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This morning I woke up in Christchurch. A five hour flight in a C-17 brought me back to birds, bugs, flowers, fresh fruit, and green trees yesterday evening. I’ll write more about my final days on the ice in a couple of weeks, but for now I’m going to enjoy a vacation on the sunny south island of New Zealand.

When planes aren’t flying to the Pole, everyone’s attitude changes.

For almost three complete days there have been no Herc flights from McMurdo to the Pole due to a heavy snow storm along the coast where McMurdo is located. Even though the Hercs have skis, they still can’t takeoff over and through drifts, so the skiway had to be cleared once the snow stopped falling. People who were supposed to leave days ago are left wondering when they’ll be able to start their journey home. People who were supposed to arrive are either stuck in McMurdo (not that fun, really) or cooling their heels in Christchurch (definitely not a hardship). For instance, my replacement, who was supposed to arrive on Wednesday morning, will arrive at roughly 23:25 on Friday night. Even people who aren’t flying or involved in air operations start to watch the flight displays more closely as planes don’t land and perhaps a part of that is that the Hercs are the lifeline of the station in so many ways.

Fresh fruit is normally scarce here but when the planes aren’t flying fresh fruit is nothing more than a theoretical concept and we are served the thoroughly unfortunate “fruit cup” in the galley for breakfast. We don’t get any television signals here, and normally the planes fly in football games on recorded on DVD in McMurdo (where they get Armed Forces Network broadcasts) from the previous weekend. No planes meant that there were no football games to watch this weekend so our normal football night in one of the lounges was canceled. Some of the more exotic spare parts, like a completely new engine for a snowmobile, aren’t kept on hand and when the planes aren’t flying the machines that need those parts don’t run.

Not coincidentally, NSF and others have been looking at ways to get equipment and supplies to the Pole that don’t relay on the Hercs. The 2007 South Pole Traverse rolled into the station earlier this week after traveling 1035 miles overland from McMurdo. A traverse offers the opportunity to transport items larger than the cargo bay in a Herc to the Pole. In addition, it may be possible to more efficiently transport fuel and other supplies to the Pole.

The Traverse members spent almost six weeks driving their tractors to the Pole across the unforgiving terrain of Antarctica. They drove three Case tractors with blades, a pair of Caterpillar tractors and a Pisten Bully while pulling over 65,000 gallons of diesel fuel, two living modules on skis, a reefer unit, and a complete tool shop. A picture of their living modules and some of their tractors is below. They will leave the Pole in two days to make the 1035 mile journey back to McMurdo towing some equipment from the Pole that we no longer need or want. Eventually, the goal is to make a yearly journey to transport large items, fuel, and supplies to the Pole and return with large items, waste, and other things no longer wanted at the Pole thereby lessening the reliance on the Hercs for some things.

Asute readers may have noticed that I mentioned my replacement above. My time here at the Pole is rushing towards its end. I’m scheduled to leave the Pole on Monday and start my journey back to the life I live the other ten months of the year (at least for the last two years). We’ll see if the Hercs are still flying on Monday. I hope so.

It’s been a relatively quiet few days here at the South Pole.

Earlier this week we had DVs (Distinguished Visitors) that toured the facilities here at the Pole. What Distinguishes DVs from other visitors? Usually, money or power over money. In the case of the DVs that we had this week, they were members of the House Science and Technology committee. A trip to the South Pole is apparently one of the perks of serving on that committee. None of the DVs were anyone you might have heard of, unless you follow science funding or politics unnecessarily closely. The people on that committe have plenty of say in how much money the NSF is granted so it’s in the NSF’s best interests to see that they have an easy and enjoyable time of it at the Pole.

Most DVs don’t spend the night here because trying to sleep might cause them undue hardship. The Herc crews who spent one night here all said that they couldn’t wait to leave because they were quite uncomfortable in the altitude. One pilot said to me, “I don’t know how you people do it.” He’d been coming here for 17 years, but always on supplemental oxygen in the cockpit, and had never experienced the altitude before.

To avoid potential overnight stays, the itinerary for DVs usually is a Herc flight to the Pole in the morning, a guided tour of the station and science buildings, so-called hero shots at the Pole marker, some free ballcaps from the station store, coffee and cookies in the galley, and then a flight out on another Herc in the afternoon. It should go without saying that the DVs are driven everywhere in the station’s shuttle van so that they can avoid the hardship of walking in the cold, thin air. That doesn’t stop them from wearing every piece of Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear they were issued in Christchurch, however. At least they’re easy to spot because they travel in a tight wheezing group and they all look like the Michelin Man dressed up in red parkas. To put the icing on the cake, DVs are assigned a trauma team that accompanies them during their time at the Pole, just in case all these precautions to avoid exposing them to actual living and working conditions here fail and they still fall ill.

As you can probably read into my writing, DVs tend to cause polarizing feelings here. We recognize the need for what DVs have (money) but we have little patience for all the hassle and disruption they cause to our routines.

The dedication of the new station is coming up this week and we’ll have boatloads of DVs for the next week as a result. So, IceCubers here at the Pole spent some time cleaning up our workspaces this week. As part of that push, myself and a co-worker spent no small amount of time cleaning up in and around the IceCube Lab (ICL). We swept floors, tidied workspaces, and tried to organize the items we’re storing outside the building. The picture below is me (with an improvised broom handle made out of a bamboo flag pole) sweeping up the data center on the second floor of the ICL. Of course, the DVs spent maybe ten minutes in the building during their three hours on station.

