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Now that I’m back in the States, I’ll recount the details of my last weekend on the ice.Saturday, 12 Jan 08, was the official dedication of the new South Pole Station (a.k.a. the Elevated Station, the South Pole Station Modernization, the habitrail, etc.). In a series of daylong ceremonies, the torch was symbolically passed from the Dome to the new Station. Early in the morning, a group photo was taken in front of the Dome for all interested Polies. I’d guess that maybe 75-100 of us showed up for the photo.

Once the photo was taken, the US flag that had been flying over the Dome was lowered and passed hand-to-hand from the Dome to the new Station. Everyone got a chance to hand the flag along, and since there was more ground to cover than people, many people got to hand it along twice. The official flag raising was scheduled for the afternoon, so the flag was securely stowed in Comms, and then the ceremonial Pole and its bevy of attendant flags were moved. This involved a whole parade of folks from different nations and ethnicities. For instance, a Kiwi moved the New Zealand flag, a Japanese-American moved the Japanese flag, and a Norwegian-American moved the Norwegian flag. Once the ceremonial Pole was moved so that it was centered on the new Station, we once again assembled and another photo was taken with the ceremonial Pole in the front and the station serving as a background.

You might imagine that all this pomp and circumstance would take some time given that there were a hundred or more people involved. In reality, we had the whole thing done in less than ninety minutes. The weather that morning was a bit on the chilly side and even when you’re dressed for it, cold can be a great motivating factor.

A couple of hours later, the DVs started flying in for their part in the ceremonies. For the most part, this involved speechifying to each other in the gym and being driven around on a tour of the Station and its outlying science projects. In the afternoon they all trotted outdoors in their ECW to watch the flag raising at the new Station. Shortly thereafter, they all went back into the Station for a dinner of lobster tails, filet mignon, fancy hors d’oeuvres, and table service before starting their journey back to NZ. Us working schlubs were, of course, working during all that and there definitely wasn’t any table service at our dinner. Regardless, we got the same food and I shared a bottle of wine with some co-workers during dinner that improved the food a bit.

On Monday I finished packing up my room and caught an LC-130 flight back to McMurdo. It wasn’t a terribly crowded flight, maybe nine people total. Then I got to spend a night in McMurdo, which only reinforced my perception that things are generally better at the Pole. Tuesday, around noon, I rode in a shuttle out to Pegasus, the ice runway where we would catch the C-17 inbound from Christchurch for our flight back to the so-called real world. While we were waiting for the cargo in the plane to be unloaded, four Adelie penguins went running and belly-sliding under the C-17 and off towards open water. This was fun to see, and let me assure, penguins can move fast when they want. Of course, these were completely unperturbed by the massive airplane, all the people, the refueling operation, and the machinery to remove cargo from the hold. Eventually, the plane was emptied and refilled with cargo headed back to NZ and we were allowed onboard. Once we got onboard, the plane taxied back onto the ice runway, and proceeded to sit there. After five minutes of just sitting there with all the engines running, the pilot came over the PA system to announce that the plane couldn’t take off because a penguin was on the runway. Another five minutes elapsed, and the penguin finally cleared the runway so we could take off.

Five hours later we landed in New Zealand. As usual, the humidity and smells of New Zealand were overwhelming. When you’ve spent over a month in a place with 0-3% humidity, the humidity in the air of a city on an ocean is delightful.

Even more delightful (most of the time), is the acute sense of smell you develop on the ice. When you spend all your time in the so-called real world, you are constantly assaulted with smells and they all blend together in a miasma that is difficult to parse for individual scents unless one is particularly overpowering. On the ice, there simply aren’t many sources of smell. The galley is one; the smell of people not bathing regularly is another. The handful of cleaners and solvents used on the ice have smells as do fuels. BO doesn’t really register with your nose unless you’re around someone who just skied in and hasn’t seen a shower for a month. Other than that, there aren’t many smells to occupy the nose and it gets fairly sensitive. When you get off the plane in New Zealand there is suddenly a world of scents competing for your attention and you’d be surprised at when you can smell. Sarah and I would be walking down a street in Christchurch and a man or woman would pass us in the other direction. I would recoil from the almost crushing scent of their cologne or perfume and Sarah wouldn’t smell a thing. We’d walk by entire beds of flowers at twenty feet or so and I’d comment how nice they smelled and she’d say that she couldn’t smell a thing. In about a week or so, your nose returns to a semblance of normality, about the time that your skin starts to recover from the extreme dryness at the Pole.

