Hold On Tight

I just got back from the South Pole and it was a very exciting two weeks where the world revolved around me. The scary part is that there is no gravity at the pole and you can fall right off the earth (just kidding). A lot happened in that two weeks and I really hope I can cover most of the highlights. I was suppose to leave the day after Christmas but due to a medivac from Pole, flights were changed around. It looked like I was never going to make it by New Years since priority was not given to Pole flights. However a flight got canceled on Friday and we were back on the schedule. While taxing down the runway, we ran into an electrical issue that was corrected by “rebooting” the plane. I guess that works on more than just computers. So, on the 28th I made it to Pole. However I started to get a bout of the “McM Crud” and going to the high altitude Pole didn’t help me out. I didn’t take the altitude drugs since I was fighting the crud but I seemed to adapt well.
Going into the station is a challenge for someone new to the pole. The new station is elevated to help reduce the effects of snow drifts but this requires you to walk up two flights of stairs. When you are already oxygen deprived, this becomes a great workout.
The first day of work went well. They said they were going to take it easy on me since it was my first work day at altitude, but I found myself short of breath by 3pm. The first task was to help run a cable from the new station out to the HF antenna tower. For this we pulled the cable through a trench, and then down a 40’ ladder to the ice tunnels under the station. These tunnels are used for the movement of water and waste to and from the station. Adjacent to the station are “Rodwells” which are big pockets melted into the ice. The water is collected from the well and pumped to the station. After the pocket gets too big to be effective, they switch to the next Rodwell. The old “pocket” is then used for human waste which gives the tunnels a great smell.
After dinner that first night, Matt (a Janitor form McM) and I headed out to the Pole to take some pictures. In the reflection of the ball you can see the new elevated station and the old Dome. The dome is going to be torn down next year and has already been gutted. On Sunday Matt and I went on a tour of the tunnels and got to see some of the weird things under the station like the pig head and sturgeon above. To go into the tunnels we must first check out with comms and report who is going and when we will be back. There are even video cameras in the tunnels to help document who goes in. This is a safety precaution to make sure everyone comes back.
We were in the tunnels for about 1hr and it was very cold in there. The temp is about -60F which will chill you off very quickly. You can tell by the ice on my head that the tunnels are not a place you would want to get lost.
On Sunday night we had a New Years party (even though it wasn’t new years yet) and the gym was transformed into a ballroom. There were three bands that played and each was fun. Since I still had the crud I decided I wasn’t going to drink. Well that didn’t last long and I found out that the effects of altitude makes me a lightweight.
Pole has a great little greenhouse that smells amazing. Monique is one of my new co-workers and one of her part-time jobs is to run the greenhouse. The number of cucumbers she picked a couple days after this picture was incredible. The other great thing about the greenhouse besides the smells and fresh veggies is the humidity. Everything here is dry and my hands and lips are cracking and bleeding. Going into the greenhouse rejuvenates the skin. I spent Monday in here playing cribbage with one of the fuelies.
I spent the true New Years at the geographic SP with some friends and some new acquaintances. A guy there had a GPS that counted down till the New Year for us. Since we had to work the next day, the celebration didn’t last long and it was off to bed.
The next day of work was with the fire tech Joey-T again working on the HF radio. We had to finish running the cable from the tunnels into the station. For this a Ditch Which was used to dig our trench. I am still amazed at some of the equipment that was flown in here.
After dinner that night on January 1st, there was the ceremonial moving of the pole marker. Each year the winter-over crew designs and makes a new pole maker. Since the glacier that the station sits on is moving, the pole marker must be moved in order to mark the true pole. Each start of the new year, a new marker is placed at the new location found by high tech GPS units. Looking at the old markers, I can see that the pole is moving about 10-15’ a year. This means that in another 10-20 years, the pole will be right over the dome. Next to the true geographic pole is the ceremonial pole. This is the barbershop looking pole with the reflective ball on top.
