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!

McMurdo

One thing I didn't realize is that Pegasus airfield, which serves McMurdo and other nearby Antarctic bases run by other countries, is 30-45 minute drive from McMurdo base itself. So once we landed, they loaded as many people as they could into "Ivan the Terra Bus" and the rest of us piled into these old Deltas for the ride into MacTown.

I've never lived in a coal mining town, but I mostly hear people describe McMurdo as having a coal-mining town vibe, and that seems as good a description as any.

This picture was taken at about 1 a.m. There is no such thing as darkness in an Antarctic summer.

Everybody seems to have an opinion about McMurdo. Mine is that it was fun place to hang out for a few days. The scene at Gallagher's bar was more than I could handle the night that we arrived...

...but on our last night there, they had a trivia night at Gallagher's that was great fun. And the rest of the time, the town coffee shop was more up my alley.

Of course, the official and primary purpose of the three American bases on Antarctica is scientific research. It was very cool to check out Crary Lab in McMurdo, and see some of the sea life, geological, and other research being conducted there.

I also spent a lot of time in the "galley" (cafeteria) at McMurdo, where they have 24-hour pizza, space for orientations galore (I had to go to three during the five days I was there), and where, when our flight on to South Pole was repeatedly delayed, I started putting in some hours helping out the McMurdo galley staff so as to start training for my job in the Pole galley. (E.H.: recognize D.Z. in this pic? Thanks for connecting us!)

Probably my favorite thing I did at McMurdo was take a walk out to Hut Point, which is often a good place for seeing wildlife, such as the seal in the picture below...

...and has gorgeous views across the frozen bay (which will not be so frozen by the end of the summer! In the far distance, you can see the water that will creep closer and closer to McMurdo as summer temps that can get as high as 40F start to melt the ice cover)...

...and a nice view back on McMurdo itself. The mountainous setting of the base is definitely one of my favorite things about it.

And, thankfully, since there will be no wildlife in the even more extreme cold temps of the South Pole, I'm glad I got to see a skua bird--kind of the signature scavenger bird of the base. They say it's not safe to walk from the galley back to your housing with food in your hand, as the skuas will try to steal it. This one looks pretty well-fed.

It sounds like sometimes, at the end of their seasons at Pole, people don't even transit through McMurdo base on the way home--instead just getting off the plane from Pole at Pegasus and right onto another one to Christchurch. So I'm not sure when/if I'll get to visit McMurdo again, but I'm really glad I got the chance to check it out, and I'd welcome another few days to do more walking around the area and enjoy more card nights at the coffee house with the very great people I've met so far and am excited to be working with for the next several months.

Flying--and landing!

Three days after we were originally supposed to depart Christchurch for McMurdo base on the coast of Antarctica, the gods of weather and mechanical wellbeing finally harmonized and the great circus of flying 103 people with 10 Air Force crew members to the southernmost continent began.

We were all shuttled from hotels scattered around the Christchurch area back to the Antarctic Center, where we picked up all of the cold weather gear we had tried on 4 days earlier, got our bags together, joined the line to flight check-in...

...gathered for a briefing and a "you're going to Antarctica!" video...

...before finally, at long last, they shuttled us to the C-17 aircraft that was to fly us south, south, south.

It was actually a far more comfortable situation than I was expecting when I heard "military transport." Most of us had normal plane seats, albeit more crammed together and certainly no beverage and snack cart--though we were given ample bag lunches as we boarded to tide us over for the five-hour flight.

Sometime close to the end of the trip, I glanced out a window and got my first glimpse of the frozen continent. So, so beautiful.

And then we were there! It was like a dream. It's so unbelievable that I'm actually here, I had to laugh out loud as I took my first steps on the snow covering the ice runway at Pegasus airfield. (The "white ice" in the runway area is thick enough and solid enough to support these big C-17s landing on very wide, cushy wheels.) That's me in my "big red" issue jacket. Glad I had it, as it was about -10F degrees when we landed. And thank goodness they put our names on the jackets for the season, or you would never be able to tell who it is approaching you at any given moment (everyone looks exactly the same), or to find your jacket when you hang it on a coat hook along with 50 other big reds.

But more on all that later. For now, just appreciating this great moment of first stepping foot on Antarctica and so excited for all that is to come.

Hello from...still Christchurch.

Let me first assure you that to receive a generous per diem while being delayed for three days (so far) in Christchurch is ZERO hardship. We all have nice hotel rooms to ourselves and total freedom to roam the city and its environs. It's been fun to get to know this area a bit more and have essentially a paid vacation in this corner of New Zealand. I had some time to explore the whole Antarctic-themed area around where the USAP offices are.

One of Christchurch's biggest tourist draws is the Antarctic Centre, where they offer Hagglund rides...

