South Pole

Fire Drill

2005-08-20T23:02:00.000-07:00

Fire Drill
Originally uploaded by teenmachine.

There is no such thing as dialing "911" to get an ambulance or fire truck here. We are our own Trauma and Fire Teams. Before I ever left for the South Pole, I went to Fire School in Denver for a week and learned the basics of fire fighting. Other winter-overs went to Trauma school, where they learned the basics of being an EMT. Every person here is part of one of these teams--Trauma or Fire, and of course, we have to keep our skills in practice. With the extreme dryness, static electricity, and construction going on here, it's not exactly fire-hazard free, and a devastating fire could make life here very difficult.

To this end, we have mandated monthly fire drills. These aren't like in grade school where everyone lazily files out of the building and waits on the grass outside. Our drills are full-on mock situations designed by a small group of people and acted out in every detail. They are kept secret from the majority of the station, including even major players such as the doctor. The fire teams get in all their fire gear and SCBA (breathing tank and mask) to do things such as fighting the pretend fire, or pulling victims out of a dangerous situation. Some people's jobs are to get equipment to the scene, and some manage the situation overall, allocating resources and deciding the best course of action. The leader is called the "On Scene Commander" and can be a different fire team member every drill. The trauma team gets practice treating victims by backboarding them, taking vital signs, administering oxygen and/or CPR, and transporting them to medical. If the drill is staged outdoors, this is no easy task. Victims are made up to look like they've been injured according to the scenario, often with makeup, props, or a sign on their body that tells their symptoms. The fire, smoke, or chemical spill is always simulated by signs, tape marking, or pictures. The scene has props that give clues as to what happened and the fire teams must sort them out to help the trauma team figure out what happened to the victims, and thus, what the best treatment is.

The August fire drill showed no lack of creativity despite its timing late in the season. This drill was especially fun because I got to participate in it. The scenario was a new one--involving a chemical spill rather than a fire as the life-threatening situation. Ken and Jim were moving large batteries into the battery storage room when a wrench fell out of Ken's pocket, shorted the terminals of a battery and caused the battery to explode. Ken suffered acid burns and Jim was knocked out by a piece of shrapnal and also had burns. To make his injuries even more real, Jim had an Alkaseltzer so that he could fake "foaming at the mouth." But, the scenario didn't stop there. Sheri heard the explosion and became blinded when she entered the room which was full of airborne chemicals. Kevin heard her scream and realized he shouldn't enter, but was so traumatized that he assumed the role of "On Scene Commander" in a panicked state and began to issue senseless commands to all responders as they showed up. The idea here was to see if fire team members realized that Kevin was unable to be an effective On Scene Commander, and to see how quickly they would take over his post. But, the final kicker in the drill was my role as the "Hysterical Girlfriend." I was to start screaming and freaking out when they brought Ken out of the room completely covered in acid burns. So, I had to be restrained by a couple people. But, true to my assigned role, I didn't stop there. When Ken was finally transported to Medical, I ran into the ward and started screaming at the doctor that he wasn't doing enough for Ken, and I went into where Ken was being treated. The doctor had to assign a person to the duty of keeping me out of the office and only then did I finally give up. It was a hoot.

About an hour after the drill started, things had finally calmed down, the victims had recovered from their fake injuries, and we were holding our "debrief" in the galley. Everyone said I played an excellent hysteric. It was a natural role.

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Light at the End of the Tunnel

2005-08-15T19:36:00.000-07:00

Light at the End of the Tunnel
Originally uploaded by teenmachine.

This weekend, when I walked outside, the sky was offering one of the best shows I've ever seen. A giant green and purple swirling aurora was rippling across the sky. The moon was about half full and turning the sky into a deep dark blue instead of the usual black. It was extremely clear, and the stars were even rivaling the moon. But, by far the coolest thing was an unmistakable PINK GLOW on the horizon where the sun was lying below. It was definitely the first time I've seen anything that could be described as a glow on the horizon. After literally 6 months of pitch black, it was a huge relief to see that the sun hadn't abandoned us. I can't believe that I'll actually be seeing the sun in less than a month. It will be so awesome to see what everything looks like in the light. There are new snow drifts everywhere that have completely changed the landscape, although they've never actually been seen in the light.

People's spirits have definitely lifted since that day. Just something about knowing that time is moving on and things will be changing soon makes the cold and isolation not feel as bad. I'm not packing my bags yet or anything, but I am definitely ready to take on these last two months!

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Monopoly

2005-08-07T13:51:00.000-07:00

Monopoly
Originally uploaded by teenmachine.

<> It's not often that you see an audience of grown men
around a monopoly board, watching intently as if it were the superbowl. That is, of course, unless you've been cooped up at the South Pole for 9 months.

An impromptu game of monopoly was started by four guys around mid-day in the galley. When they were about an hour into the game, me and a friend went there for lunch. We noticed the game as we were deciding where to sit and it seemed like it might be fun to watch them play. By the end of our meal, we were completely enthralled in the game, and we both said it was one of the most exciting lunches we've had in a long time. But that was just the beginning.

A few hours, a dozen hotels, and one bankrupt player later, the audience was no longer just a couple galley transients. The game was down to the final two players and rents in excess of $1000 were being exchanged on a regular basis, so naturally, with this level of intensity, the spectators all had beverages and appeared to be staying for a while.

Those of us watching the whole scene just laughed at the fact that the most exciting thing going on here at the moment was a board game that most of us hadn't played since childhood. At least it wasn't chutes and ladders. Maybe that will be next month when we're really bored and brain dead.

Cold!

2005-08-07T13:50:00.000-07:00

Cold!
Originally uploaded by teenmachine.

Considering the temperature rarely gets above zero here, it's not exactly a revelation to say that it's cold at the South Pole. However, the other day, even people who have been coming here year after year saw their coldest temperatures when it got down to -110 F! That was the coldest temperature here in over eight years. Some winters, it doesn't even get to -100 at all. I didn't go outside in -110 because it happened over night, but I did the 5-10 minute walk to work in -105 the next morning. Usually, when it's really cold, there's hardly any wind, so it actually felt a lot warmer than most days when it's warmer and windy. By the afternoon, it had warmed up to a balmy -95F, and I had to do the coldest delivery of helium so far this season. Without the lack of wind-chill to save you, buzzing around on a snowmobile in -95F is definitely cold, but I think that somehow I've adapted, because it isn't nearly as painful as it was in the beginning of the season when the temps were above -70.

Hard to believe that someone who saw +100 temps on a regular basis during North Carolina summers has now experienced -110.

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Away from the Office

2005-07-11T19:52:00.000-07:00

Away from the Office
Originally uploaded by teenmachine.

<> I normally work alone here. It's usually just me, my snowmobile, and a sky slammed with auroras to light the way. Lately, though, I've been working with the construction crew to have a couple people come out on the days when I do cryogen deliveries. The main reason for this is to give people who usually spend all day working inside the station (which is the vast majority of people here) a little change of scenery. They get a chance to go outside and do something different, and I get a couple extra hands for my heavy-lifting work. The other luxury I have is that there are people along to witness some of the extraordinary sky scenes under which I do my work. On this day when I had two friends along for the ride, one of them captured the things I am usually the only one to see. You can see the dark outline of my snowmobile, me standing behind it, and, barely, the sled I tow to carry the cryo containers. The red light is my snowmobile headlight, with the cover painted red, as most outdoor lights are, as to not affect people's night vision. Above are the auroras, at their mid-day peak. Part of the telescope building is on the right. Scenes like this make my job worth it.

300 Club

2005-07-11T18:52:00.000-07:00

300 Club
Originally uploaded by teenmachine.

It's high noon and every eye in the galley is glued on the TV. From the looks of it, we could have been watching the first moon landing. But no, all those highly focused eyes were watching nothing but a small number on the screen. That number was updated about every 30 seconds on the only TV channel we have--our weather channel. It was like a bunch of kids watching a twinkie come out of its wrapper. The number was slowly getting smaller, starting around -97, and inching to -99.5. It looked like we really were going to break -100F for only the second time this season, and possibly for the first time sustained. This meant one thing to the 86 people watching the slowly dropping number: the 300 club.

By that point, everyone was planning where, how, and with whom they wanted to do the infamous run to the South Pole marker. I had decided to go with a group of gals, and we all met up near the sauna under the dome minutes after the temperature dipped. The sauna temperature sensors had already been sitting in cold water to trick it to get up to 200F. As soon as it hit the mark, us girls piled in with nothing but our towels and boots on. We could only stand it for about 10 minutes, and then, after agreeing it was time, ran out past the group of waiting guys, dropped our towels at the door, and found ourselves in the middle of the coldest temperatures humans have ever experienced, stark naked. There is quite a ramp leading out of the dome due to the thirty years of snow that has fallen since the dome's construction. Luckily, our trusted friend Tony was at the top of the ramp with a flashlight lighting the thin path that led up to the regular snow level. Although it was pitch black, I looked up at one point about half-way there and noticed stars and auroras in the sky. It was the perfect backdrop for the dumbest thing I've ever done.

