I hope you all are having a nice holiday and solstice season: not too much stress. In keeping with my solstice letter tradition (which I’m not keeping this year), here is the crucial information I'm sure you've been eagerly awaiting:
Winter solstice occurs on December 21st for those in the Cascades and Sierras, at 11:04pm. For those in the Rockies, it’s on the 22nd at 12:04am. Rejoice in the Return of the Light and the Rebirth of the Sun!
I’ve made it to the South Pole. As we left for our flight here, on the infamous military cargo plane: LC-130 (ski equipped), they thought we might have to boomerang because of the weather at Pole. However, we had enough fuel to fly circles over Pole for an hour to see if the weather would break before we’d have to fly the 3 hours back: the boomerang. Lucky we were.
Upon arrival here we were supposed to switch to a smaller plane to head out to one of the Automated Geophysical Observatory sites that very same afternoon. Anyone with polar experience will immediately recognize that as a plan to, uh, not to be counted upon. That was 3 days ago. We are scheduled to fly this afternoon if the weather at the site clears up and stays clear here. The weather here is fine now.The South Pole is an interesting place. Culturally, at least.
Biologically, it’s not a place. Geographically it’s windy flat white snow surrounded by hundreds and hundreds (or more) square miles of more windy flat white snow. The only difference is that when you stand there, suddenly you are no longer spinning around the Earth’s axis. Because we evolved being used to spinning, we don’t recognize that we are. Those who actually felt it were driven crazy long before they were able to reproduce so their genes did not perpetuate. When you stand on the precise pole you are actually NOT spinning, so the balance function in your brain that cancels out the spin nowmakes you think you are indeed spinning. This makes you dizzy so you have to step back onto the spinning part of our dear planet to not feel like you’re spinning. Odd phenomenon.*
Culturally this place is more what one might expect of Antarctica. It makes McMurdo look like Seattle. There’s the old station: the huge geodesic dome, housing smaller buildings which appear to be little more than modified, orange truck containers (the ones you see on the interstate). It’s the classic South Pole Station, well photographed. The floor is snow, dirty hard snow. There are five holes in the tope of the dome, through which diffused light peeks and moisture escapes, though it appears most of the moisture condenses on the walls in frost and icicles. It’s actually quite surreal. It feels like what a space station might be like, or something out of a sci fi movie. Or maybe some artificial almost-town set up like for a museum scene.
Sound is absorbed. The subdued light, the quiet except for squeaky walking on the snow, the ice crystals and icicles dangling. Someone might go by towing a paper-clad (moisture is not a problem here) bag of flour on a little sled headed to the galley in the New Building. That there is hardly anyone around adds to the strange feeling. Cave-like. Much stuff is stored in here in addition to a variety of facilities. Attached to the Dome are a several long buildings they call “arches” which makes them sound classier than they feel. They are galvanized half-pipes, rather large, and house all kinds of mechanical facilities. They too are covered in hoar frost on the inside and have that same space station feel.
The walkways are grates, both metal (like ski areas) and plastic to manage snow accumulation. Not that is snows much here; it just blows and drifts; all these old buildings are mostly buried. Between the arch buildings are little narrow tunnels, emphasizing the whole underground surreal feeling.
This morning I was shown the tunnels from the galvanized tower (the “beer can”) of the new station over to join into one of the arches. These tunnels are lined with all kinds of heavily insulated pipes; very industrial. When there’s a heinous storm in mid-winter here, one can avoid actually going out into it: a real safety issue.
The Dome/arches is like no where else, at least that I’ve ever been. Very unique. When you go inside the container-buildings, everything is different. All the doors here (only some in McMurdo) are full-on freezer doors. And like McMurdo, the buildings have entry-rooms (never locked; for emergency escape from being outside) before you get into the actual building. They buildings are quite warm, cozy, and occupied; quite the contrast to the outside. Low ceilings add to the cave-like feeling.