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.

As we rapidly approach observance of New Years here at the Pole, I suppose it’s time to recount Christmas Day.
The day before Christmas, the International Trans Antarctic Expedition (ITASE) rolled into town. I use the word rolled because ITASE is one of the numerous traverses bound for the Pole this year. The traverse members lived in little buildings on skis pulled by their Caterpillar tractors and a Pisten Bully until they arrived here on Christmas Eve. They joined us for Christmas dinner and they all seemed fairly happy to have new people with whom to converse. In the picture below you can see the two little buildings on skis that the traverse members had available to them on their drive across half the continent.

Christmas Day started with the annual Race Around the World, a roughly two mile run/walk/ski/crawl/bike/drive around the Pole. You can basically get around the course however you want but the only prizes are for the first male and female runners who the finish line. As usual, there was the sofa on a sled pulled by a snowmobile and the fire truck drove around the course blaring tunes over the public address system. A pair of the station’s Pisten Bullies took part in the race as did a massive (and slow) tracked bull dozer. Finally, one of the ITASE tractors decided to race as well. The ITASE tractor can be seen at the starting line in the photo below with the massive bull dozer just in front of it. I guess they figured that they’d already driven hundreds of miles of frozen wasteland, so what was another two for the sake of the race.

After brunch, I decided to check out some skis and boots andtry some cross-country skiing. I don’t necessarily have the stereotypical nordic skiing getup here, so I had to make due with what I had. Long underwear, jeans, two fleeces, and my headgear was the uniform of the day. The wind chill was -38°F and the sun was shining which is a moderate summer day here. I headed out onto the wastes for about three hours of skiing. One neat thing about the cold temperatures is that water freezes very quickly so you can see your performance clothing at work. As I worked up a sweat, the two fleeces wicked the water to the surface where it froze and form a light sheen of snow and ice. That may have looked cold, but it meant that I was staying warm as the water wasn’t sitting next to my skin and freezing.

After about an hour on the trail I decided to try and find the station’s “ski hut” because ice was forming on the inside of my goggles as my breath condensed on the lens and froze. The ski hut is known locally as the Love Shack and while I had heard stories about the Love Shack, I’d never been there before. Eventually I did find the Shack, which can be seen in the picture below.

The Shack isn’t much more than a black-painted building similar to our outhouses here. The black paint keeps the interior of the building about 32°F in the summer, which feels plenty warm when you step out of the wind and cold and you’re in your cold weather gear. I spent twenty minutes there clearing my goggles, drinking a warm beverage I had in my backpack, and signing the logbook. After that, it was out onto the trail for another hour and one half. For an idea of the scenery you get while skiing here, check out the picture below. If you’re in the mood for variety, Nordic skiing here isn’t necessarily the answer.

Since Christmas Day it’s been work as normal here. IceCube drillers continue to drill holes in the ice while our deployment teams continue to place long strings of instruments in them. I’m still working in our Data Center here to get our computing environment in shape to run for the next nine or so months.

Today is Sunday at the Pole and volunteers will be decorating the gym for our New Years celebration. The station is taking today and tomorrow off for observance of New Years, even though New Years Eve doesn’t fall until Monday night. I’m guessing that there will be plenty of hung-over RPSC employees come Tuesday morning.

Merry Christmas from the South Pole!

By the time you read this, it will be Christmas here at the South Pole. Due to the timezone we observe here, the South Pole sees Christmas a full nineteen hours before those of you in the Midwest.
Normally, people here on station work six days a week and Sunday is an off-day. However, Christmas traditionally is one of the rare occasions when people get two days off. Since Christmas falls on a Tuesday this year, the station worked on Sunday and got Monday and Tuesday off. Of course, for scientists and support staff like myself, we’re not necessarily bound by what the NSF and Raytheon Polar Services Corp. do, so we usually work a bit nearly every day.

