Polar expeditions

Today’s blog is dedicated to some pretty inspiring people: first, Hannah McKeand. She just broke the “unsupported skier to South Pole speed record.” She skied over 600 miles, finishing in just under 40 days. The previous record was 42 days (the three fastest times are all held by women). Its hard, even for me who has been here at the Pole, to imagine what those days must have been like. She skied for 12 hours a day, for 39 days, dragging her sled across the most inhospitable landscape on this planet. All alone. No re-supplies. No human contact. Very inspiring. And she is very fun to talk to also; she has a great sense of humor. You can read more about her here.

Also at Pole are an expedition of 4 chaps from the British Royal Marines and Royal Navy. These guys skied about the same distance, but in 47 days. They were also very cool to talk to. Because they were not after the speed record, they took a somewhat more leisurely pace. They also took alot more pics (2000 as opposed to Hanna's 13!) and some video that is going to air on Discovery and National Geographic. Their sleds weighed about 200 pounds when they started. Imagine pulling a 150 pound sled for 47 days, in the freezing cold. These guys brought people here at Pole down to earth. A friend of mine who wintered over was talking about how you can be emailing someone telling them its -100 F outside and you think you are all hardcore but you are sitting at a desk in your room in your underwear. Well, these guys, and Hanna especially, are the real deal…

Pole is actually quite crowded…another expedition from the Indian Navy rolled in yesterday…they “only” skied the last two degrees, about 97 miles. They were quite a large team of 11 members. The interesting thing though, is that most of them were novices at this kind of thing, and quite young (one of the guys was only 20). Their leader though was quite tough…he’s summited Everest 3 times and has climbed 6 of the 7 highest on each continent.

So, even today, getting to the Pole is still enough of a challenge that countries and militaries view it as something to do to instill national pride (or for whatever reason they do it). Hey, I claim I do it for the science, but is that really more justifiable than those who do it for the adventure?

Christmas festivities at Pole

Christmas at Pole is quite memorable. I might have mentioned how good the food here at Pole is…well on Christmas day the cooking staff goes all out. It is sort of a tradition—you can read accounts from the earliest expeditions about cooks who went to great lengths to make sure Christmas dinner was something to write home about.

Since almost everyone here wears the same drab coveralls and ECW gear, any chance to dress up is taken full opportunity of. I don’t know if I should say “dress up”, because some of the outfits that were on display should have been left in the closet…

Anyway, back to the food…the main course was Beef Wellington, asparagus, and crab legs. There were also all kinds of dessert (Jake the Baker had warned people to wear clothing with elastic waistbands), wine, snacks, salads etc. It was quite a feast. For hors devours we had several shrimp and salmon dishes.

Since most everyone had Christmas day off, apart from the usual festivities (caroling, etc), there was the annual Race around the World. This is a 2 mile race around the South Pole. Factor in the altitude (~11,000 feet), the temperature (-40 F windchills), and the extreme dryness of the air, and you have quite a challenge. The fastest time ever is slightly under 10 minutes, which is amazing.

The winning time this year was slightly over 15 minutes. I placed 45^th out of about 65 who actually ran/walked the race, with a time of 35 minutes. I walked 2 laps and ran 1 lap; last time I walked 1 lap and ran 2 laps, so I guess the years are catching up with me!! Every breath felt like I was inhaling flames that were burning my air passages all the way into my lungs. I was panting and gasping for breath after only a couple steps. Most people don’t even bother running…I think only about 20 people ran the entire course. Like most things down here, anything goes…there were people skiing, some on ski-doos, some on couches being pulled behind tractors. The race is a great time for people to be ingenious, and I think IceCube topped it off this year…they put together a portable shower, hitched it up behind a tractor, and some dude did the race while taking a shower!!