We stuck together for the long walk across high sculptures of wind-formed snow (knowns as sustrugi), and more than one of us found ourselves saying out loud, "you know, this really isn't so bad." We trudged up to the South Pole Marker where our friend Tammy was ready with the camera, and actually stood for a long couple seconds as she took two photos. Then, after being careful to actually go around the pole marker, we excitedly turned dome-ward only to find something we had entirely forgotten about--wind. Now face to face with the blowing ice crystals, and our skin temperature plummetting, we realized quickly that the walk back was not going to be easy. We quickened our pace and sounds of discomfort--tinged with a bit of fear--could be heard from the group. I moved quickly, as I could feel the outermost layers of my skin literally freezing, and my body starting to feel very strange. I looked down at my legs while I was in the path of the flashlight and saw that every inch was bright red with cold, and every little hair was covered in frost.

Just as the end was in sight, about six feet from the stairs leading to the sauna, the door exploded open and naked men began to pour out, running down the stairs. "Crap!" I said out-loud, and ducked behind the corner of a building with the rest of the girls. Luckily, we were under the dome and safe from the wind, although the temperatures were still as low as outside. After about ten guys ran by, I couldn't take it any more, and covering up as best as I could, I ran past them up the stairs, and inside. Somehow I managed to cover myself in a flurry of towel handing-out, steamy air from our breath, and racing bodies--some running out the door, and some desprately trying to get in. We were back in the sauna in a split second, and I think my body was just as shocked as when I ran out. It took a while before we all felt normal again, and excitement over what we had done finally sunk in.

Luckily, none of the gals had any permanent damage, although, a few minutes later, one of the guys ran in with a completely white, frost-bit hand. It has been sore and swollen ever since, although the doctor says it will heal. Most of the other cases were just frost-nip that went away quickly. Over-all, it really wasn't as bad as I had feared, and my overwhelming feeling is relief that it's over. Of course, I'm glad to have taken part in a South Pole tradition as old as the station itself.

Crazy Weather...

2005-06-14T23:41:00.000-07:00

At 1am, I woke up to my friend Tony's voice over the all-call system. Normally, this would mean it was a Saturday night and Tony was knackered, making jokes, but this was a week night, and you'd better have a real good reason for getting on the all-call at this hour on a week night. I woke up just enough to decipher what he was saying. Tony was announcing that we had finally hit -100F for the first time this season. It seemed too soon for this...I still feel like in some ways, winter is just starting. But sure enough, I looked on my computer and there was -100F. I didn't step outside to feel it, but I can't imagine it feels too much different than -92F, which is what it had been all day when I was outside. If this had happened during the day, people would have immediately been scrambling to the Upper Berthing Sauna, which would have already been cranked up to 200F (requiring putting the sauna's thermometer in a bucket of ice to over-ride it's high temperature limit) in a matter of minutes for the 300 club.

The 300 club is a "club" that someone made up a long time ago here. To get into the 300 club, you have to sit in the Sauna until it hits 200F, and then run outside into -100F, and run all the way around the South Pole Marker, with nothing but your boots on. I'm scared to death to do it, but of course, I will. There are all kinds of legends about the 300 club, with people getting frost-nip on unmentionable parts, and they say you cough for a week after doing it. People talk about the different strategies for it...whether or not to use your hands to cover things, whether to run or walk, how sweaty to get in the sauna before rushing outside... It's a pretty serious tradition here.

I found out the next day that -100 was actually a record low for that day.

As if hitting -100F weren't enough excitement weather-wise, the next day, a much stranger thing happened. It warmed up to a balmy -38F...a 60 degree change in about 12 hours. We hadn't seen temps that high in months, and I hadn't expected to see anything that high for the rest of my time here. I actually wouldn't have even believed it, but I knew it was warm when I went outside and didn't feel my face freezing when it wasn't covered. People were getting way over-heated walking around in their parkas, too. It REALLY did feel warm. I can't believe that -40F felt warm to me. The winds were also unusually calm for those temperatures. Usually, when temperatures rise, the winds go up as well, so we never get a break with the wind-chill. Everyone said that they thought this would finally be the big storm of the season. But, other than an hour we spent with winds at 25+ knots, the weather just slowly, and anticlimactically got steadily colder, returning to normal. It turns out, that this day, 24 hours after hitting the record low of -100F, we came within a couple degrees of the record high.

South Pole Gas Station and Other Winter Fun

2005-05-27T19:02:00.000-07:00

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I think this might be the only place in the world where Americans can buy gas for less than 2 bucks a gallon. When I need some gas for my snowmobile, I just pull up here and crank out the gas free of charge. Of course, it requires a little more arm muscle to get my 5 gallons. It's about 40 cranks to fill up my snowmobile, and the handle doesn't exactly turn easily in -90F. But, I'll take this gas station over any one that's trying to sell me their version of the Big Gulp with an advertisement on the handle of every gas nozzle.

Almost everything around station that's outside is covered with a layer of crystal snow by now, and a lot of things are completely drifted in. Seeing something like this back home in winter might mean it hasn't been touched in months, but here, this kind of snowy covering forms on everything almost immediately, and it just has to be brushed or shoveled off every time it needs to be used. That's just part of the job.

Working outside in the dark and cold has taken some getting used to, but I've nearly perfected my methods for dealing with it. Hand and feet warmers, multiple layers of fleece covering my face, a head lamp, and my hood that extends out to stop the wind have become my regular work attire, and I hardly think twice when I put them all on just for my morning "commute." I no longer dread the times when I have to do a delivery outside, and I'm even glad to be one of the few people who has to go outside every day for my job. It's very disorienting to stay inside the station for an entire day, although many many people do it on a regular basis.

It's so cold today that the elevator and hoist that are normally our redundant systems for getting the week's supply of food up into the galley are both out of commission. That means that we chain-gang the boxes of food up the 3 flights of stairs by hand in -90F. Everybody comes out to help out with this process as part of our "house mouse," which is what we call our weekly chores that everyone has to do to keep the station clean and running. We are our own janitors and dishwashers in the winter, which I'm happy for because it makes the station seem more like our home.

the southern lights

2005-05-12T02:34:00.000-07:00

yesterday the skies exploded at the south pole. Ken had just stopped by where I work, and we were both stepping outside--me to shovel out my door, and him to finish his maintenance rounds on station. we didn't have to look up to notice. the auroras were everywhere. for about ten minutes, the two of us might have been the only ones watching, in an understood moment that was both solemn and exhilarating. purples and greens skidded and unraveled across the sky, horizon to horizon. it was a showcase of undulating patches of wispy lightness, thin lines of bright ribbons, radiating rolling beams like an aurora sunshine, and unfolding ferns growing and retreating across the sky. completely mesmerized, we stood in the bitter cold, heads facing upwards, spinning around and around to see it all.

it was a while before we heard the announcement over the speakers. then, within minutes, we started seeing the brief white lights spilling from doors opening and then closing all over the station. people emerged with immediate exclamations, looking skyward. soon figures got closer and every one of us stood staring up in utter amazement--some laughing, some silent. work ceased on station.

i did not know there was anything in this world so spectacular and magical, yet so real. it was like a vision not quite realized when you close your eyes, but painted on top of an immense starry backdrop...a dream world exquisitely come to life...the language of a greater power, or of an inner self. i guess things like this are why it's possible to be so happy somewhere so remote and barren--singular showcases of nature's secrets.

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another day at the office

2005-05-02T22:33:00.000-07:00

Well, instead of sending another picture with the sky being an even darker shade, I think I'll take this little entry to tell you about what the heck I do here. Many people ask that. I ask that actually.

First, a bit of background. Not everyone here is a white-lab-coat-sporting scientist. In fact, those people, "beakers" as we call them, are actually in quite short supply. There are about 10 people here this winter who are actual beakers--employed by whatever institution or university is doing the research. The rest of us work for Raytheon, and in one way or another support this scientific research. I support it rather closely, as I am in the small department called "South Pole Science Support." There are 3 people here this winter who are in this department. The rest of the 86 people here support science in some farther-removed kind of way, such as cooking, doing construction, management, or materials handling. So that's a little background of where I fit in.

My job is to maintain, monitor, and move the coldest stuff on the planet while at the coldest place on the planet. Some people would say that they need my job for times when the South Pole just isn't cold enough. In fact, I deal with stuff that is about 350 degrees fahrenheit COLDER than the ambient temperatures here, which have been approaching -90F lately. So, yep, sometimes it's just not cold enough here. Why? Read on...