As part of the Christmas celebration, the station has Christmas dinner, complete with appetizers, egg nog (with rum), and live music. Due to the size of the station’s summer population and the physical realities of the galley, Christmas dinner is eaten in three shifts on Christmas Eve. We met in the hallway outside the galley for the appetizers, egg nog, and music a half-hour before the meal. We then entered and sat at the usual tables, only they were covered with cloth tablecloths. Instead of paper napkins, we used cloth napkins. The plates were still plastic and so were the water glasses, but there were candles (usually a huge no-no in Antarctica due to the fire danger), strings of lights on the ceiling, and wine stewards who poured wine and delivered dessert. We still ate the main course buffet-style, but nobody complained. The dinner this year was beef wellington, lobster tails, mashed potatoes, vegetable wellington, two types of gravy, asparagus, some sort of root vegetable combination, salad, chocolate something or other pie, pecan pie, some sort of meringue pie, fresh whipped cream, chocolate truffles and fudge, and an array of cookies. Suffice it to say that anyone who left the galley hungry after that meal had only themself to blame. You only got an hour to eat, including toasts, dessert, and waiting in line for food, so no one could push back from the table and ruminate about the meaning of life, but again, it is Antarctica (a harsh continent, or so we always say), so no one complained. After dinner, we all bussed our plates into the dish pit so that they could be quickly washed and placed back on the tables for the next shift.

I volunteered in the dish pit yesterday morning. There are a few people on station who are dedicated dish washers, but even they get time off and helping out in the dish pit is something of a station tradition. Doing all those dishes isn’t exactly a great time, but it is something that people here do to participate in the community. Just as we all have to clean bathrooms, lounges, and the like, doing a whole heap of dishes is part of living here.

While I was working the dish pit, two planeloads of tourists came by to see the place. Their planes, pictured above, were parked in the non-governmental activies area here. If you’ve got well over $34,000 to spend, there is a company that will happily get you to the Pole for several hours. You can’t spend the night here, and you aren’t exactly free to wander about without an escort, but you do get a tour of the station, a cup of coffee and a cookie in the galley, and an opportunity to shop the station store. There were twenty or so filthy rich…er, I mean intrepid souls who wandered past the pit while I was working there. Most of them looked like tourists, just wearing more cold weather gear than you might expect to find on a tourist in a more typical locale. One or two of them looked decidedly displeased with the altitude.

Lest anyone think that it’s all peaches and cream here, I should relate a story of youth, testosterone, alcohol, and stupidity. As you might expect when those four items are key elements in the story, it doesn’t end well for all concerned. Generally, flights into and out of the Pole are non-existent on holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and New Years. That’s why I was surprised to see a skier (that’s what we call LC-130 Hercules flights here) inbound for the Pole on the flight schedule today. Eventually, I learned it was a medevac flight. The story behind that flight is uncommon, but not unheard of. As I may have mentioned in the past, many of the RPSC employees here are younger, and the majority of those are male. There are no shortage of twenty-something males who spend their days doing stereotypically manly things like driving heavy equipment, doing construction, performing maintenance, and the like. Two of the local drunken rowdies both chose last night to get stinking drunk and unfortunately for them, their paths crossed sometime after two in the morning. Words were exchanged, punches were thrown, and when the dust cleared one of the rowdies had a bleeding and broken jaw. His assailant fled the scene while the broken-jawed wonder started wandering around the station. He knew he was bleeding, but was so drunk that he couldn’t think straight or feel too much pain. Eventually, someone on the night shift found the bleeding wonder and summoned the doc to Medical. That’s when the station’s management was alerted to the situation and the fact finding began. Soon thereafter, the jaw breaker was named and found (there aren’t many places to hide here). So, the skier I saw was carrying both knuckleheads off the continent: one for medical care and both for termination from their jobs. Normally, the Air Force and National Guard crews get Christmas Eve and Christmas Day off, so I can’t imagine they were thrilled to be flying two nitwits off the ice. I’m sure there were no special privileges extended to the drunken duo on their flights back to New Zealand.

The weather here was fairly rough a few days ago. It wasn’t much colder or windier than usual, but the atmospheric conditions made it seem like you were living inside a ping-pong ball when you went outdoors. As you can see in the picture above, there was almost no definition between ground and sky. Several vehicles were driven off what we call roads here and into drifts, even though the station speed limit is fifteen miles an hour. It was hard even for pedestrians to see definition in the ground twenty feet ahead. Some flights into the Pole were delayed as a result of those conditions, but not nearly as many as I expected. The National Guard pilots who fly the Hercs out of McMurdo to the Pole must not have found the conditions as daunting as they seemed.

Once the weather cleared up a bit, a coworker and I went up onto the roof of the ICL to examine a few things in our rooftop antenna farm. While we were up there, we took a few photos. The picture below is me, standing on the roof of the ICL, with the IceCube drill camp in the background.

As I’ve written about life in Antarctica in the past, you can get people to turn out for just about anything if it is different than the routine.