One thing to note is that the crime rate down here is horrible. You can’t park your van or tractor in the wrong part of the station or who knows what will happen.
At Pole Sean (another GA from McM) and I got to work with the heavy carps. These guys are the iron workers of the South Pole. Typically GA’s do the clean up and gopher type tasks. However this day Sean and I got to help Bob build some of the new arch (will be used as a place to build cargo pallets). Sean and I got to learn how to use all kinds of new tools but the coolest by far was the cutting torch. In the afternoon, Bob was so impressed with our skills that he moved on to another task and let Sean and I continue with the knee wall. Working with iron and steel is fun, but at the South Pole it makes your fingers very cold.
Daiquiri night was a blast. Rick, one of the heavy carps, organized a daiquiri party with a wide range of tasty drinks. As a side party we watched “The Thing.” This is a great movie about aliens in Antarctica but we didn’t believe it showed the true life down here with the large amount of drinking they did in the movie ;).
Saturday night was a night at the drive in at the big gym. For this a big screen was put up, popcorn was made and people dragged in couches, chairs, mattresses, and blankets to watch Indian Jones and Star Wars. I only watched the first movie, but it was entertaining to have people come by each “car” and give out free Jello shots. It was also funny when halfway through the movie the emergency exit door to the gym opened and ~12 people came in half dressed in their ECW. They all lined up in front of the screen with their backs facing us and dropped their pants and mooned. Then they all filed out as we clapped and went back to watching the movie. Just another normal night at the South Pole.
Sean and I one day took a quick break from work and wandered into the Dome. This is the old station that will be torn down next year. So far all the structures have been removed from the inside area and is now used for food storage.
While staying here I have had the experience of living in “summer camp.” It has made me feel like living in a MASH unit. From the picture above you can understand why. These are old military Jamesways. They are warm and I have my own “room” and even have a window. Sound travels very easily in here as I learned the first day when my neighbor went to use his “P” bottle.
I don’t fully understand some of the science here, but two of the major projects include Ice Cube and South Pole Telescope. For Ice Cube, scientists are using doms (pictured top) to study neutrinos (subatomic particles). Ice Cube is drilling 86, 2.5km holes and putting 60 doms down each holes. Each dom cost about $8,000-$15,000. The total project is estimated at about $260 million. SPT (pictured bottom) is being used to view far off galaxies and the beginning of time, or something like that. They are still trying to get it up and running and work out all the bugs.
Since being here we have had many visitors. Most exciting to me was the South Pole Traverse People showed up on the 8th. If you remember, a few months ago I got to help this team load their food for the long trek here. Well they made it and now they only have to make the trip back home. We have also had a number of people ski to the pole. Trips take anywhere from 8-60 days depending on where they start from. For some reason I don’t think this sounds like fun. I remember as a kid being taught to look both ways before crossing the road. Well, at the South Pole you are taught to look both ways before crossing the landing strip. On either side of the runway there is this sign and a red beacon to help inform you when a plane is landing or taking off. It works similar to a railroad crossing.
After two weeks of fun at Pole it was time to come back to McM. Originally I was going to be the only passenger on my flight but due to bad weather in McM everything was changed around. The flight I left on was a medivac flight for a guy that broke his angle. From the airfield in McM he got to take a helicopter ride into town. Due to the weather delay and the medivac, we didn’t get back to town until 0415 this morning. It made for a long night, but the good news is that I get today off.
The best part about being away is when I got back I had a ton of mail! Thank you everyone for everything. I am truly the luckiest person on earth, even if it no longer revolves around me.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas Everyone! Before I forget, tomorrow (Christmas Day for those of you back home), I'll be headed to the South Pole for two weeks. This means there is limited Internet access so the blog will not be updated while I'm gone. This also means that emailing will be limited and therefore don't expect me to write back (although I'm not very good at that anyway :)

