Deep freeze: 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!!