I wonder how he felt when he stepped out of the shower into -40 degrees…

Looks like Santa’s “sleigh”, with Dr McEwen (in jeans) bumming a ride…

This is me after the race…

And just in case you thought I was lying about the weather:

Airdrop

The big excitement the other day was an airdrop by the C-17. An airdrop is when a plane drops supplies/packages etc without landing. Airdrops by the C-130 are pretty common but there has never been an airdrop by the C-17. There are several reasons why the USAF wanted to make a drop with the C-17, chiefly because it is a new, computerized system that has never been tested before. All previous drops were computed and executed by the navigator but computers have done away with the navigator.

Airdrops are absolutely essential in the polar winter, because once the station closes in February, no planes can land or take off until October. So, the station is totally isolated from the outside world for 9 months. Nothing and nobody can leave the station and the only way the station can get emergency supplies is by airdrops, which are not without danger: the extreme cold affects the airplanes, it is pitch dark outside so there are no visual navigation aides, and obviously, the plane cannot land in case of an emergency.

One of the most dramatic airdrops occurred in 1999, when there was a physician wintering over at Pole who discovered she had breast cancer. With no way to evacuate her for a couple months and with her cancer spreading rapidly, the USAF made an emergency airdrop of medical supplies and the physician was able to perform a biopsy on herself…she had some help from doctors in the States who were viewing the whole operation on closed-circuit TV.

Anyway, the USAF decided to practice a drop with the C-17 in case they ever have to make a real one in the winter. It was quite an impressive sight…the C-17 is huge, and to see it flying so low to the ground is quite impressive. Then the rear hatch opened up and about six pallets popped out, each of them with a bunch of parachutes.

Although it was only a practice run (some non-essential supplies were dropped), people were whooping and cheering as if we were stranded on some desert wasteland and the plane had dropped some life-saving supplies. It doesn't take much to get people here excited...

It was all good, though. In total, 4 each 16 foot pallets weighing about 17,000 lbs. each were dropped, for a total drop weight of 68,500 lbs (almost 30 tons).

The Kiwi (New Zealand) cargo loaders wrote us messages on some of the pallets...Kiwis are among the coolest people I've met.

Adios for now....

Dispatch from Pole

So, I’ve been at Pole exactly a week and this is about the first chance I’ve had to write. I've been busy with work and getting adjusted. I didn’t sleep well the first couple nights: Pole is so high (on average about 10,500 feet) and so dry that it is very difficult to breathe, because the air has very little oxygen. At night, when you respiration slows down, it is even harder to get enough oxygen. Because of an unusual low pressure system, they have had to medivac 7 people out of here in the last ten days…all 7 were suffering from altitude sickness.

Anyway, I got assigned a pretty sweet room in the new station, but the guy next door was a horrible snorer and one night I did not get a wink of sleep so I requested to get moved, and now I’m in a much smaller room but at least I can sleep at night.

Work is coming along ok…I am basically done with the calibrations and waiting on Stephen, he gets here today and we are going to start on the computers which should keep us occupied for the next week or two.

I haven’t had much time to take pics around the station, but here are a couple…

This is the ARO (Atmospheric Research Observatory) where our instruments are located. It is about a 6-8 minute walk from the station. That does not sound like a long walk but believe you me when you get there the first thing you do is sit down for a few minutes and catch your breath. We share the building with NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), even though our research doesn't have that much in common with what NOAA studies. Because of the clout NOAA has, they have established the entire area upwind of the building as the "Clean air sector." No human activity is allowed in the entire area upwind of the building, all the way to the coast, many thousands of miles away. Basically, what this means is that the wind that blows across the building is the cleanest, purest and least polluted air on the planet. The air that NOAA samples here is a baseline against which all the air on the planet is compared against. In this next picture I am pretending to be a NOAA technician and getting some air samples of the cleanest air on earth. I usually am wearing lots more clothing, but since I was only out for less than a minute, I didn't get fully dressed.


I got seven vials of the cleanest air on earth (CO2 concentration 379.44 parts per million)...start bidding folks...this is premium air!!

Anyway, I don't have any pics of our instruments or of me doing what I was actually sent down here to do...here is a pic of the skylab (the orange building) where our instruments were before they were move to ARO last year. Skylab is now shut down...it was getting old and rickety.


