

Wednesday we were scheduled to fly and then canceled and scheduled and canceled again without ever even getting on the bus to the airstrip. Not good weather at Pole, apparently.

But finally, on Thursday, with almost 50 passengers (room for more since the water situation at Pole had been fixed and the bulky snow melter could be left behind), we got back on the bus to the airstrip, back onto the plane, headed back over the vast whiteness of the continent...

...and this time, after three hours, the wheels touched down! There was cheering. I might have been involved. They opened up the back cargo door and shoved all our luggage and other cargo out as we taxied across the snow...

..and then we all stepped off the plane at South Pole.

The thermometers read -32F as we walked from the plane to South Pole station.

Incredible. Incredible to be here.

So that is the end of the story of my journey TO South Pole. Now, for the next 3.5 months, I'll be sitting still here and will make regular posts sharing glimpses into life at the bottom (ha, ha).

In the meantime, mail takes awhile--and definitely don't send boxes, which can take months--but I would love to hear from you if you'd like to test the APO mail system (will be US domestic rates for you) and am happy to send postcards in return with the South Pole cancellation stamp on them! The address is:

(My name), ASC
South Pole Station
PSC 768 Box 400
APO AP 96598

Also, though I will keep posting my own pictures here, it's totally worth checking out the USAP's free on-line collection of Antarctic photography at www.usap.gov.

'Till soon!