The cold stuff I deal with is liquid nitrogen and liquid helium. Liquid helium sits somewhere around -450F, and liquid nitrogen is about -300F. The beaker's telescopes have small detector arrays at the target of all the optics, which detect different kinds of radiation, like microwave, or infared. (These would be kinda like the CCD in your digital camera, only detecting different ranges of the spectrum that aren't visible light.) So they use these ultra-sensitive detectors that have to be super-cooled to make them "quiet" enough to detect the tiny radiation, and also because they have metal parts that are superconducting. So, I work with scientists to get them the cryogenic liquids that make their astronomy detectors work.

When I'm not actually schlepping the cryogenic vessels around on my snomobile sled through -80F temps freezing my fingers and such, I'm sitting in the midst of about 12,000 gallons of liquid helium inside huge vessels that I babysit. I do things like set up my computer to monitor the supply, and run plumbing to vent the gas that is constantly evaporating from the liquid, keep records, do maintenance on the plant that makes liquid nitrogen, and other lab-type things. I sometimes call myself Domino's Cryo though, because the most well-known of my job duties is delivering cryogens to the different telescopes, which are about a half mile away from station and from where my lab is. Luckily, right now, that only takes up about one morning per week of my time. This photo was taken after one of my recent cryo deliveries through -80F temps.

So that pretty much comprises the 54 hrs per week that I'm working. I'll write another one about all the amazing, adventurous, and exhilarating South Pole-type things we do in our free time here-- like knitting.

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Dusk

2005-04-17T02:33:00.000-07:00

<> It has been weeks since sunset and I just saw my first stars tonight. It was a cool feeling. I was walking out to one of the telescope buildings that is about a half mile from the main station. This walk is an interesting thing. I usually walk it solo, and with my ipod playing some tunes or NPR. It's a very solitary and thoughtful walk, usually, because you're so bundled up, that you feel separate from the world around you, although it affects you in pretty big ways, such as making you very cold, and tripping you up because the snow formations are getting so high and random. Plus, it's very surreal because you're just walking into white nothingness all by yourself. It's not quite like walking around somewhere normal, because you can't really interact with your environment. One second out of my double gloves w/double hand-warmers and I can feel my fingers start to freeze. One gap in my neck warmer/hat/goggles ensemble and I have frost-nip. Anyway, that's the scene. It's a surreal, solo journey in vast nothingness to get to the telescope.

I look out and see two parkas walking my way. The people don't get close enough to talk, or even for me to figure out who they are (although we're all getting better at identifying people by their walk), but we exchanged a silent gloved wave as we passed in the bleakness. I always feel like there's more than a normal greeting exchanged by waves when you're outdoors here. It's like an understanding is also communicated, because there you both are, in this most strange of worlds, freezing your butts off together, and you wave because that's about all you can do. Even if you could talk, you couldn't see eachothers faces, and there aren't exactly park benches for just sitting around chatting. Anyway, then I looked further to my right and saw two more bundled figures. This is like Grand Central for the South Pole outdoors. These other two hooded faces were looking upwards. I did to. And there were the first stars I've seen in three months. There were a few of them, actually, forming the beginnings of some unknown southern hemisphere constillation. I had seen Jupiter on the horizon a few days ago, but that was just a planet---a cheating kind of star because they're so bright. These were my first twinkling specks of light, and they were gorgeous. I felt like all of us staring up at that moment, spread apart by too much distance to yell across to eachother, were all smiling under our face masks at the new beauties in the sky. I certainly was.

Sunset

2005-03-27T21:27:00.000-08:00

<> After weeks of pink skies and long shadows, the sun finally set on March 23. It was hard to know exactly when it set, because the refraction of the light through the atmosphere actually made it appear to be above the horizon long after it went down. Even after it had been gone for about a day, it did tricks like appearing high above the horizon again for a few hours at a time. The meteorology department had set up a pool where people paid 5$ to guess the exact time when the sun would set for good, and then whoever was closest won the pot. It became a hard one to call, and they ended up having to take back the prize and re-award it to a later guesser after the sun popped back up.

Lots of people who have wintered before said that this was the most beautiful sunset they had ever seen at the South Pole. We were extremely lucky to have very clear skies and good visibility on the horizon for the entire week of the most intense colors. There was an absolutely empty sky on the real day the sun set, and on the days following, when an eerie glow was visible swirling around the horizon throughout the day, we had sweeping cloud formations to be lit up with every range of pink, orange, and purple. People could be seen all over the station braving the cold temps just to get pictures of the sky or stand in awe of the sight of a sun setting over such utter barrenness. The color in the sky was a most welcome change to the ever unchanging white and blue we've seen since we landed here over 5 months ago.

The day after the sunset, the sky turned a darker shade of grey than the cloudy days we've been accustomed to, and a storm blew in. We had 25 knot winds for our first sun-less day. It's hard to imagine that when the clouds break, there won't be a sun behind them. In fact, it will be about 6 months before I see the sun again. To a girl who grew up going to the beach every day in the summer, that's a hard concept to grasp. I can't help but wonder what it will do to my spirits and my concept of time. I have become so used to seeing the light of day out the windows at every hour, even when I wake up in the middle of the night, that I can hardly imagine the reverse--waking up and going to work in complete darkness...heading in for lunch in complete darkness.

Through the clouds that have broken just this evening, an eerie greenish sky has appeared, just like the dusk after a sunset at home. The real treat and surprise of the day was an unusually beautiful and luminous full moon, hanging over the station that I first saw on my solo walk to the cryo barn today. It moved over the telescopes later in the day and was absolutely stunning. It felt like a symbol of the beauty to come in the long night, and I started thinking about the auroras that will be here in about a month.

Sunset

2005-03-27T00:39:00.000-08:00

First week of Winter

2005-03-18T00:25:00.000-08:00

Eighty-six people in the middle of the vastest space of white and blue I have ever seen, and the station starts to break.

Two days after we said goodbye to our last plane, I heard the bad news at lunch from one of the maintenance workers on station. Not many people besides upper management knew yet our sewage outfall was blocked. We were on the emergency sewage outfall, but we couldn't stay on it for long. Sewage is dealt with here by piping it into huge holes deep under the snow. The pipes are heat traced down to 200 ft so that the lovely waste doesn't freeze. Either the heat trace failed, or some other unforeseen blockage is going on, because the pipes are completely blocked at 74 ft, and the plumber's "snakes" we have for breaking blockages aren't coming anywhere close to penetrating it. The bad news is, the same thing happened 2 winters ago, and the station stayed on the emergency sewar outfall all winter. So it's too full for us to stay on it for too long. In the immortal words of our maintenance foreman, "then it's buckets for y'all." So there's a possibility we'll go down as the winter where everyone had to use buckets. What a claim to fame.

Just when news gets around about the sewar problem, another issue crept up, this one even scarier than the idea of peeing in a bucket for 8 months. I first got an inkling of what might be happening when I heard an unusual page over our station-wide all-call address system. It was the power plant mechanic. "Bill Henrikson, come to the Power Plant." This was strange for several reasons. One: Bill Henrikson is our top dog on station--people don't usually involve him in petty problems. Two: people don't usually give such direct orders over the all-call. They might politely request that someone call such and such a number, but a command like that was very odd. Three: the usually very relaxed power plant mechanic was doing little to hide the serious nervousness in his voice. And four: it was the POWER PLANT.... the thing that gives us heat and keeps us from freezing. About a half hour later, a nervous Bill Henrikson comes over the all-call and makes an announcement to science groups to turn off or secure their instruments because there's trouble with the power plant. "We probably won't lose power", he says, "but just in case. There could be a significant spike, drop, or change in frequency." Just then I hear a call for me over the radio. I have to call comms, where Bill has been stationed to orchestrate the power plant problem. When I call, I'm asked to go out to a far part of station and turn off the liquid nitrogen plant, which is eating up a lot of power. Apparently, the generator switch today didn't go so well and only the weakest one is able to run. They're going to put part of the station on an emergency satellite generator. I grab a snowmobile and head out. Sure enough, the station loses power a few minutes later. Luckily, this outage wasn't long, but the implications were a tad scary. If a failure like this could happen now, what if it happens when it's cold and dark?