These are two of my friends, Terry and Betty. Betty is a Yankees fan so sometimes we don't share the same opinions. The wonderful people below are Dave and Chelsea. These were the first two people I ran into at the Denver Airport on the way here.

The party on Sunday nigh was a ton of fun. I had to work on Sunday and after which I quickly ate dinner and then volunteered washing dishes in the Galley (so the Galley staff could make it to the party). I may have had a little too much to "fun", but I fit right in with the rest of the people there. It is amazing that we could transform an 8 bay garage into a large party hall. Santa even came to the party and I heard a rumor today that he to had a little too much fun and may be getting sent home (he's on the naughty list). I hope Mrs. Claus doesn't find out.

On Monday I went up to Arrival Heights with Brian, Bamma, and Megan. This section of town is off limits, but Brain works there and needed to check some of the equipment. It was a beautiful day and we could see Erebus smoking in the background. I have many more great pictures, but it takes way too long to upload them to the blog.

This is Brian hard at work. I told him to push some buttons so I could take a picture and he assured me he was going to have to push a lot of buttons. His job looks very cool.

Monday night was our big Christmas Dinner. I had to rush through it because I adopted my roommate the DA (Dinning Attendant) for an hour. This meant that he could skip work for an hour as I did his job. He truly appreciated it. However, before I left, I grabbed a tray full of King Crab Legs. Wow they were good. I ate most of them on Christmas day as a snack.

Also for Christmas I made my roommates stockings. I stuffed socks I grabbed out of SKUA (free thrift store) and filled them with all kinds of cool things I found in the trash one day working at the waste barn. I know it sounds weird, but they really appreciated it and there is a lot of fun stuff in the trash here.

Once again, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year!

Operation Tiger Strike

Operation Tiger Strike was a success! We were on the ground for 70min (10min over our allotted time) but we not only completed what we were suppose to, but also completed half of the work the third team was suppose to do. We could have been back on the plane in an hour, but we had to mess around and take pictures for 10 mins. Our take-off was so smooth that we made it in one attempt and we saved so much fuel that we didn't have to go to pole (not so good). Our takeoff took a total of 7 miles and we finally left the ground with a little help from the JATO (Jet Assisted Take Off). Since we only have one set of JATO on the plane, I'm glad it worked the first time because if it didn't, we would have been stuck there. This is the tent after we finished setting it up. There is a plywood box floor on top of leveled footer. Then there are arches that are all pieced together and put up. Next "blankets" are put over the structure and secured into place. Deadmen lock it down to the snow as seen by the lines in the picture by peoples feet.
This is a little view of what things looked like right before we left. It's weird to think that scientists are going to study a mountain range in a place that is so flat (the mountains are under the snow).
Between the star and the "New Your Air Guard" sign are the four JATO bottles. There are four on each side and burn all at once for a total of 8 seconds.
To help with the takeoff, we needed to get all the weight we could into the back of the plane. For this we had 7 people cargo strapped to the back ramp. I guess technically these people came back as "Cargo."

Just after we took off, we found out we had enough fuel to make it back to McM and that we were not going to Pole. At this point, I pulled out my tiger suit from Halloween and ran around the plane to cheer people up. I don't think it worked but I did see a couple smiles. One of the NYANG guys came up to me and said "there are a lot of strange people on this plane!" Remember, this is all in the name of science.

This week we all have to work on Sunday (7 day work week) because we get Monday and Tuesday off for the holiday. It will be a nice break having two days off in a row. Merry Christmas everyone!

Boomeranged

Well, the first try to AGAP was boomeranged. This means that after we sat on the plane for 2.5 hours we were told we were headed back home. Well we first continued the 30 min to AGAP to buzz the two tents already set up. We were boomeranged because the weather at the Pole was bad. Pole weather needs to be good because as I mentioned before after we set up our tent for an hour and then try to take off, we will need to fly to the pole to get fuel to come back to McMurdo. Thus if weather at Pole is bad enough that we can't land, we don't have enough fuel to make it back home and everyone has a bad day.