As I’ve gotten to know a couple of the NOAA folks on station, and one of the meteorological technicians, I started to hear more and more about “the biff.” If there is one universal truth of Antarctic life, it is that an acronym or abbreviation enhances nearly all facets of life. So, I assumed that “the biff” was merely the pronunciation used by those in the know for YAA (Yet Another Acronym). The BIF, or Balloon Inflation Facility, is a “temporary” building, erected in 1995, where balloons are filled, payloads are attached, and then the whole mess is set free to monitor weather, ozone, CFCs, and other components of our atmosphere.

The day I went out to observe a balloon launch was the day that the NOAA crew sent up their once a week ozone sounding balloon to sample ozone levels at varying altitudes. The Met techs (that’s the local slang for meteorological technicians) send up balloons twice a day, at 10:00 and 22:00, but their balloons are smaller, so I was interested to see this much larger balloon. The process of readying the balloon for launch is fairly straightforward. First, the workspace is cleared of all sharp objects (duh). Then, the latex balloon is attached to a helium inflation system which runs for several minutes to fill the balloon. Once the balloon is full, it is secured to the table with string so that an instrument package and a parachute can be attached. The parachute is used to slowly float the instrument package back to the ground once the balloon bursts so that readings can be taken on the way down, in addition to the way up. Finally, a pair of two-story steel doors are opened so that the balloon can be taken outside.

Once the balloon is outside, the drama is over fairly quickly. The balloon is released and ten to fifteen seconds later it has risen so far that it can no longer be seen.

Today, we had the second C-17 air drop ever at the Pole. The Air Force is practicing their air drops during the summer season so that if they ever needed to make a winter air drop, they would have some idea of what to expect. Last year, the air drop was a series of large containers that contained food that were all sent out the back of the plane in one go. This year, we had two drops of smaller boxes. The first drop was a series of eight to ten boxes. The C-17 then circled around again, and had another go. This time, two of the boxes tangled on the way out the door and they fell like stones to the snow. According to people who were working the drop, those boxes are deeply embedded in the snow. As you might expect, the air drop was a big event here on station, and a good number of people turned out to watch it. Weekly events like yoga, and the Wednesday night documentary film series were also cancelled so that people could see the air drop.

Once the air drop itself was concluded, the C-17 made a series of low level passes down the skiway. The theory there was that if the Air Force had to do a winter air drop, they would try and drop on the skiway, rather than way out past the antenna farm. That would make retrieval significantly easier for the winterovers. There is no reason to make them battle distance, in addition to brutal temperatures and darkness.

In other, more personal news, today was a big day for me: shower day. I took my second shower since I arrived on station last Wednesday. We only get two, two minute showers per week, but maybe that just makes each one that much sweeter.

I’m looking forward to Friday night. Since there are no television signals at the Pole, we get a series of DVDs from McMurdo every Thursday or Friday that contain many of the televised football games from the previous weekend. Since the Vikes played on Monday night, we’ll get that game, no doubt. Every Friday night at 19:30, a number of us gather in one of the lounges to watch one game on TV as a group. Since the organizer of that event is also a Vikings fan, we may end up watching that game on the big screen. Regardless, I could always get the DVD and watch the game myself on my laptop.

IceCube held its annual open house for the station population yesterday.
The larger science projects at the Pole will have open houses about once a year to give the rest of the station population an idea of just what they’re up to. Most science buildings are off-limit to personnel who aren’t directly involved in a related project. For instance, even though ARO is a short walk from the station and there aren’t any locks on the doors, I would definitely be breaking protocol if I went there without the blessing and/or presence of someone associated with NOAA, the building’s primary occupant.

Similarly, the IceCube Lab (hereafter ICL) and the IceCube Drill Camp are strictly off-limits to non-IceCube personnel. Our open house is an opportunity for people to come out in a sanctioned fashion and get a glimpse of what we do and why.

The ICL is a good walk from the station, roughly a mile. In the photo above, the ICL is the two vertical grey-ish bars slightly off-center to the left. The IceCube Drill Camp is the low-cluster of grey bars centered in the photo. The South Pole Telescope and BICEP are the buildings off-center to the right.This photo was taken from just outside the station to give you an idea of how far away the building is. Most days, I make the walk to the ICL and back in about fifteen to twenty minutes each way. However, for the open house we had a shuttle van running that took people from the station, to the Drill Camp, the ICL, and then back to the station.

The photo above shows the ICL in greater detail. As you can see, it is an elevated two-story building with a pair of multi-story towers on either side. The snow ramp in front allows us to bring cargo up to the first floor with greater ease. The two towers are where the cables from the strings of instruments we place into the ice enter the building. The first floor is given over to work benches and lab space while the second floor houses the data center.