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cool pic of last plane

2005-03-18T00:23:00.001-08:00

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cool pic of last plane

2005-03-18T00:23:00.000-08:00

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the first day of the rest of the winter

2005-02-26T23:09:00.000-08:00

the day was so overcast and windy, nobody actually thought the planes would have enough visibility to land. it was the fourth or so day in a row of this weather--the first real storm of the summer. the skiway was getting so drifted over with snow, there were people in cats grooming it 24/7. i couldn't see very far when i was zooming around on my snomobile, and basically had to go by the flag lines to get to the telescopes.

one, two, then three planes gathered at the last checkpoint before reaching the south pole, and were all circling waiting for a break in the weather. i kept my radio volume high so i could hear if something changed. we were all planning on being at the plane to see the last of the summer people take off. lunch rolled around and the planes were still circling a 15 minute ride away, 20,000 ft. up. every once in a while, one would circle over the station, and we could hear it, but not see it. the wind was so harsh, i'm sure i wasn't the only winter-over wondering what i had gotten myself into. every walk outside was a challenge. it was -45F with over 20 knots of wind. i couldn't help but wonder what -100F with 25 knots of wind would feel like.

around 1:30, we finally heard the announcement that the passenger flight was going to try to land. everyone on station who could spare the time was on the flight deck in 15 minutes--about 30 with luggage, and the rest of us empty-handed. we wouldn't be packing for 8 more months. it was a huge flurry of hugging, picture taking, and goodbyes. most people were so bundled up, it was hard to tell who was who, and people kept looking at nametags to see if a hug was appropriate. by the time everyone's eyelashes were completely frosted over, the plane was ready to take the passengers. we all waved to the last people, other than eachother, that we would be seeing for a long time. we stood in a line with our arms around eachother after they boarded, some people crying, some laughing. we saw gloves waving through the few windows on the LC-130 as it began to taxi. despite the cold, we watched it disappear to the end of the skiway, and go by again as it took off.

then, for some, there was nothing left to do but go back to work. for others, it was time to move into new rooms, and a buzz of activity broke out in the new station as people rearranged furniture, moved boxes, and talked to their new neighbors. it felt different. the place was wired.

that night, dinner was incredibly smaller and quieter. it was refreshingly peaceful, but fun, and intimate. news got out about a couple different showings of "The Thing" going on that night--a South Pole tradition on the first day of winter. I watched it with friends in the bar, and then heard the announcement about the last plane of the season, a fuel tanker, taking off soon. comms had word from the pilot that he was planning to do a wing-tipping fly-over. i ran to the roof of the new station, which is technically off limits, and waited in the cold and wind. below us, the station was dotted with people waiting outside, all looking up for the fly-by.

The plane came closer than I ever would have hoped it could, and I swear it flew RIGHT over just us. It was like that feeling at a concert when you're absolutely sure the performer is looking right at just you the whole time. Excitement welled up inside me and I screamed and jumped up and down and waved goodbye. Seeing planes come and go here is so normal (we get about 6 per day) it was hard to imagine this was really the last one. I hugged my favorite person on station and we walked back down together. So that's what the last day before wintering at the south pole is like, i smiled.

pre-station closing crisis

2005-02-20T23:50:00.000-08:00

<>
"we have to have a cryo crisis at the end of the season" says my boss on sunday afternoon after the dust settles on a close call with the liquid nitrogen plant, "it happens every year". of course, the usual ONE crisis at the end of the season wouldn't be enough for Christina. noooo, my season as the cryo tech, three things have to go terribly wrong within 48 hours of the close of station.

crisis 1:
"don't worry, no one was hurt, and the liquid nitrogen plant doesn't seem to have any permanent damage"
"excuse me?"
"yeah, a snowmobile crashed into it"
"WHAT?!!...when??"
such was the conversation sunday afternoon just as i was contemplating whether to take a nap, eat more cookies, or do some email. it may not sound strange except for one small detail...the liquid nitrogen plant is INDOORS. motorized vehicles should not be hitting it. it was like someone saying, "yeah, don't worry, nobody was hurt, but a motorcycle just crashed into your bathtub." it just doesn't happen. not to mention this liquid nitrogen plant is the sole source of this essential cryo item on station, and there would be little reason for me to be here without it, not to mention the telescopes couldn't function.

i rush out to the plant building and walk into a beehive of activity. one guy has a camera and is beaming the hugest smile, like he's thrilled something exciting has happened and he's definitely going to get it on film. an electrician is sprawled out on the floor attempting to fix the main power feed to the plant, which got ripped up, and another random guy is standing around still assessing damage. there's a huge dent across the one remaining panel on the plant, and it's sitting about a foot behind where it usually sits, knocked into other parts of the plant behind it. It looks like a car that just got in a bad fender bender.

Three hours later, with a little luck, the plant is actually running again. but, just ,like after you get in a car accident and the car still starts, you're constantly waiting for some unseen damage to surface, like your bumper to fall off, or some strange noise to start happening. luckily, the only permanent damage seems to be to the person's pride who neglected to take their hand off the snowmobile accelerator. there goes my one day off wasted fixing the plant and writing up the incident report.

crisis 2:
this crisis was more like a saga. it started the morning after crisis 1 when i went to turn on our cryo-cooler thingy that saves us a bunch of helium by keeping it so cold it doesn't boil off. without it, we run out of helium before the end of the season.

there is a compressor and a chiller to this thing. turning them on was supposed to take 5 minutes. i press the power button on the chiller. nothing. no tick, no lights, nothing. oh-KAY.....plugged in, check...breakers, check, every possible way of pressing the on button, check. alright, i'll try the compressor. nothing. oh-KAY....i radio for the electrician. he checks the panel and we do have power....which means my problem is worse than i hoped. chiller first...we tear off the housing and go poking around with the meter...power isn't making it out of the red box marked "DO NOT OPEN, HIGH VOLTAGE." we immediately open it. lucky we did, because the low voltage limiter inside is keeping our little guy from running. readjust it, and that's one down. compressor next..... i check the pressure gauges on it and find out that for some reason, and completely contrary to everything the manufacturer has said, the pressure is almost completely gone. this means a long sequence of using a helium cylinder to add helium after pulling a vacuum to be sure no impurities get in, etc.... all kinds of heavy crap and equipment has to be drug from other buildings in -40F across the snow to make this happen. when all is said and done, this 5 minute procedure has taken over a day. now we're ready to turn them on for real.

i'm next door when my boss does this. by the time i get there, enough glycol has spilled on the floor to cause our hazardous waste guy to have a heart attack. luckily we have backup and someone starts thinking smart and drains what remains out of the 7 gallon reservoir. this glycol stuff is slippery, so this whole clamoring to fix the leak happens in a mess of grown men in big boots slipping around like they're on ice skates. i just watched in amazement. fixing the leak took more time and energy that i barely had. but a few hours after the supposed end of my work day, it was finally done and i was going to head to the galley. i thought.

crisis 3:
what's that noise?.... i wonder to myself after i opened the vent on our new 27 ft long, 8 ft. high 4,800 gallon liquid helium tank. i *was* finally on my way to dinner. it's a hissing. ooh, and there's a little pop. and now louder hissing. grrrreat... it's 7pm, i've had an incredibly long day, and now this. probably just a little something that needs to be tightened. hmm, that's weird...the noise is coming from over there. that part shouldn't be leaking. that part is the main relief device for the tank, and is only supposed to go off in an extreme emergency when the inside pressure reaches it's uppermost limit. quick check of the pressure gauge....we're well below that limit. this is the part of the container that you generally just forget about....you never have to adjust it, open it, close it, etc. it's usually invisible to me in the jungle of plumbing. and now it's LEAKING. with this leak, not only will we not be able to regulate the pressure, we won't be able to monitor how much liquid is in the tank. not to mention it's audibly getting WORSE, and there's no way to valve it off without completely sealing in the boiling-off liquid that would be building pressure. a quick check of the manual reveals that this particular relief disk is something that's not to be mucked around with...it's extremely fragile..."installed only by professionals"...a fingerprint on the plate can cause it to fail...etc. that's echoed on the part itself, which is the ONE thing in all the plumbing that is sealed from being tampered with by wires holding the bolts from being turned.

one hour, two wrenches, and a wire cutter later, i have it completely disassembled.

i had no choice i guess...that's the south pole for you. 4 tries of tightening various little screws inside the device, carefully replacing it, re-tightening it in place, and holding my breath while i re-vent the dewar, it finally doesn't leak any more. and that was my night the day before station close.

360 degrees

2005-02-09T00:35:00.000-08:00

<>
Today I went with some people from meteorology on a snow stake run. it was my last time being away from the station before winter sets in. we followed a line of stakes that went 20km out from the station--far enough to not be able to see anything but horizon for all 360 degrees. we drove out in a tracked vehicle called a pisten bulley, which has a maximum speed of maybe 10mph. the whole trip took about 3 hours in all. we measured the snow depth at 40 stakes along the way. i must be really sleep deprived because i managed to fall asleep in a vehicle driving over hard ridges in the snow taller than 1 ft, over and over and over! if anything here were to remind me of being on a boat in choppy water, that was it. we had to call south pole comms every hour, and since we were too far for our radios to reach, we had to use the portable satellite phone. just didn't feel the same as driving while chatting on the cell phone at home though. it was -45F today (without wind chill), and we had to take enough survival bags for everyone along, just in case we were to get stranded. it's funny to think that back home, my typical daily commute is over 30 miles, and here, going somewhere less than 15 miles away is a huge deal.

the last flight is only 6 days away now....then 8 months of winter. it will be interesting to see how it feels to be in one place with the same people for so long. today a big group of people left for the season, leaving our station population at just about 180, down from 260. we'll be just under 90 for the winter. there was a noticible difference in the crowd in the galley and around station after the passenger flight left. it's quieter and more comfortable with fewer people. in a week i'll be toasting the take-off of the last flight with other winter-overs!