The interiors of the buildings are well decorated. Anyone who doubts our psychological connection to plants and animals need only observe the volume of realistic looking artificial plants, photos of plants and landscapes, plastic plants stuck in the snow behind a little garden-type fence in the snow under the Dome, a realistic fake-fish tank with ‘fish’ swimming around, and even a very life-like looking stuffed animal Golden Retriever lying on the couch (startling).
McMurdo is well decorated with landscape and plant photos and artificial plants, but not as much as this place! Then you might also notice some of the posters. One reminds folks to get their time sheets in promptly. It informs you that “Every day your time sheet is late, God kills a kitten. Please, think of the kittens”. Sad-faced kittens, one running from two strange tiny robots, emphasize the point. Then in one of the bathrooms is a poster, commercially produced and humorously illustrated, advocating wiping one’s asshole (using that specific word) at the necessary time. It elaborates on the social benefits of such behavior and emphasizes how little time and effort it takes. The home page for the station website includes a countdown of not only how many more days the station is open (for summer), but also the number of remaining hours and minutes. Hmmm.
Yup, an interesting place. Strange.
Can really see how people who have been here awhile must have very intense mixed feelings about the eventual loss of the Dome and moving into the much more comfortable (higher ceilings, big windows in the galley…) new elevated station, which I believe will eventually house everything, at least everything that needs to be inside. And to think of wintering over down here; darkness and incredible cold for months. Intense. Not enough time here to get a real sense of the people. About 200 here at Pole, 1150 at McMurdo.Water is very tight down here. They melt snow and showers are limited to 2 minutes twice a week.
McMurdo desalinates seawater and they don’t seem to care much about water use.
The new station will be enormous and is big even at this stage. The Dome is being drifted in so the new complex is up about 10’ on steel posts. The wind scours underneath so it’s not expected to drift in over the decades. They are eventually going to fully move out of the Dome and take it down and off the continent (back to the US, like everything else). Everything here is flown in. Everything; all in the name of being the scientific leader of the world.
Another massive project underway is the South Pole Traverse. A snow-road for heavy machinery is being built all 800 or so miles to the pole. It crosses ice shelf shear zones, crevasses, a steep long glacier to get through the Transantarctic Mountain Range, and every year the shear zone moves a bit more, opening up new crevasses. They blow up the thick snow bridges over the crevasses and then fill in the crevasse with all the snow. Someone is my dept goes along with them to assist and to keep them out of trouble.
Anyway, they plan to use this road, scheduled to be completed by end of next summer, to haul in construction materials so they can free up the planes to support science. The drive is expected to take 20 days out and 10 back. The scale of projects here is astonishing.
This is from yesterday: In 45 minutes I have plans to meet with the two AGO guys for our photo shoot at the ceremonial South Pole. They are into helping me get my headstand photo, which should be entertaining. As I’m only going from building to building, I can wear sneakers around here so don’t have to deal with the mega-hot (when indoors) boots that make it difficult to get into a handstand because of their weight. So in sneakers, I should be able to pull this off. I hope it’s not windy.
The ceremonial pole is only about 70 meters from the geographic pole. The geographic pole slowly moves over time (which is why noting the year of the declination reading on a map is theoretically relevant). That plus the movement of the ice sheet, which is super thick here (many thousands of feet), makes it easier to just mark the current location with a post topped by a benchmark with, among other things, yin and yang (!) on it. They move it every year on New Year’s Day to its current location (which has already been determined and flagged off). They leave the official pole and flags from the 12 Antarctic Treaty nations in one place. The flags surround the pole in a semi-circle, and are placed so that to get all the flags behind the short pole and it’s shiny mirror globe on top, you just also happen to include the new station in your photo, not the Great White Expanse. Politics even at the farthest reaches of our little planet. We are the only country with a presence in every time zone in the world. Interesting.
It’s cold here. McMurdo is getting to be above freezing… a real treat, while this place is today –11 F. I hear it’s never been over something like 7 degrees F here. Brrr.