We had a good turn out for the open house. Last year, only seven or so people turned out to see what one of the largest science projects on station was about. This year we had twenty or so. Some people are interested in the science, some want to see the drill and the holes it makes, others just want to see whatever they can because it’s different from their normal routine (different is a huge selling point for just about anything in Antarctica). In addition to station personnel, some skiers who were camping out near the Pole until their plane picks them up later today joined the group.

One of the tour highlights for many people was our near real-time event viewer. This is a new bit of software that our colleagues at the University of Maryland produced this year. It shows the detector and how it reacts to incoming particles. I took a crude video of the computer screen that shows the viewer in action. (Note: You’ll likely need to have QuickTime installed to view the video.)The blue grid represents the ice surface. The rotating strings of lights below the surface of the ice represent the strings of instruments that we currently have in the ice. The green dots on top of the ice represent an associated experiment called IceTop. The red line represents a particle and as it enters the detector, you can see how it lights up the in-ice instruments in and around its path before exiting the detector.

Out at the ICL I have a little office that I use. It isn’t assigned to me but no one else ever seems too keen on sitting there so I call it mine. It is spartan, but it does include a desk with a phone and a window. The window is a bubble-style window that I can use to look out on the South Pole Telescpe or the Drill Camp. An example view from the window is below.

Once again, I find myself at the South Pole.

My ice flights this year were quite nice. Last year I shared the plane with over 90 people and a firetruck. This year, the C-17 flight out of Christchurch to McMurdo only had 27 people on it, so they filled up the plane with cargo. I sat along the side of the plane with a 10-ton bulldozer right in front of me and a box of corrosive, flammable methanol phosphoric acid to my left. The bulldozer seemed to be held in place with far too few chains for its size and weight, so I found myself making plans to quickly jump on top of the tracks if the thing started to slip towards me rapidly during flight. Fortunately, we landed at Pegasus field near McMurdo without incident.

McMurdo hasn’t changed. It sill looks like a mining town that, strangely enough, doesn’t engage in mining. The food still isn’t great, the station is crowded, and the area is dirty in the summer when the ice and snow melt and the volcanic dust flies everywhere. One nice thing about McMurdo is that there are numerous recreational trails around it where people can go hiking. So, while I had time to kill, I availed myself of those opportunities and went on a couple of nice hikes. As the ice has thinned a bit near the station, the waddell seals have been breaking through the really thin bits to sun themselves on top of the thicker bits. It’s not legal or very practical to get near the seals, so I got some pictures but they aren’t great.

Despite some flight delays, we got out of McMurdo near our scheduled departure time and I arrived at the South Pole yesterday. For whatever reason, the altitude this year hasn’t affected me nearly as much as it did last year when I first arrived. Maybe it’s the Diamox (an altitude acclimation drug) or maybe I’m just imagining it. Because this wasn’t my first year here, I got to skip the briefing that all first-timers have to endure when they first arrive. I got my berth assignment (I’m in the station itself again this year), dropped my bags in my room, and started having conversations about what needs priority attention while I’m here.

Today I toured a building we call ARO (pronounced air-o). ARO stands for Atmospheric Research Observatory. It primarily conducts research related to particles and compounds in the atmosphere. For instance, they monitor the number of CFCs in the atmosphere and they have data that demonstrate the affect that banning CFCs had in the recent past. They also monitor carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere to support climate change science and ozone levels to monitor the fabled ozone hole. As part of my tour, I got a glass vial that is filled with “The World’s Cleanest Air.” ARO is a sector known as the Clean Air Sector and incredible care is taken to ensure that everything that can be done is done to ensure that station pollution doesn’t reach ARO.

It hasn’t been all sightseeing today, however. I had House Mouse duties this afternoon, so I had to clean the bathrooms on my floor. In addition, I started the process of knocking items off my own work to-do list.

The wind was quite strong here today which meant bitterly cold windchills, reduced visibility, and plenty of drifting snow. The winds here at the Pole aren’t very strong compared to stations on the coast, but the low temperatures and the ice crystals always present in the air make even moderately strong winds quite unpleasant. Hopefully, today will be a bit calmer.

One of the three satellites that provides Internet connectivity to the Pole is currently unavailable to us, so we’re down to less than eight hours a day of Internet access and those hours start at 02:30 local time. So I’ll try to keep up my blog, but it may not be a daily affair.