bday

2005-02-02T01:06:00.000-08:00

i never thought i'd have my own personal flight across the continent on my birthday, but such is luck in the united states antarctic program. it was friday around 10am, birthday eve. i was sitting in my shop/office filling time while waiting for someone to return my snomobile so i could do some real work. just yesterday, i had been told that i wouldn't be going out to new zealand today, as planned, or at all for the rest of the season. a couple hours ago, i had learned that i was actually going to be going to mcmurdo on monday to escort a tank down to pole. i went to glance out the door again at the snomobile "parking lot" when my boss walks up.
kid, you're going to mcmurdo today. i'm sorry.
what time? i asked, barely phased.
the 1:30 flight.
will i be home for my birthday?
i made them promise to put you on the first plane back tomorrow.
okay.

okay. the next three hours were a hectic mess. i had to get a ton of helium delivered to the telescopes, finish up the regular day's work, send some packages, eat lunch, and pack. around 1pm, i get through the post office line and ask my friend "hmm, so what's more important--eating, or packing?" somehow i manage to do both and be out on the flight deck in time to freeze my butt off waiting for them to offload fuel from the plane and then board us. the one other passenger and i get the luxury of sitting in the cockpit on take-off. three hours, and one spectacular landing approach later, i step onto the Ross Sea Ice Shelf.

as a special welcome, the mcmurdo housing department neglected to assign me a room because they mis-read the manifest. when i finally did get my room, i dropped my stuff and ran off to the galley before it closed. i bumped into some people from the pole doing r&r and made some plans for my one night in town. we ended up hanging out chatting and then hitting one of the two bars in town to wrap up the night.

the next day, i woke up early to make my plane, and smiled, thinking about where i was on year #26 of my life. my friend took me "out" to coffee for my birthday while we waited for the air field shuttle. luckily, when i got to Williams Field, i had plenty of time to spare and noticed a phone in the galley where i was waiting. yay for not having to wait for a satellite to be up to call home! i talked to my dad for a while, which turned out to be the only person i talked to off the continent on my birthday. soon they were calling for the cryo tech on the radio and i was on the plane hooking up my 3000 gallons of liquid helium to the aircraft vent. my own private plane on my birthday, taking me across 800 miles of trans-antarctic mountains and vast plateau to my home, the south pole. that sort of thing eases the sting of being a year older and all out of milestone birthdays to look forward to. plus, it reinforces my theory that if i do something new and exciting every year, i'll never have a reason to not be happy about another birthday.

the hours following my landing turned out to be every bit as hectic as the hours before my take-off the day before. it was only better because everyone kept welcoming me back and wishing me a happy birthday. i worked the rest of the day, unpacked just enough to get ready for my party, and headed out. the galley had made brownies for the occasion, and people brought funny little gifts wrapped in whatever they could fine. we made ice cream and hung out for a while. the "end of season" party was also happening that night back in the new station building, so we all headed out to that. i danced away to the 3 live bands that played and had an absolutely wonderful, fun, happy time. this birthday will definitely go down in christina history.

thanks to everyone for your calls, cards, emails, and gifts!

bday

2005-02-02T01:05:00.000-08:00

Teen and B in New Zealand

2005-01-23T01:31:00.000-08:00

<>
my flight to christchurch was a pax flight full of 76 people, most of whom had been stuck in mactown for 8 days waiting to get out. the storm hit the very day that C-141 cargo flights were finally supposed to resume. i settled in to my seat and grabbed my book out of my ecw gear. 6 hours later i wouldn't even be needing the it, as we landed in new zealand in the dead of summer.

i didn't get to my hotel until 2am wednesday morning, but i was still up by 8. if all the sparse emails over the last few days with their constantly changing plans were true, my brother would be landing in a few hours. i had to get all my work out of the way in time to meet him. i got two really good pieces of news that morning. one was that the cargo yard people couldn't move my helium tank to the site where i was to do my work on it until monday. the other was that my partner who needed to be there before we could start our work was stranded in antarctica due to a broken plane. for once, the antarctic inefficiency and uncertainty was working to my advantage. i would have all weekend to hang out with my brother.

i had been looking up every other sentence of the book i was reading, watching for my brother to walk through the door at customs. when he finally did appear, my hands immediately clasped over my mouth and i ran up to give him a huge hug. it was the strangest clashing of worlds. this was a place where i had started my trip to the south pole...a world away from home...the sights i had always assumed i would only tell my family about through pictures. this was my world in my journey to the pole. and there was my little brother standing smack dab in the middle of it.

the next few hours were a flurry of nonstop talk about what we had both been up to in the past months. he told me all about australia and scuba diving, and i went on about life at the pole. we couldn't talk fast enough. by far the highlight of the night was shopping for shoes for bobby because he didn't have anything other than sandals and we were going skydiving the next day. the big debate was to go for the hugh heffner velvet slippers, or the pimped out white dockers. i think both bob and i know we made the right choice with the pair that came to be known as the shoes of the millenium.

skydiving the next morning more deserves a moment of silence than a blundering paragraph in my web log to describe it's infinite coolness. just go ask bobby for the dvd. it was amazing.

nothing could quite top that high-point of the trip (pun intended?), but we did our best. we did some errands, and then hit sumner beach. we didn't know we'd be discovering caves and get to do some rock climbing at a beach, but this isn't east coast north carolina either. later that night, bobby got basically kicked out (what would turn out to be not the only time) of a restaurant after eating too much at an all you can eat dinner. we went out partying that night to work off the calories dancing.

the next day we checked out another beach, only this one was a little cove of a cove, called governor's bay. it was stunning. mountains lined the opposite side of the cove, and the sun was bright--very new zealand. i was the only one to actually get in the extremely cold water, which i was only able to do by repeating to myself "i live at the south pole" with every step deeper. it was so fun to actually swim--an activity there is basically none of at the pole. We wound up the day with a hike overlooking the shore and city. the party scene got started around 1am. we had been dancing at the 3rd club of the night for a while when bobby's alcohol and sudafed must have caught up with him and he got really tired. we got kindly kicked out for bobby's apparent "signs of intoxication"--ha!...which I personally didn't even notice.

The next day i saw bobby off at the airport through tears and went back into my own antarctic adventure world...although it was now different, because someone from my former world had been there.

R&R in Club Mac

2005-01-05T15:33:00.000-08:00

Today is day 4 of my week-long vacation in McMurdo station, and I'm working. I'm not complaining though, because the work I'm doing here today is prep for the trip north to Christchurch, New Zealand, where I'll be for the next 10 days. Well, that's the plan anyway. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the weather is going to cooperate. The flight I've been bumped to has been trying to leave every day since Tuesday now. A weather system the size of texas is sitting over the Ross Ice shelf, with winds too high for planes to land. All this just after the new ice runway here was finally finished, and we were looking forward to getting our long delayed Christmas packages and fresh fruits and veggies. The weather system also brought in a novelty for Antarctica: SNOW! Believe it or not, snow hardly ever falls here, and when it does, it's usually just small crystals. Yesterday was a full-on homestyle blizzard with accumulating snow. It was the first they've had here all season, and even more of a treat for us Polies who hardly *ever* see the white stuff falling.

Yesterday I got to tour the US Coast Guard Polar Star Icebreaker vessel, which is docked here awaiting repairs before it can go out to finish it's job of cutting a channel through the ice for the cargo vessel. The vessel brings all the needed supplies for winter to McMurdo, where it's then flown to Pole. A russian ice breaker is even on call to do the channel breaking if our ice breaker can't do the job, or is held up too long for repairs. There's a big challenge this year because a huge ice berg is blocking much of the channel and causing a trap for the ice.

Pics of R&R so far are at www.picturetrail.com/southpolegirl.

Christmas at the South Pole

2004-12-23T13:52:00.000-08:00

Many of you have asked what's going on at the South Pole for Christmas! Well, to answer your questions, Santa does visit, even though we're his farthest delivery. Although, this year, he's had a bit of trouble because the Ice Runway in McMurdo melted early. So the cargo planes he uses to deliver our presents are all grounded in New Zealand. I was lucky enough to get 2 packages, though, both from my sister Denise, with wonderful Christmas decorations! I have put a wreath on the door of the Cryo Barn for the first time in it's history! I'll have more pictures up on my photo website in the coming days. Merry Christmas Everyone!

Here's the email from our Recreation director about the weekend events:

South Pole:

The following are the Events For This Week (ending Sunday, December 26, 2004)

NEWS FLASH - New Year's Weekend -
We get both Saturday and Sunday off.
The New Year's Eve party will now be on Friday, actually on New Year's Eve!