The dome is what was the old station. Many people are sad that the dome is soon to be decommissioned. It was built in the 1970's and many people are attached to it. The new station is on the right...its nice but doesn't have character like the dome. By the way, one of the reasons they are building the new station is because snow accumulation has buried the dome. Can you believe that the top of the dome was 75 feet above ground level when it was first built? Now it is only about 10-15 feet above the ground. Surprisingly, it snows very little at Pole (we mostly get ice crystals as precipitation), but the wind blows tonnes of snow across the continent, and any time the wind comes across an obstacle (in this case any man made structure), the snow gets deposited, hence the 60 feet of deposited snow around the dome. Why doesn't someone just dig it up, you ask? The problem is that it accumulates too fast, and eventually even the new station, which is built on jacks, will eventually also get snowed in. More later...

McMurdo to Pole

OK, so were off to Pole today. If we get there today this will be about the fastest I've heard of anyone getting there from the States (5 days). BTW, they found my bags the day before we left CHC.

Only the C-130s fly to Pole, and they are loud, slow, vibrate like crazy, and uncomfortable. The "seats" are actually netting.


However, they are bulletproof and one of the few planes you'd want to be flying to Pole. The view is pretty boring until you start crossing the Trans-Antarctic mountains, then it is simply incredible. As always, I asked if I could go up onto the flight deck and they agreed...I got some great pics but they still don't do the scenery any justice...

These pics give you an idea of how thick the ice is in Antarctica. The mountains are, on average, about 12-15,000 feet high, and only the upper 2-3,000 feet stick through the ice. Do the math...



The following are pics of the mighty Beardmore glacier, the largest glacier in the world. It is over 100 miles long and over 25 miles wide at its widest point!!

Blog too long

Somebody complained that I was being "too chatty"...lol...how about you don't read the blog if you don't want to :)
I am attempting to both keep up a blog and have it double as my journal, so, it is bound to be long...anyway, I won't bore you with more of my chattiness, here are some pics instead

ECW clothing that you have to be wearing on the ice flight




Suiting up...it gets hot real quick



The inside of the C-17. I found it as enjoyable, if not moreso, than coach on a commercial airline. The C-130 though, is a totally different matter...


The C-17 Globemaster...it is too big to use skis so they have to land on a special ice runway that is on the permanent ice shelf about 45 minutes outside McMurdo


Transport from the ice runway into town. Wonder how this ride would look with some rims and spinners on it...



Some pics from just outside of town...the only thing McMurdo is good for (IMHO) is the pics...otherwise I really don't like the place too much...

Technical difficulties

There is something about this blog that computers don't like...I have made three posts that haven't showed up...hopefully I will get this remedied soon...

Don't know what was up with that previous post...

The flight from Auckland to CHC was uneventful. At CHC we were met by Nikki, who gave us the spiel and our packets. It turns out I was the only one staying at the Outrigger. From our flight, only two peeps were staying at the Commodore, and everyone else was staying downtown. I didn't mind as long as it wasn't too isolated, which it turned out to be. The Outrigger was actually some sort of golf resort, quite swanky and with very well manicured lawns. There were apartments, terraces, and rooms, and all of them were on lakes. My room was on one of the bigger lakes and had an awesome view across the lake to the Southern Alps. I have no idea how they manage to charge the same as the Commodore, which is nice, but nowhere close to this place. I took some pics of my room and the view but they got saved to the internal memory and so I can't get them off till I get back. Anyway, you can go here to see pics of the resort.

We'd agreed to meet up with Don (Dr McEwen) at around 3 pm at the Antarctic complex. I wanted to shoot some emails and check up on my baggage. The hotel had a comp shuttle which was good because it was quite far from the airport. No word yet on my bags, they hadn't even located them! This was quite bumming. Time is always short at Pole and if I didn't get my bags in the next couple days, I'd have to call Stephen, tell him to bring some backup equipment, and I'd have to go buy some new clothes, gear, toiletries, etc (I was surviving in the one change of clothing I'd packed in my carry on!). I'd also have to get my flights re-routed (they have me scheduled out on the Wednesday flight, day after tomorrow), which is bound to be a pain.