When a number of my colleagues were at the Pole during the early part of this year, they installed a webcam behind our firewall there. As such, I’ve been able to watch the sun go down over the past week. Once below the horizon, the sun won’t rise there again until 21 Sep 2007.The pictures below show the sun heading below the horizon, the sun on the first day it is below the horizon, and the sun several days after it set.

The photos are blurry because the webcam is focusing on the dome that encloses it, rather than the objects at which it is pointed. In addition, some snow and ice is sticking to the dome, so that introduces some artifacts into the photos.

My relatively short stay here at the South Pole will likely come to an end within an hour. An LC-130 is enroute from McMurdo to take myself and eleven others to McMurdo for the night. If all goes according to plan and if the weather holds, tomorrow morning should see myself and 56 others boarding a C-17 for Christchurch. My posting in this space will likely be limited for a couple of days as a result.

There is no shortage of festive spirit to ring in the New Year at the South Pole.
2007 at the South Pole

There is no shortage of festive spirit to ring in the New Year at the South Pole.

Even though both Sunday and Monday were officially off-days, I worked a bit each day as my time here is rapidly coming to an end but my to-do list doesn’t seem to be shrinking much. Regardless, I still found time to enjoy myself.

The Station throws quite a shindig for New Year’s Eve. The gym and the weight room were closed all day Sunday so that party decorations could be installed. Everyone stocked up on alcohol at the Station store, the kitchen put out some hearty meals, and most everyone started relaxing.

The decorations in the gym were very well done. A parachute was used to hide the ceiling and the basketball hoops which gave the place a very intimate feel. A stage was erected on the far end of the gym; colored spotlights shown down from the weight room and Christmas lights added a nice glow. Given the limited time and materials available, the decorators did a fabulous job.

The Station provided free beer and soda, which was chilled in big trash barrels filled with snow, of course. There were also big bowls of munchies–cheese, crackers, chips, and salsa.

A pair of bands made up of Station residents were the entertainment. The second band improvised for the eveing and one of the British skiers was the lead singer. Earlier in the day, Station management showed them where the Skua shack is located and the skiers were able to get some clothes that weren’t their expedition wear for the first time in fifty days. One of the skiers, Paul, wore jeans, a leather jacket, and some medallions. He’d lost so much weight on the ski into the Pole that he felt it was probably the last time he’d be able to parade around without his shirt on. Paul was up there wailing away on all these classic rock tunes and he’s really quite talented. The crowd reacted very enthusiastically to his two-footed jump into Station life.

We had a countdown to midnight, coordinated by a GPS clock, of course. You can’t take six steps without running into a GPS-driving clock down here. After the obligatory toasts, hugs, handshakes, and good wishes, we all sang the obligatory rendition of “Auld Lang Syne.” The band then went right back to work and everyone hit the dance floor. I finally went to bed about 02:00.

This morning I was worthless as I woke up at 06:00 and was unable to get back to sleep. I finally took a couple of naps and regained a semblance of my normal mental and physical capacity in the afternoon.

I should probably explain the Skua shack reference above. The skua is an Antarctic gull generally seen only around the coast. Skua, like most gulls, have come to the realization that humans are not terribly fearsome or smart. So, if you leave the galley in McMurdo with a sandwich or other snack, you shouldn’t be surprised if a skua or five tries to liberate your snack from you. When you don’t want clothing or some other object that still has usable life left in it, you donate it to Skua, which is something like a Salvation Army or Goodwill. However, you’re always free to peruse what is in Skua and if you see something you like, it’s free for the taking. Skua also has a use as a verb. If you skua something, you don’t necessarily steal it, but you don’t necessarily not steal it either.

Tonight, the marker, flag, and sign that marks the geographic South Pole was moved in a small ceremony. Since the ice sheet on which the Station and everything else sits moves about thirty feet a year, the geographic Pole marker is moved every New Years Day. In addition, a new marker design is revealed each year. There was a massive horde waiting to take pictures of the marker today, so I’ll go take mine tomorrow when there won’t be anyone around.