Friday:
FOOTBALL GAME Replays, with Kurt Skoog - Dome Bar, 4:30 p.m.
- New location this week -
CHRISTMAS GIFT EXCHANGE - Galley, 7:00 p.m.
- Everyone is invited, Bring a wrapped gift -
live music by "Squeaky Meat", Summer Camp Lounge, 9:00 p.m.
- Totally gnarly new tunes -

Saturday:
Veterans' Annual Raising of American and POW Flags - Ceremonial Pole, 8:00 a.m.
- Show up and honor the Vets -
SNOW SCULPTURING JUDGING - At Snow-henge, 9:30 a.m.-ish
RACE AROUND THE WORLD- Geographic Pole, 10:00 a.m.
- Dress appropriately - Be there before 10:00 a.m., Be ready to run at 10:00 a.m.
PRESENTATION OF AWARDS - Galley, 11:00 a.m.-ish
- Pick up your Race T-shirt, Have a quick brunch, Clear-out so Cookie can prepare dinner -
CHRISTMAS DINNER - Galley, late afternoon/evening

Sunday:
All Veterans to Sign POW Flag, Galley, 10:00 a.m. 'til 10:30 a.m.
POOL TOURNAMENT, Pool Room (above Comms) 1:00 p.m.
$5 entry fee. Please sign-up with the Recreator in the Store.
Fabulous Prizes.

Upcoming Events:
Friday, January 1
Near Year's Eve Party, Garage, 8:00 p.m.
Saturday off!
Sunday, January 2
Poker Tournament, Galley

Horlick Mountains

2004-12-23T10:45:00.000-08:00

On December 21, I went on an unforgettable trip to the Horlick Mountain Region on the Antarctic plateau to prepare an air-dropped fuel cache for a remote field site. The adventure is best told in pictures, which can be viewed at www.picturetrail.com/southpolegirl.

this one's for the chileans

2004-12-12T05:13:00.000-08:00

<> A couple days ago, we got some visitors. But these folks didn't get here on a plane like everyone else on station. These people drove in. They were part of the Chilean traverse that was a land-crossing from the point of land in Antarctica just south of Chile (but not on the peninsula) all the way to the South Pole. It took them 17 days of driving 14 hours per day over sustrugi (snow formations caused by wind) that were up to 5ft high with a caravan that looked like a North Carolina trailer park gone AWOL.

Everyone on station got an email the day before their arrival. It went something like this:
"Sometime in the next couple days, the Chilean traverse team will be arriving at the South Pole. If you see a dot on the horizon moving toward us, please notify Comms." Seriously. Nobody knew exactly where they were or when they'd be rolling in.

Since they've been here, they've been a sort of novelty for us diversity-deprived Americans. They've set up camp on a far corner of the station, but can be spotted just about anywhere around, standing out conspicuously in their blue Chilean parkas like Yankees players in a Red Socks locker room. They've even introduced some of us to Chilean partying with a reception held in the largest of their traverse trailers. It was a crowded affair, causing even our highest higher-ups to stagger to work with a new and different Chilean kind of hangover the next day. They agreed to our invitation to give a presentation one night about their mission and the science they were performing. They were 30 minutes late.

It's neat how in a place without TV or the constant media and sensory overload blitz of the States, a little novelty can go a long way. Vive South Pole!

PC040054.JPG

2004-12-06T05:01:00.000-08:00

Sunday morning, and I just got back from Happy Camper School. I was one of 12 people crazy enough to volunteer to go camp for a night out on the plateu about 3 miles away from the station in -15F and 20 knots of wind. The "school" is officially a Survival School, required for some people who are going out to remote field camps, but offered as a recreational opportunity for others. It's a chance to sleep somewhere other than your tiny room on station, and to get farther away from Station than you're normally allowed to go.

So we take off in tracked vehicles and watch the station disappear in the low visibility of flying snow. The wind had been high since morning, so much so that all the flights in had been cancelled. I had been wracking my brain for an excuse not to go that would be good enough to use without hurting my pride, but now that we were off, I couldn't be more excited. Our guide was a New Zealander mountaineer who had climbed Mt. Everest, Mt. McKinley, and probably every other peak with a "highest in somewhere" status. He showed us how to pitch the traditional Antarctic "Scott Tent" and some more modern Mountaineering tents. We built a 4ft wall winward of our tents, made out of snow blocks that we cut out with snow saws. Hand-warmers were my saving grace as we had to tie down the guy lines on the tents with just our glove liners.

Then we set out for the next 6 hours or so in the cold to build ourselves some snow trenches. I had absolutely no intention of sleeping in a snow trench, but most everybody else did. They built elaborate caves and rooms under the snow, with entrances blocked by walls, and covered with snow bricks. My un-frozen extremities and I were more than happy with my solar-warmed tent behind the wind wall. With every layer of clothing I brought with me on, I was warmly sound asleep by the time some of the others had started digging out bedroom #3 in their snow caves. I had two chocolate bars squirrelled away in my sleeping bag to keep them from freezing, to be eaten during the night when I woke up cold. It's great when eating chocolate is part of the instructor's orders.

By morning, I had slept nearly as good as any night I have spent in the station. I awoke to the sound of birds chirping. Oh wait, that was my dream. I awoke to the sound of snow blowing. The morning was spent filling our water bottles with hot chocolate and taking down tents. About 10am, a dot appeared on the horizon. Although we were all frozen and had been counting minutes until our ride home, when it came time to volunteer for the first trip back, nobody wanted to go. I wasn't complaining 20 minutes later when I was sitting in the galley with a warm omelette and cup of coffee, though. It's nice to be back, and it's nice to have gotten away.

<>

Sipole Dome Field Camp

2004-11-30T11:58:00.000-08:00

Before I forget too many more of the details, I want to tell the rest of the story of my travels.

The morning after getting back to the Pole, I ship out again. I am the only passenger on my flight this time. A couple hours into it, just when I'm getting used to the idea of a warm shower in McMurdo, one of the load masters has some news for us. Turns out, the weather in McMurdo has gone bad. Normally, in these conditions, they would head there anyway, and make a few passes if necessary on the ice runway, or go for one of the alternate runways near the station. There is only one problem with that plan. We don't have enough fuel to even make a 2nd approach on any runway there. Like most planes into Pole, we had offloaded fuel until we had just enough to get back to McMurdo, with some extra for contingencies, because that is how Pole gets all it's fuel for the winter. On our flight out, however, we had to burn a lot of fuel keeping our altitude low while the next flight headed into Pole. I believe the exact words that the flight engineer used to describe our situation were "We are counting fuel by the molecule."

We hang a right over the Ross Ice Shelf and head for a field camp called Sipole Dome. The load master says we'll grab some fuel there, call over to McMurdo for a weather report, and either head out if we can, or, as he puts it, "camp". Camp? At first, I'm a little stunned by this proposition. Then, it hits me. "Really?" I belt out, a smile exploding on my face, "SWEET!". Simultaneously, the girl receiving the same news sitting next to me is overcome by a look of horror and doom. I go on to ask just what this Sipole Dome place is. Some Antarctic field camps are decent-sized operations with several buildings and such, and some are tiny remote outposts with tents. Sipole Dome, I'm told, is somewhere in between. There are some tents, but at least one temporary structure resembling a building. And a population of 6. Just a few days prior, the first plane had offloaded enough fuel there to reload our tanks. We would be more than doubling the population just by landing. I look at the survival bags stored in front of me. I sure hope the crew has enough stuff to share. All I have is the parka on my back, and I'm cold just sitting in this plane.
An hour or so later, we're descending for our first landing of the night. A few specks in the whiteness get bigger as we approach, but not that much bigger. For the most part, the place we've just handed our lives over to is a tiny sprinkle of humanity on a huge white, flat plain. It's like Pole, only much less of it. The fuel pump we're depending on is about the size of a small household generator, and the people there keep hitting it with hammers in an apparent attempt to keep it working. The fuel hose for our LC-130 is about as big around as a garden hose. I see a triangle shape in the distance...a tent that the Sipole Dome residents call home. I step off the plane, away from the propellers, as instructed, and stand in the most remote place I have ever been on this earth. Although we're at about the same Latitude as McMurdo, it feels extremely cold here, and the wind is blowing snow. I secretly hope we have reason to camp, while at the same time wondering how warm my sleeping bag will be.
The crew eventually runs back from where they made their call to McMurdo for the weather report. We're going for it. We button up the plane, and take off once again, from white nothingness into white nothingness. A couple hours later, we break clouds over McMurdo. I can feel the plane rocking back and forth more than usual, and we have to use a special runway to avoid the worst of the crosswinds. Either these folks were just too busy to notice, or they didn't care any more at this point, but I stood up in the cockpit behind the pilot until about 400 ft. altitude. The crew seems nervous, but, luckily, our landing is pretty smooth, all things considered.
We're on a shuttle heading for the station before I know it. Seven hours on the plane. The shuttle driver told us that not ten minutes before we landed, there were white-out conditions at our runway. By some miracle it had cleared literally minutes before our approach.
The next day, I have a bunch of emails from friends at Pole who heard about my diversion to Sipole, and can't believe my luck. I'm getting a reputation at Pole for being a charmed souther-hemisphere jet-setter.

destination McMurdo

2004-11-18T07:23:00.000-08:00

<> Today was my first day back home. I just finished up an amazing 2 weeks of traveling that has left me with pictures from remote field camps, receipts from fancy restaurants, and a friendship with just about every LC-130 crew member on the continent.