While we were chilling at the Antarctic center, all of a sudden it turned insanely windy. Chairs and stuff at the restaurant were being blown around, and peeps were like grabbing on to railings and stuff. Don and I asked one of the locals at the bus stop and he said this had been going on for weeks, and had caused some heavy rains in the Alps. He also said this was normal for CHC this time of the year, even though neither of us ever remembered it being this windy. We caught the bus downtown (7 $NZ!), and got off right at Cathedral square, which is in the center of CHC's
tourist district. I took some more pics of the cathedral and the ghastly blue statue-thing, even though I have enough pics of it anyway. Stopping by the info center, we grabbed some brochures on places to eat. There is a huge Asian presence in NZ, and it reflects in the restaurants: lots of Thai, Indian, Burmese, Chinese places to eat at. They also have the ubiquitous McD, BK, KFC, and also Subway. We settled on one Indian place that was right in the middle of the square. Both of us had lamb curries, which were quite good. I didn't think I was going to finish mine, but Don ate so slowly that I got hungry enough again to finish mine off. I still don't know if he ate slowly or if I am just used to eating quickly (thank goodness it wasn't Levavie!!)

Right next to the restaurant was Base Backpackers, which seemed to be the happening hostel for the backpacker crowd. It seemed a little expensive (NZ $28 = US $24) for a dorm room and US $60 for a private room. Hostels in Europe are way cheaper. That, and its close proximity to the "saints and sinners bar" made me think it was probably not the quietest or best hostel around. After eating, Don wanted to head back but I needed to stick around for the shuttle back to the hotel, which had pickups at 8:30 and 11:30. I walked around downtown and was kind of surprised how early everything was shutting down. I also went to the Signature Travel place to find out where it was so I could go back tomorrow and check out my options for some travel after coming back from the ice. I still need to find out if Tahiti is do-able. NTS: all the good restaurants are on Colombo--left from Cathedral Square.

After chilling in a park watching some ducks in the river I headed over to the Holy Grail (I still remembered my bearings from last time) and chilled out for the shuttle. Like he'd warned me, Ryo was late. I'd planned on getting some work done in the evening but the jet-lag was catching up with me, but the bed was so warm and fluffy and inviting. It was pretty cold outside (low 50's), and they had this complicated system complete with a remote control...I figured out how to turn on the ac but not the heat but it was all good coz the bed was heated. I fell asleep praying that they would get my luggage tomorrow.

Phew! What a day.

Got ~ 4 hours of sleep. The cab people, even after calling them 2 days in advance and requesting a van because of the size of my box, sent a car. So we had to wrestle and manhandle it into the trunk. Daytona airport, as always, was a pleasure to fly out of. There were no lines at all. My box was three and a half pounds over the limit (70 lbs) and Delta actually made me repack it. So I made a show of moving stuff around and got it down to 71.5 and they were happy. Still doesn’t beat the time we were atleast 10-15 pounds over the limit and Lisandro propped up the scale with his foot and the scale showed that we were under the limit.

Raytheon (the company contracted to provide logistic support for the National Science Foundation) sure know how to take care of their own. I was on a first class ticket to Atalnta. Not that it mattered much, the flight was only 1 hour long. I remember last time I went down to Antarctica, they flew me first class from Atlanta to Los Angeles. I asked Dr Azeem (assistant director of SPRL, and on the same flight on his way to a conference in San Francisco) about it, and he said it was cheaper for Raytheon to buy a block of first class tickets than coach tickets. It makes no sense to me but I am not complaining! In Atl, after grabbing lunch with Dr Azeem, I got a pleasant surprise when, boarding the flight to Los Angeles, I got bumped to first class again. First class is pretty sweet. When the peeps in coach we eating peanuts and orange juice, I was throwing down a hot meal of some chicken dish. The flight attendants hovered around incessantly. The seats were almost as comfortable as a sofa. Plus, I had my own video screen with a huge selection of movies. I’d planned to sleep on the leg to LA but I figured that would be a waste of my time in first class hehehe…don’t know the next time I’ll be up here again…