While on the flight we had plenty of time to have fun. I took a few hour nap on a bunch of cargo before trying to fly a broom around.

Ben pretended to drive this snow machine around. Ben and his wife Gretchen life just down the road from a former girlfriend of mine in Anchorage plus Gretchen knows my good friend Shawna Compton (what a small world).

On the way back I watched out the window to see the Trans Antarctic Mountains. I have to say it was amazing. I happened to get a shot of Mount Discovery which meant we were almost back home.

When we transitioned from the Ice Shelf to Ross Island, the road was blocked by two ambulances. I guess an ANG (Air National Guard) guy was having some health issues. They were transferring him from one ambulance to the other (one was from one of the air fields while the other was from town). After they took off we caught the ambulance on the way back to town when the transmission died going up the hill by Scott Base. They asked if we could tow them back with our Delta. Since this seemed like a bad idea and we already had one hurt guy, we radioed it in and continued on. Well, another day at the office and we were back home. We'll try again when the weather clears.

No Life Guard On Duty

Okay I have been really bad about updating this blog, but I hope to be a little better as the next few weeks will get exciting. First off, I have not made it to A-Gap yet, but I hear that we may fly tomorrow, this means I'll start the drugs tonight. The past week was laid back. A couple good gatherings and some fun movies, but nothing over the top.

I did manage to go swimming last week. We are not suppose to do this, but I just had to. I was out helping take down the penguin ranch since the sea ice is starting to melt. We were taking a brake when I noticed these great holes (that were used by the penguins) just sitting there only being used by seals. So I talked Meghan into jointing me for a little swim. We stripped down to our underwear, tied a rope around our waist, and jumped in. I have to say, this water was very cold about 29F. After I got in, these two guys helping break down wanted to pull me out, but my head had not gone under yet. So I sucked in and went down. When I came up, they pulled me out. The rest of the day was fun with salt water soaking into the cuts on my legs from the sides of the hole.

On the way into town, we saw Shuttle Joe stuck at the transition (land to sea) in Ivan the Terra Bus. Meghan tried to push him out, but no luck (little joke). With the warm weather, the roads are starting to melt away.

This weekend was the Women's Soiree. It was a ton of fun with live music, skits, poems... I tried taking pictures, but it was to dark and the flash didn't work at the distance. However the picture above is of everyone waiting to get in.

Have a great week and thank you John, Lynne, Linda, Dad, Brian, Kimmy, and Ella for the X-mas presents, it is killing me not to open them. I did send stuff off in the mail, but we'll see how long it takes to get them back home.

Coach or Cargo

Sorry no pictures for this post. I just wanted to tell everyone about operation Tiger Strike. This is a mission to put in a field camp at high altitude. Next week team 1 will fly to A-Gap on a LC-130, land for an hour, set up a tent and return home. Day two, team two (that's me) will also fly to A-Gap and set up half of a more complicated tent. Since we will run low on fuel, we will fly to the pole to get more gas to return back to MCM. I guess this is the first of this type of mission and there is finally a real sense of danger. They will have us all on high altitude drugs to prevent us from getting sick. They will carry O2 for us and one person is dedicated to just watching over the others. If someone does get sick, they mission is aborted and we leave immediately.

This is going to be true Antarctica and I'm looking forward to the risk associated with the adventure. This week we were had a safety meeting and did a few dry runs of the tent setup. During the safety meeting we were told everything would be fine if we do things right. However if we mess up, we would be coming back in cargo instead of coach (a little humor). I'm hoping I'll get some good pictures, but with the nature of the work and the temperature, I'm not sure I'll be able to. There is a lot of talk around town about this project and some think it is foolish while others think it will be a piece of cake. Who knows, but I'll get paid for an 11 hour day to work for an hour :)

Nothing But Fun And Games

Okay, I haven't sent any post cards out yet, but I am over half way done filling them in and each one has a personal (not a form) note. I hope to get them in the mail before the end of this week so they make it back by X-mas. I've spent about an hour the past few nights working on them.