After the marker was revealed, Darryn and Sven (a pair of fellow IceCubers) and I got a pair of sleds and Ski-Doos so that we could help the British Polar Quest team on their way. We tied the British sleds to the sleds which were attached to the Ski-Doos. We then drove them about five miles or so away from the Station where they wanted to set-up camp. They are hoping for favorable winds in the morning and their campsite gets them out past a multi-mile antenna line. Their sleds were really quite heavy. I dragged a couple of them around while hooking them up to the Ski-Doo sleds and I’m impressed that they were able to ski with that much weight to the Pole. Of course, everybody at the Station tried to load them down with food and trinkets. The cooks in the galley gave them a bag of food, others gave them candy or snacks. Still others tried to load them down with T-shirts, hats, and the like. They were forced to turn down most things that weren’t small or food as they still have to kite-ski to the coast for another fifteen to twenty-one days.

We were tooling along on the Ski-Doos, Sven driving one and me driving the other, and after a while we got to the antenna line. We stopped and asked if they wanted to get off there or go any farther. Without any hesitation they said, “We’ll go as far as you’ll take us.” We all chuckled at that and drove them another mile or two.

Tomorrow, I have to start making preparations for departure on Wednesday. I’ve got to have my checked bag packed and placed in a particular location tomorrow by 19:30. My flight on Wednesday will most likely arrive and then depart (with me on it) around 11:00 local time. The moment of my departure seems to be hurtling towards me at this point. I’ve really enjoyed myself overall the last week or so, but it will be nice to see night and green things again.

While the Station continues to be plagued by problems with electrical supply and demand, the Pole has also been visited by more skiers.The New Power Plant (NPP) for the Elevated Station and the outlying science buildings continues to be plagued by problems. The biggest problem at the moment is a lack of necessary parts that need to come from the US. We’re currently running on one generator, with another about to enter reserve status. Unfortunately, the generator we’re currently using, #1, is overdue for a major overhaul, so as soon as #3 is available, it is possible that #3 will become our working generator and #1 will be torn down for repairs. Due to the fact that our generator system is somewhat precarious, we have no peaking generator and the Station’s electrical load is carefully and constantly monitored. Towards that end, many of IceCube’s computer systems are currently shutdown and will likely remain that way until I leave the Pole.

Yesterday, Hannah McKeand reached the Pole breaking the previous record for a solo, unsupported ski to the Pole from the coast by two days.

Last night, the British Royal Navy/Royal Marines PolarQuest team, Hannah McKeand, and a representative of the Indian Navy all gave talks about their respective quests to reach the Pole on skis. In general, all of them were engaging speakers and their physical exertions cannot be diminished. The Indian Navy might only have skied the final 97 miles to the Pole, but considering that most of them had never been on skis before April, 2006, their trek was worthy.

This morning, myself and some other Polies went out to see the Indian Navy and Ms. McKeand off as they were picked up by a pair of Twin Otters operated by a private contractor. The image at the left is of two members of the Indian expedition, Sven Lidstrom (an IceCube winterover), and myself at the ceremonial Pole.

The Brits are still here as they are trying to wait out persistent winds. Since they are planning to kite-ski back to the coast, the direction of the wind is a fairly critical component of their departure planning. They were hoping to get out today, but the winds were a direct headwind. The picture at right shows a bit of the British camp out near the Pole, their sleds, and one of the Twin Otters that came in to pick up the others.

After their talk last night, myself and a couple of others invited members of the various expeditions down to the Station’s bar for a couple of drinks. All told, there were six members of the various expeditions, and perhaps eight or so members of the South Pole community. Expedition members are allowed to purchase most everything from the Station store, except liquor or beer, so we made sure to have a good supply on hand. As one expedition member reverentially said, “This is the first beer I’ve had in seven weeks.” Some folks wanted to pay us for the beer. Our response? “Your money is no good here.”

My departure date has been moved up from 05 Jan 07 to 03 Jan 07. I asked for the change since it meant that I wouldn’t have to spend four days cooling my heels in McMurdo, waiting for a flight out. That could still happen if the weather turns sour, but at least it isn’t a sure thing. The odd thing is that I’m getting more comfortable here, meeting more people, and yet am just about to leave. The time seems to be rapidly slipping away.

Unlike McMurdo, where some television stations are available via the Armed Forces Network, there is zero television here. That makes watching football something of a novelty. During the NFL season, a handful of VHS tapes containing of football games from the previous weekend are flown in to the Pole once a week. The tapes are made in McMurdo off the AFN broadcasts and are hardly the highest quality. Today I spent part of the afternoon watching the Denver/Cincinnati game from a week or so ago with a number of people in one of the Station lounges. We had pizza (it was pizza night in the galley) and beer and if you could get past the snowy picture and the extraordinary number of public service messages on AFN, it was almost like being back in the States.