Man, I thought Atlanta was a maze of an airport, but it turns out LAX is even worse. It was large, crowded and dirty. I was so glad I did not have to reclaim and check my bags again, like I did last time. Otherwise, I doubt I’d have made my flight. Either way, the Qantas flight to Auckland was delayed and did not leave until almost 10 p.m (scheduled departure was 8:30) . Met up with Dr Mcewen, a long time friend and associate of Dr Sivjee, who teaches in Saskatchewan, Canada, and who was going down to Pole with me. Stephen, the other guy from SPRL who is going down, was not able to get a flight until Dec 17^th, by which time I should be getting to Pole. We share lab space at Pole with Dr Mcewen, and collaborate on a lot of experiments.

I was able to get some decent sleep on the airplane. I was in coach, in more familiar surroundings lol. Atleast I had a window. The couple next to me got switched to an exit row and I was happy because I thought I was gonna have the whole row to myself so I could stretch out and lie down but some lady had to come and take the aisle seat! No worries though, I still managed to sleep about 8 of the 13 hours, and the other 5 I was either eating or watching a movie, so the flight wasn't that bad after all. I was right above the wing and was once again awed by the size of the 747 wing. It is huge! It is also quite scary looking at the wing flexing and the wingtips bouncing up and down in the wind.

I was kind of bleary eyed when they woke us up for breakfast, but it was worth it: the sunrise over the pacific was incredible!! The sky was a riot of reds and purples and yellows, all floating on a billowing sea of puffy white clouds. Sometimes its almost worth flying just for the views you get of the sky (and earth) from up top.

I don't know where they trained those Qantas pilots, but boy they set that 747 down as light as a feather in Auckland. I had less than two hours to claim my bags, go through customs (always a nightmare with all the equipment we carry), and check in for the next flight to CHC (Christchurch), so I was all booking from the plane and all, but it turns out I would ahve been better off taking my sweet time: they lost my bags somewhere between Atlanta and Auckland!!! Wow. Talk about a sinking feeling! I think I'll continue this tomorrow, seeing as this entry is getting kind of long. Plus I have to go downtown and get some food...

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Flight times: DAB to ATL: 1 hr, ATL to LAX: 5 hr, LAX to AUC: 13 hr, AUK to CHC: 1:30, total time including transits, 29 hours

Umm...hello...
Ok, so if you know me pretty well you might know I am not the biggest fan of blogs. But I decided to go ahead and write one anyone, simply so that anyone interested might get an idea of what my experiences for the next month + are going to be like.

In case you haven't heard, I will be going to the South Pole. My journey starts, um, tomorrow...actually today. This is my second time going down. A question I get alot is "whats it like down there?" I should answer "Its like nothing you've ever seen before" but I usually don't. However, it is like nothing you have ever seen before. To try and begin to desribe Antarctica would be like asking Neil Armstrong what walking on the moon felt like. Life in Antarctica defies description. Mine is by far not the first blog. You can use "the google" to find a myriad of Antarctic blogs. Drew Turner went down last year and wrote one, and he also did some extensive travelling after the trip, so there is some good stuff in his blog. Anyway, back to my main point...I don't have the time/space/desire to go into much background detail on Antarctica. You can find some of that here: CIA handbook ("the coldest, windiest, highest (on average), and driest continent; during summer, more solar radiation reaches the surface at the South Pole than is received at the Equator in an equivalent period; mostly uninhabitable"), and here: every college student's favorite webpage, wikiwiki ("Although this and the other pictures in this article show interesting features, a "typical" picture of Antarctica would show nothing but a flat white snowfield.")

Anyway, since I am still at work and need to go home, do laundry, pack, get my stuff straightened out at home, get some sleep, and get to the the airport, all in the next eleven hours, I will sign off here. Adios!!