My first trip took me to McMurdo Station, which started with the flight from my last posting. I arrive ready to turn around in two short days after the Helium shipment gets in. I am put in a transient room with 3 roommates who are wonderfully welcoming. I meet the Helium, as expected, and put in some work with the McMurdo cryo tech at the station's Science Labs. Then, according to plan, I pack my bags, clean up my room, put on all my ECW gear, turn in my key, and head out to pick up my transportation to the ice runway. Ten steps into the door, I am met by air services...they had just tried to call me. My flight is cancelled because it's too cold to properly offload the 1000 gallon helium tank, which was deemed too large to be safely combat-offloaded. I do an about-face and head back to housing to complete the leaving process in reverse. The next day, I would repeat the drill exactly...right down to the part where they tell me my flight is cancelled.

Each day, I return to my room, play another round of the skip-bo card tournament my roommate and I have started, and spend the day explaining to everyone I run into about the cancellations. Around this time, people have stopped saying normal greetings like "hi" or "how's it going?" to me. They simply say, "You're STILL here?!?" By day 3, we've had it with waiting for the weather, and we go ahead and transfer the Helium into smaller containers that can be combat-offloaded. The transfer is going nicely, when suddenly, the other cryo tech runs into the room and says we have a problem. A line in our big tank has burst...the first failure like this he's seen in his 15+ years in the program. Luckily, we eventually improvise a bit and still get our small tanks full. I imagine in horror what would have happened if my flights weren't cancelled the last few days and the faulty tank had flown and failed while on the air plane! I could have been in charge of a decision on whether or not to drop the container from the plane while in flight!! That's one of the only contingency plans we have for flying over the Antarctic plateau in a small aircraft with limited radio contact.

Instead, I land safely at the South Pole the next day around 8pm with our smaller containers. The flight was thankfully uneventful, except for the frantic unhooking of vent lines before the landing so we could be ready for the combat offload, and a spastic liquid gauge on one of my tanks that has the loadmasters nervous that we were going to blow up. We weigh and store the containers until 10:30pm, when I finally get to see my room again. I'm not done though. I have to unpack, and then re-pack. I am slated for the 10:45am McMurdo flight the next morning for a trip that would eventually have me stepping off a plane in warm, humid Christchurch, New Zealand. But, of course, the Antarctic continent couldn't ever make it that easy.

Pinch me.

2004-11-05T22:30:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was possibly one of the coolest days of my life. I spent the day time preparing for Helium. After months of being out of this precious commodity needed for the experiments, we were finally getting some in--and I was to be it's escort from the big town, McMurdo Station. I was to leave Pole sometime the next morning to meet it. After spending all day getting ready for the big arrival, I went for a jog on the treadmill, only to hear my call sign over the radio a few mintues into it. "Cryo Chris, Cryo Chris, do you copy?" It was Cargo Paddy, the woman in charge of the Helium delivery. She told me that due to weather, all flights tomorrow out of Pole had been cancelled. She asked if I could be ready for the 8 o'clock flight out tonight. It was 6:20. I told her no problem, and ran off the treadmill. I spent the next hour or so throwing my stuff around my room and into bags, scarfing down dinner in the galley, and packing some snacks for the ride. No free peanuts on the LC-130. I walked out to the skiway with a backpack and an empty larger bag for all the stuff I was going to bring back for my friends from MacTown (McMurdo's nickname)...mostly good booze we can't get at Pole. We were motioned onto the plane...four passengers in all. This was a designated fuel plane, meaning it offloaded it's extra fuel from it's tanks into our reservoirs, so we could have enough to run the station. It's too cold for loading cargo at the Pole, so the belly of the plane was mostly empty except for us and our luggage. I had a "window seat", and watched the station disappear into the vast whiteness as we took off. Strange to see everything that has sustained you for the past few weeks disappear into nothing in a matter of minutes.

But the adventure had just started. Not long into the flight, one of the loadmasters invited us into the cockpit. I was a tourist at first, taking lots of pictures and gawking at the amazing view. It was clear then at our altitude of about 20K, and the landscape was peppered with mountains. I started asking a lot of questions, especially of the navigator, and his radar. Either out of fustration or generosity, he eventually just gave me a headset. A few minutes later, I was chatting with the entire crew, consisting of our Pilot, co-Pilot, navigator, flight engineer, and 2 loadmasters. We got to know where everybody was from, and a little about what they do. I mainly just stood between the pilot and co-pilot, watching as the clouds filled in beneath us and overcast the Antarctic plateau. I made no motion of leaving when they started their descent, and nobody mentioned that I should. I heard all the weather reports, the pre-landing briefing, and the plans for a ARA (radar assisted) landing. Visibility was reported as 6 thousand, and our pilot was freaked out for a second because he thought they said 6 hundred. He had them repeat it three times. They decided to do a practice landing that involved going around almost 360 degrees around the runway, and be guided in by flight ops at McMurdo. We started our descent, and at 8K, we popped through the clouds to reveal a stunning sight of blue glaciers, rocky mountains, and sea ice. I was standing right behind the co-pilot, holding onto the handle they advised me to when the turbulance hit. The navigator pointed out all the sights to me, including the mountains he was advising the pilot on regarding their altitude. "You're fine at this altitude over the mountain, but not if we continue this descent rate." Hmm....not exactly making me comfortable with that comment. Neither was the fact that every few minutes they told the pilot a new mileage and corresponding altitude, and they kept forgetting and saying things like "was that nineteen thousand at 10 miles, or twenty six?" It seemed like we were literally weaving between mountains, guided by visuals of the pilot and instructions from the radar guy. Details in the sea ice and glaciers were becoming clearer as the pilot read through his falling altitudes. The view was blowing my mind, and I couldn't even believe I was actually there. No tray tables or seat backs to put up. I was STANDING in the COCKPIT, behind the freaking co-pilot at 1000 feet!!!! Finally, at 800 feet, when it looked like were just bouncing low above the sea ice, they said that I might want to sit down. I sat on a bench at the back of the cockpit and listened to the directions coming from McMurdo. "slightly to left of course and high...heading two nine five" over and over. No automation whatsoever. Landing gear down. Engine 4 looking squirrely. They have a load master go to check the front landing gear because this red light keeps coming on in their panel. The load master reports that the ski is down. It shouldn't be. Since we're landing on an ice runway, we're supposed to be using only the wheels. We are on FINAL finall approach. The runway is RIGHT THERE. They abandon the landing, pull up and around, and the flight engineer flies out of the cockpit to get a visual on the landing gear. My pulse is absolutely racing. After a warning about a nearby mountain that the pilot insists he has a visual on and doesn't need warning about, the flight engineer returns and says we're fine. The ski is only partially down, and being held up by a piece of hardware designed for that. Just land high and bring the nose down slowly, he tells the pilot. SERIOUSLY! The pilot decides he's had enough practice and he's going to do the landing visually only. Nobody speaks and he heads for the runway. A visual-only landing in a sea of whiteness on flaky landing gear. God help us. I loosen my seatbelt and stretch up for a view of the runway getting closer. Soon the familiar buildings surrounding it are crystal clear, and flying by. Holding my breath, we touch down, first in back, then, nervously, in front. That was the sigh of relief that could be heard around the world.

Minutes later, I am outside the plane on the sea ice, marvelling at the first almost-sunset I've seen in weeks. We ate midnight rations ("midrats") with our LC-130 crew that night, and I found my way to my room eventually falling asleep around 2:30am. It's sometimes hard to believe this is really my life.

Election day

2004-11-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

Election day
Originally uploaded by teenmachine.

Today was election day back home. Everyone here has been checking the internet all day, waiting for the electoral votes to come in. No TV to watch, we just hit "reload" minute after minute on cnn.com. Even that was only available until about 3pm, though, when the satellites went down. Then we all just figured we'd wait until morning to find out who our new President was. Some people said they would call home on the highly controlled Iridium phone, which is our 24 hour emergency satellite phone line. Surprisingly, though, someone must be getting through to McMurdo on some kind of radio, because the electoral vote count has been available to us on our internal intranet, which is also put on the TV's in the galley. We have no idea which states have been counted, though, and which ones are still up for grabs. We only know what someone is typing in after hearing numbers over the radio. More than once, the numbers have been wrong...maybe there was too much static over the air. It's strange to be experiencing something so big from such an isolated place. We get used to the idea of being able to find anything out at any time, but down here, when the satellites go down, we really can't get live information. I can only imagine how the people felt who experienced 9/11 here. I keep having the urge for a split second to just call home to find out what's really going on...before I realize it's impossible. By now, most folks have finally wandered out of the galley, where many of us were waiting for new counts to come in. I guess I'll just wait for tomorrow morning too.