It’s also exceedingly dry. The big hazard here, despite the cold, is fire. If one did start, not only would everything go because of the aridity and wind, but people would then be left without shelter. They say that if the power went out in the winter, they would have four hours before everything started to freeze… forever. There is zero transportation in or out of here for many months. A scary thought; no doubt they have quite a lot of structures in place to keep the power running as well for survival (a huge stash of tents, shovels, and food/stoves?) as if the buildings burned down.
It’s really good to be out of McMurdo. I’ve been in my mid-season slump, though a better phrase would be mid-season “non-high” because it’s still awesome to be down here. As some of you know I spent 11 days waiting to get flown up to Mt Erebus, an active volcano right there on Ross Island (McMurdo location). There are all kinds off interesting ice caves, the crater and lava pool to check out from the hut once one has acclimatized at the lower camp. I was scheduled to spend two nights at each with some volcanologists/geologists, but was pulled out before getting to the interesting part (the hut area). This was very disappointing; however it was a good decision on my boss’s part based on tight scheduling and this project. We have a lot going on.
So hanging around town, working, but not at the same engaging level (or outdoors, which is quite significant) as normal, getting sucked into the town social vortex, wore on me. No time on the sea ice, which is on it’s way out, which means camps are closing, the ice runway will be moved, etc. No wildlife in awhile either.
Also I wasn’t psyched about this project (maybe I’m still not), which was not supposed to include Pole time (yea that it has!). It was NO pole time, and 3 weeks of very cold white flat time: shoveling out equipment and taking weather observations 3x/day… yee haa. Accompanying this project (as safety manager: altitude, cold, injuries) is a form of paying one’s dues in my dept. Plus, I’d miss a two day Christmas break, several Sundays (our day off), and esp. New Year’s: the big festival here (music and I’m not sure what else; an outdoor gala of sorts) with another 2 days off.
When I get back, I’ll only get one day off despite having missed about 6. But we get out of town unlike many people. We also get out of town to a wide variety of sites. I dare not complain, (at least in public!) At least I’ll get my mail sent to me with resupplies. So, I was not having the best time of the season. Getting some time here has helped a lot. We come back through Pole en route to the next two sites. We have no time planned here at Pole, but we know what that doesn’t mean. Let me know if there’s any South Pole paraphernalia you just can’t live without. South Pole Station chapstick anyone? SPF 15, and it’s cheap.
There are “official” (looking) South Pole Station rubber stamps that you can use in your passport (also for McMurdo), which is fun. One is also the one they actually use to for USPS mail.
I left town mid-season, but when I return in early January, it’ll be almost the end, only another 5 or so weeks left. I’m sure the energy and topics of conversation will be different… FLASH it’ll be over. So I’m trying to be very aware of that so not surprised and wondering where the season went. When I’m shoveling and shoveling and inventorying stuff at the AGO sites in very cold and heinous wind chill, I’ll remind myself to enjoy it as the season is about to end. Then I’ll have to go to NZ to climb peaks and then to Australia to climb rock in a t-shirt in the sun. Darn.
Later: Mission Accomplished! I did it! Phew. Managed the headstand at the Ceremonial South Pole. Having reached my goal for my Antarctica Adventure, I am now free to leave (bummer). Must say I was a bit nervous about it because of the minor stink I’ve been making about it for 4 months now. Pressure was on. I knew if I failed in my attempt, I’d never get sponsorship again* and would lose all my friends.
I almost feel like I cheated because I didn’t do it in my big boots (not that that was the goal). I had assumed I’d need to wear them to stay warm enough here (with the blood all going to my head!), not realizing that the ceremonial pole is close to the buildings. I practiced in them and had figured out another way to get up, but hadn’t wired it yet. But I did it well enough. The crux was finding a flat spot near the pole. Got some help finding my balance when I got up, but was able to hold it for awhile and come down smoothly. Joe has a good digital camera and took a d-photo which he’ll send to me so I can clog your inbox with it.
Gotta have goals.
Well, I’m starting to get cold feet about sending off this excessive and elongated blabbering. But as usual I’ll send it anyway. Have a wonderful holiday season; be sure to get outside a lot!
Love and the sun circling high overhead like a buzzard, Susan
*Yet more bs from sd
