Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!!

Every year on New Year's Day (New Zealand time that is), South Pole celebrates by moving the geographic pole marker to it's newly accurate position, which is reliably about 33 feet away from where it was the year before. The geographic pole marker has to be moved because the station sits on a 2-mile-thick ice sheet that is drifting toward the Weddell Sea. (Strange fact: this ice sheet is moving over a mountain range, but it's so massive that the mountains don't really affect its rate of movement.)

So the afternoon of January 1, we all said goodbye to the pole marker that was designed by the 2013 winter-overs and placed on January 1, 2014...

...gathered around the still-veiled new marker (and the South Pole sign, which had already been moved to be next to the new marker, plus a hole drilled to place the flag next to the new marker)...

...formed a semi-circle to pass the flag around to its new location at the current pole spot...

...planted the flag, and unveiled the new marker, which was designed by the 2014 winter-over crew. I love that at South Pole, this is the kind of thing that inspires a paparazzi frenzy.

The 2015 marker is a beaut!

The rest of the New Year's celebrations mostly involved people drinking a lot, plus a spontaneous rash of mohawk-making. As of the evening of January 1 (which was a work-day for the community, so things had not even really gotten going yet), at least 9 of the 140-ish station residents had gotten mohawks.

By the same time the next night, that number had at least doubled. Not sure where this craze is going to end, but pretty sure I can resist. As was announced in a drunken, station all-call on the night of the 1st, we're feeling confident that Antarctica now has the highest number of mohawks per capita of any continent. Dubious distinction? But very entertaining.

Again, Happy New Year!