Halloween at the South Pole

2004-10-31T08:15:00.000-08:00

Last night was a good night to be at the South Pole. It didn't really feel like Halloween all day...no road side pumpkin stands, no leaves changing color, no jack-o-lanterns, or Halloween impulse aisles in the stores...but we made the best of it. I wore the same costume I've worn for the past 4 years or so, a flapper outfit. It was one of the more planned costumes, since I was warned in advance that Halloween is big down here. Lots of people put together last minute costumes, made up from the skua bins and shacks around station. Skua, named after a scavenger bird found in coastal areas in Antarctica, is how a lot of stuff at the station is recycled. When people leave the ice, they drop off stuff they don't feel like lugging back home in skua bins. Then, people on station go skua bin diving for the stuff. I was very impressed by some of the skua costumes--a sock monkey, a skanky woman in drag, a gypsy, a "cereal" killer, a gardener, Kurt Russel from "The Thing", a ninja, and even a sperm cell were some of the highlights. We had to walk about a quarter mile in about -50F to get to the party, which meant I had to hike up the skirt to get my insulated Carharts on over the costume. I had my big blue boots on my feet and my costume heels hanging out of my parka pocket. Besides the crazy dancing, the highlight of the night was probably when I decided to run outside through the snow to an adjacent building to the closest ladies room, which I did in nothing but my little black flapper dress, boa, and heels. Funny sights at the South Pole...

Mike & Christina at He racks.jpg

2004-10-26T16:41:00.000-07:00

<>
Many people have been asking me just what exactly I do. Well, my official title is Research Associate. There are 3 Research Associates on station out of about 250 people in the summer, 100 in the winter. We are employed by Raytheon, who is contracted by the National Science Foundation to run the station. We help out scientists with experiments while they're here in the summer, and then run and fix experiements in the winter. Out of the 3 RA's, one is the Cryogenics Technician, which is me this year. The cryo tech has some experiments to monitor and help with, but spends a lot of time maintaining the cryogenics on station, including liquid nitrogen and liquid helium, which the scientists need for various experiments. So, I run huge stores of cryogenics and a liquid nitrogen plant. I also bring cryo to the satellite labs around station on a snowmobile. This picture is me at one of the compressed helium gas tank racks that the meteorology people use to fill their baloons.

First day of work

2004-10-25T16:07:00.000-07:00

Today I got mail for the first time here! It was just a couple of the packages I had sent myself before I left, but it was still fun to get mail. I was very surprised it got here so soon after station opening.

Today was also my first real real day of work, and it was pretty cool. I mainly just trained with the present cryogenics tech in the morning. I had my first scary altitude related physiological issue today. Getting enough oxygen here is a challenge on a normal day, as the equivalent physiological altitude here is usually over 10,000 ft. Today, however, it was around 11,000. I was standing out in the cold learning about the big liquid helium transport when I started to feel extremely dizzy. I realized I was standing right downwind of some idling heavy equipment runing on JP-8 and breathing in serious fumes. I was extremely cold and my hands and toes were going numb, and my head was swimming. I kept dropping the stuff I was holding and couldn't concentrate. I tried breathing deeper, but there just wasn't enough oxygen in the air I was taking in, and for one of the first times in my life, I really felt like I was going to faint on the spot. I finally went inside eventually felt better after I sat down with my head between my knees. It's pretty normal to gasp for air here, especially after going up stairs or walking quickly, but today's experience was different. Mental note: stay well clear of machinery exhaust!

My afternoon was spent on a thorough tour of the station learning about all the fire panels and systems. On station, we don't have a dedicated fire crew, so a team of winter-overs go to fire school and serve as the fire squad. I'm one of the trained fire people, and was assigned to Team 1, which is the first responder team that goes directly to the location of a fire alarm to asses the situation and prepare for Team 2, which is the team that wears all the bunker gear and air tanks and actually fights the fire. So, I went into every mechanical room, every power generator room, and all kinds of other places on station I normally wouldn't see, like the huge fuel pump arches and the water melting plant. It was really cool! Plus, I got my own radio to monitor for fire alarm calls. So now I look like a real Polie with my radio stuck in the pocket of my Carhart overalls. :)

Arrived at South Pole

2004-10-23T19:28:00.000-07:00

On Friday Oct. 22, around 4pm, the LC-130 I was in touched down on the skiway at the South Pole. I was terrified, excited, and overwhelmed. Everyone was dressed in their ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear without a speck of exposed skin. Even the old salts were geared up to the nines, which was a little scary...I had hoped their nonchalance would have helped me stay calm. None of us had really been able to talk much since we left McMurdo because the engines were so loud we had to wear earplugs, which added to the stress of the unknown. I couldn't help but wonder just how cold -66F would feel. We already knew it was possibly the coldest opening days in history--well below the threshold temperature for flights. The Coast Guard had to get a waiver just to land. We had a small taste of the cold already because our plane's cargo had to be "combat offloaded"--the freezing comtrails made it impossible for people to offload behind the plane like normal. This meant that while we were taxi-ing, the back of the plane was opened to make a big ramp. The cargo and all of us sitting in front of it were exposed to the open air, which looked like a huge yellow fog through my goggles. Then, the pilot steps on the gas, the military cargo dude unhooks the pallets, and the huge cubes go flying out the back of the plane loudly and slam onto the skiway. Then the ramp is slowly closed. It felt like I was in the middle of a crazy sci-fi movie, seriously. We all cheered.
Then they stop and open the crew door and we file out. Stepping onto the snow was like entering a new world. I was awe struck and nowhere near being able to speak. I spun around to take it in. The "New Station", the Dome, the temporary housing tents, the telescopes, and finally, the plane that brought me here with my friends still spilling out of it's foggy comtrails. It was like walking into an image that is so concrete in your mind it's like a photograph, only now it's come to life. My boss luckily met me and the other Research Associates and lead us through the snow to the New Station. Amazingly, the cold was bearable. Well, all except for my hands, which thoroughly froze. I thought I would be cool and wear my own ski gloves. Bad idea. Even with double liners, my fingers were completely numb and the outside of the gloves totally frozen stiff by the time we got to the station--a 5 minute walk, if that. We dropped our stuff inside and I tried to catch my breath, and my vocabulary. At over 10K ft effective altitude, even walking up a flight of stairs is a challenge. I half got my brain working again, and we headed to the galley for some water and to freak out together. My boss pointed out the geographical South Pole marker to me through the window. I only believed we were really there because I spent a long time watching out the plane's window and seeing nothing but whiteness go by. I had the thoughts of wondering what in the heck I was doing here, and that I must be at the coolest place on the planet all at once. Something about being somewhere so singular makes you think big.

First Post

2004-09-27T13:05:00.000-07:00

I'm not totally in the mood to post, but it seems fitting that my first post would be from Cafe Guru's in Eastport, so I'm going for it. I'm also not entirely sure about this blog host thing, because it's not the open-ended website space I was looking for, but it's guided enough to maybe make my blog more user friendly. Plus, it's free. And I'm cheap. So this morning was a typical couch-hoppers morning. I didn't feel like driving to Chesapeake Beach last night at 11 when I was done having coffee, so I shamelessly knocked on the door of my old house in Eastport and watched an episode of some TV show with the roommate who took my place as penance for asking for a place to crash. In the morning, a few random housemates wandered through the living room wondering who was crashed on the couch, and I eventually got up, brushed my teeth, and took off for a jog around Quiet Waters, which was most excellent. I wasn't ready to lave naptown, so I crashed a marina bathroom, showered, and walked to Guru's. Everything I need is in my trunk, and I'm not in a hurry to get it out, although my to-do list calls and I'll probably re-enter the land of the normal and unpack today.

This past weekend was awesome. My dad trailered the F27 trimaran up to Annapolis. Denise flew in from Charlotte at the same time as I did from Madison and we met Dad and Mike at Herrington Harbour late Friday. Not much wind Saturday morning, so we had a great time taking in the day in Annapolis, and got on the water when the breeze picked up around 3:30. Denise and Dad tried to figure out a place for a cap, Mike held down the front trampolines, and I trimmed the sails to my fickle pointing all evening. The boat graciously climbed to around 7 knots in the light wind, and we watched the sun go down and the moon come up (thanks to Denise) as we headed in. Our timing and spirits couldn't have been better. Sunday we had fun navigating back to Breezy Point--Dad and Denise put the finishing touches on their crossword, and I tried to find the optimal angle for sailing downwind in the extremely light air. We attracted a lot of attention from Calvert Countians as we pulled our crazy contraption of the boat out of the water. The weekend was the realization of two years of hoping for a chance to sail with my Dad on the bay, just in time. Thanks, Dad.

Jeez, I hate to see what I'm capable of when I *am* in the mood to post.