We also had a Chilean traverse roll into the station this week. They intended to spend one night on station and roll out for the Pole of Inaccessibility. However, those folks didn’t exactly exude confidence. One member of the traverse was hoping they would call off their traverse sooner rather than later because he had his own plans to kite-ski back to Patriot Hills and he wanted to start earlier, rather than later.

IceCube recently had a management switch-over here on the ice as the previous on-ice lead was displaced by the arrival of an individual higher up the management food chain. The new manager is a senior scientist on the project, and he tends to over-manage situations and individuals. Unfortunately, we don’t need meddling scientists here right now. We need people who understand engineering, logistics, data communications, and the like. People who understand nut and bolts and how people who work with nuts and bolts think and work. It’s great that this new guy understands quantum and particle physics, but that doesn’t make him qualified to judge HVAC systems or how to move a 40-ton hose reel using a bulldozer. In addition, it’s clear from his attitude that we’re the just the hired help and he’s not much interested in getting his hands dirty. His attitude is quietly tolerated in his presence due to his position, but he’s not making any friends here.

I’ve been up on the roof of the ICL a fair amount the last couple of days working in and around our antenna box. The photo below was taken as I serviced a camera bubble that’s attached to our antenna box. Since I’m working over three stories above the ground, I’m wearing a fall-protection harness which would theoretically keep me firmly tethered to the roof if a sudden gust of wind were to come up. Those gusts of wind are rare at the Pole (we tend to have steady breezes rather than strong winds), but the roof is slippery and I suppose anything is possible.

Today I worked a connection with the BICEP project to get a tour of DSL (the Dark Sector Lab). As I’ve mentioned previously, we’re not supposed to enter buildings in which other science projects are housed unless we’re there by invitation. I met my connection last year while I was down here and he was nice enough to agree to give me a tour this afternoon. BICEP and the South Pole Telescope (SPT), also known as the 10-meter telescope, are both microwave telescopes that are looking at the background radiation of the universe. Neither project has the population on station that IceCube does, but SPT certainly is noticeable on the horizon so it’s a popular stopping point for DV tours. The focusing dish of SPT in its resting position can be seen in the photo below with the IceCube drill camp in the background to the left.

Happy New Years from the South Pole!Most Polies celebrated New Years last night, even though the official station party was held one night earlier (because management felt it was more convenient that way). Of course, management had a rough go of it when their views collided quite rudely with reality. Most people ended up celebrating both nights. After all, it hardly makes sense to ring in January 1, 2008 on December 31, 2007 but if there was a party on December 30, 2007, who were we to complain? It was a good excuse to go out both nights.

As someone pointed out today, we could really celebrate New Years all day today since we are physically located in all time zones simultaneously. We just choose to observe New Zealand time for the sake of convenience.

The night before the big celebration found me in the dish pit again. Most of the DAs (dish assistants; God forbid someone or something here doesn’t have an acronym) got the night off so it was another night where the community was requested to pitch in. One of my coworkers snapped a photo of myself and one of the station’s carpenters during a lull in the action. It’s a small photo, so I’ll point out that I’m the guy in the yellow plastic apron.

Every New Years Day the South Pole marker is moved in a small ceremony. The previous year’s winterovers design and manufacture the South Pole marker during the winter and their design is unveiled during the Pole marker ceremony. For those who don’t know, the Pole marker is moved every year because the ice sheet that covers Antarctica moves roughly thirty feet a year relative to the ground over which it flows. I should also point out that there are two South Pole markers. The geographic pole marker can be seen above. It marks the actual South Pole. The ceremonial Pole is a reflective silver sphere that rests on top of candy-cane striped Pole surrounded by flags of various nationalities. Traditionally, it is within a hundred yards or so of the geographic South Pole. Most people get their pictures taken with both Poles just to cover all the bases. You can see the array of flags surrounding the ceremonial Pole in the foreground of the picture below. That’s the station in the background, obviously. The array of windows in the corner nearest the ceremonial Pole is the galley. It’s always good entertainment while we’re eating to watch people taking their photos at the Pole.

Today also saw a quite unusual series of events here at the South Pole. When the LC-130 Hercules aircraft shuttle people and supplies to the Pole from McMurdo they almost never shutdown their props when they’re on the ground here at the Pole. Rather they run all four engines the whole time they’re on the ground. Tonight, however, we have not just one but two Hercs parked on the tarmac for the evening. One was on the deck here at the Pole and and the other was enroute when the airfields at McMurdo were swallowed up by the weather and visibility was reduced to near zero. The plane that was on the deck took off and headed for McMurdo, hoping that the weather would clear during the three and one-half hours it would take to complete the journey while the Herc enroute to the Pole continued. Eventually, the Herc trying to reach McMurdo was forced to turn around and head back to the Pole for the night. In talking with people who have been here for many years, it is very, very unusual for something like that to take place. Quite frankly, it looks very odd to have two Hercs sitting in the aircraft pit without their props turning. A scene like that at Williams field near McMurdo where the Hercs are based is normal, but here it is not. You can see the planes in the photo below with the station’s satellite radome and RF building in the background.