Last Friday I woke up to see it snowing out. It is amazing that for a place covered in snow, it doesn't really snow all that often. I was headed out to LDB (a site about 8 miles from town), so I made snow angels as I waited for the bus.

I worked with Ann out at LDB until about 1pm when the bus came to pick up all the beakers (scientists). The weather forecast said there was going to change to condition 1 (really bad weather), so everyone wanted to get back to town before the weather hit. In condition 1 all travel is prohibited. Well Ann, Ben, and I stayed out at LDB and risked the weather that never came. At one point Ann (who skied to the South Pole back in the early 90's) asked Ben and I to "test" all the snowmobiles out. Boy it was hard work, but someone had to do it.

Friday night I was able to get on a boondoggle out to Cape Evans. This is the site that both Scott and Shackleton have used. The last historical event there was captured in one of the books I read, Shackleton's Forgotten Men. It was really cool to step into history like this. I could feel the events of the story I had read. Another way of describing it is to imagine what it would be like to walk through the halls of Hogwarts (yeah, that cool).
On the way there, we spotted three Adelie Penguins sitting next to the road. We all got out of the Delta (our big bus like thing) and took pictures of the funny looking birds. After about 10 minutes we decided to get back into the warmth of the delta and head on. Well the funny little birds immediately wanted to become friendly and came running after us. So everyone stopped, dropped to their knees and stomachs, and the little birds ran up to us and did all kinds of cute things so we could take pictures. After another 10min they got bored with us and decided to move along.

Inside the Hut there was all kinds of things left behind by Shackleton's crew.

Saturday was a fun filled day with FSTP. We "had" to go out to the pressure ridges in front of Scott Base (Kiwi Base) to flag a safe route around the ridges for snowmobiles. While we were out there we saw Fleet Ops moving all the airfield buildings from the ice runway out to Willey Field. It's amazing that in one day they can move a whole airport. Just after leaving the pressure ridges, Thai and I had an interesting moment on the Sea Ice. I was ridding behind him in the trailer when we suddenly stopped with a big crash. We had fallen through a melt pool. Water forms on top of the ice and then freezes. Then after the top freezes the water drained out leaving a nice hidden hole for us to zoom over. Well, I guess I've been eating too much food down here because it was the trailer, not the snowmobile that fell through. However by the time we were done messing around with it, everything had fallen in and it took a lot of time and muscle to pull it out (it was fun though).

After flagging, we headed out to Turtle rock to profile a crack. I mentioned back when I first got hear how to profile a crack, but it involved us drilling five holes across the cracked area. We go down 1 meter at a time adding another flight to the drill as we go. You can see in the picture Matt with the drill and Erebus in the background. In the center of the crack we hit water at 4meters. Yes, that is a lot of ice and it was safe for us to be out there. We ended up coming home on a rarely traveled land route which added much excitement to the day.

Sunday, a day of rest (yeah right). I woke up and headed to church. Church here is kind of fun and it's a nice way to start the day. After church I ate brunch and got ready for the big race. This was a Cyclo-cross race. Rec (department) just got a bunch of new bikes and what a great way to break them in then by racing them. To make it more fun, we had to dress up in funny costumes.

The course was short, but we had to run to the chapel and back, carry our bikes over steps, bike to the top of a hill, do push ups, then the fun part. Just before the end of the course, there was a flight of stairs. Rec suggested that we walk our bikes down the stairs as they egged us on to ride it. Well I made it safely down the stairs but not everyone did. This is a great pictures I got off the I:Drive.

Here is a picture of a seal I saw today out at the penguin ranch with an Antarctic Tooth Fish. It was in one of the dive holes in a hut. Just coming up to say hi, take a breath of air, and show us his fish.

Alright, time for me to get back to the postcards!