...and displays to convey the realities of Antarctic exploration and life. I'm starting to feel less disoriented than I used to be by looking at a map with the South Pole at its center. This one shows where I'll soon be in the middle, with the second glowing light on the coast above the Pole marking McMurdo Station, and then north of that, Christchurch lit up on the south island of New Zealand. You can also see, on the bottom right of the map, "the peninsula": the arm of Antarctica that stretches toward South America. (That is where the third U.S. Antarctic base, Palmer, is situated, and is where 99% of Antarctic tourism is focused, as that generally involves cruise ships leaving from the far south of South America to the relatively mild and wildlife-rich climes of the peninsula.)

The full-time staff at the USAP CDC (this gig might involve nearly as many acronyms as Peace Corps did; in this case, I'm talking about the United States Antarctic Program's Clothing Distribution Center) and at the adjacent Travel Center were generous with their space and wifi and have this lovely display showing all the ECW (extreme cold weather) gear available to program participants.

Once I'm wearing it all I'm likely to look something like this (and I promise I will send a picture of me fully clad once I'm finally somewhere cold enough to warrant the get-up):

In the meantime, the weather in Christchurch has been pretty glorious. Taking advantage of yet another mostly sunny day, five of us took a cab north of the city to the beautiful setting of Seafield Park...

...and started our bonding process. From L to R, this is J (who will be our baker at Pole), S (a physics PhD headed to McMurdo to work on a longterm balloon project), I (a production chef at Pole), J (another production chef at Pole) and me. Though we will say goodbye to S in McMurdo, the rest of us (plus six kitchen staff not pictured here) will be working together very closely every day once we get to Pole, and it has been so much fun to start to get to know them (and very reassuring that I like them all a lot!).

Our reason for going to Seafield was the adjacent "Adrenaline Forest," where we spent an afternoon on a crazy-fun ropes course in the trees. Lots of Indiana Jones-type stuff, including some amazing zip lines.

Seafield also has a wildlife sanctuary, with some of the happiest chickens I've ever seen, and these insanely adorable pigs.

The reason for our delay these past few days has been a mechanical issue with the C-17 we'll take to McMurdo. This has lead to having notes slipped under our hotel room doors, sometimes multiple times/day, updating us on the status of our flight, to the point that I feel like I'm some sort of old school secret agent receiving urgent correspondence. As I type this, the part they needed has arrived and they are working on making the repairs needed for us to finally head to The Ice tomorrow. We'll see! Another update soon, regardless!

Headed to The Ice

This adventure has been cooking up (in my own mind, at least) for more than a decade. I'm so excited to finally write: I'm headed to Antarctica!

I have a job as Lead Steward (euphemism for head janitor) at the South Pole station for 3.5-4 months (depending on timing, weather, etc.). So I've packed all my merino wool and headed south.

This is how, for the second time this year, I found myself in Australia (this time just for a layover)...

...and from there headed to Christchurch, New Zealand. Somehow I got upgraded to business class for that final leg of the journey and now am spoiled completely rotten (as if I wasn't before!).

Christchurch, New Zealand, is the jumping-off point for two of the United States' three Antarctic bases: McMurdo and South Pole. (The third is Palmer Station, accessed via South America.) It was nice to be able to stretch my legs, after more than 24 hours in  airports and on airplanes, with a long walk around Christchurch. I especially loved the botanical gardens.

Though cool and cloudy is the weather vibe here so far, the city is brightened up by some fun murals in unexpected places...

...and there are a lot of such available spaces, as the city is still under intense reconstruction in the wake of the earthquake, a few years ago, that caused devastating damage, including to the city's famed cathedral.

So far, the New Zealanders seem as friendly as the reputation that precedes them, and I am crazy excited to spend a few months exploring this country. But that will be AFTER the great Antarctic adventure. For now, I am only scheduled for one day here in Christchurch, which has been spent getting all of my work gear (including a couple of awesome canvas janitorial jumpsuits--don't be jealous) and extreme cold weather gear (check out the bunny boots!) tried on and in order, taking care of other procedural stuff, and doing final tasks before heading even farther south. All of the gear I've been issued, in addition to what I already brought with me (which was a few changes of warm clothes, toiletries, laptop, Kindle, and some other miscellany)!:

So am scheduled to fly tomorrow from Christchurch to McMurdo Station on Antarctica. Just as often as not, these flights "boomerang" back to Christchurch due to dicey weather at McMurdo, so there's no saying whether I'll actually get there. But stay tuned!

Also, I've been getting more questions about Antarctica than I know how to answer yet, so I've started keeping a list of the questions I get and will start answering them once I get to Pole and know what those answers are. If you have any questions you'd like answered, just e-mail them to me or pose them in the comments section of a one of my posts and I will answer them as soon as I can.

More before long--hopefully from the "7th continent" (though it will actually be my 6th...).