Tomorrow night, there is a station-wide New Years party in the Station gym. There are two bands here on Station that are planning to play, and apparently there is a supply of non-alcoholic sparkling wine hidden around here somewhere, so a good time should be had by all.

Two days ago, four anonymous skiers could be seen dragging sleds towards the South Pole.
At the time, I assumed it was another group of skiers engaged in an attempt to ski “the last degree” towards the Pole. Skiers who ski the last degree are generally somewhat wealthy and fit as they pay gobs of money to a private organization to support their quest to reach the Pole.

As it turned out, the four skiers I saw were the British Polar Quest team. The four men on the team spent the previous 45 days skiing from the coast to the South Pole towing sleds behind them filled with their gear.

Yesterday at lunch I sat down with them and chatted for a bit. They were all quite tired, but happy to be back amongst people again. They were especially pleased to drink coffee again. Since coffee has no nutritional value and it acts as a diuretic, they hadn’t had any since they started on their journey.

After lunch, I helped to lead them on a tour of the various IceCube facilities here at the Pole. They were really good guys and very engaging to speak with. At one point, as we were leaving the IceCube drill camp, one of the men said, “After you spend forty-five days in complete wilderness, you never expect to arrive at the South Pole and find people, hot coffee, and one of the most advanced industrial operations on the planet.” In the photo at right, one of the IceCube Winterovers, Sven Lidstrom (red jacket), explains part of the drilling process to three of the British skiers. One of the IceCube drilling towers can be seen in the background.

The Polar Quest team is resting here for a couple of days until the wind shifts and they can begin their kite-assisted return trip to the coast. Using kites and the prevailing winds, they hope to return to the coast in as little as fifteen days. You can keep up with their progress on their ice log.

Yesterday, a group from the Indian Navy skied in to the Pole from roughly 120 miles away. They number more than four (eleven or so), but I haven’t met any of them yet. Both groups are camped out by the Pole in tents as they are not allowed to use many of the Station’s facilities for esoteric and political reasons.

We’re still working hard here now that the Station’s power situation has stabilized. In the next day or so we hope to have all of our equipment and experiments up and running again.

I got the following picture of the road across the skiway, heading into the Dark Sector yesterday morning. Apparently, duck-billed platypuses now have their own path across the skiway.

While today started off like any other, by the end of the day it was one that will surely be remembered for some time here at the Pole.
The morning started off like any other. I got up after a night of restless sleep, threw on some clothes, washed up a bit, and headed to the galley for a light breakfast. After breakfast I took care of some chores that had accumulated in my e-mail inbox overnight before calling family back in the States to wish them a Merry Christmas.

While I was on the phone, the fire alarm went off indicating a fire emergency in the New Power Plant (NPP). There were no instructions for non-emergency personnel, so I decided to remain out of the way in my berth and continue my phone calls.

Minutes passed and the alarm was repeated several times. Eventually, an announcement came over the Station’s All Call telling all personnel in the Elevated Station to report to the galley. Just moments after that announcement was made, the power went out to my room, dousing the lights and killing my phone call. I grabbed my water bottle and headed for the galley.

Upon arriving the galley I gathered with some other IceCubers while we waited for news. Eventually, the station manager made an appearance and gave us some information.

The Station uses a clever system whereby waste heat from the diesel generators that provide the Station’s power is circulated through the station in a glycol loop to provide heating.

Unfortunately, this morning the heat exchanger system failed and glycol started leaking out on to the running generator, Generator #3. Once the glycol touched the hot generator it was vaporized, producing a thick cloud of toxic smoke and vapor. Soon, there was a toxic could of glycol in the air and a thick lake of glycol on the floor.

The two workers in the power plant at the time were overcome and while the Station’s emergency response crews worked to control the mess in the power plant, trauma teams rushed the two workers to Medical. Volunteers were needed to help carry the litters up to Medical (on the second floor of the Elevated Station; so a carry of three floors). I’d rather do almost anything in an emergency than just sit around, so I volunteered to help carry the injured, even though it meant combining two of the hardest activities here at a high elevation, carrying something heavy and climbing stairs.

Once the injured were in Medical, I helped one of the cooks unload the Station’s freezer and place the food outside so that it wouldn’t defrost while the Station’s power was out. It wasn’t sexy work, but it kept me busy.

Meanwhile, other teams of people were tasked to find Material Safety Data Sheets (because of the glycol), flashlights, fans (to help clear the air in the NPP), and other sundry items.

Simultaneously, technicians were dispatched to the Emergency Power Plant to get it up and running. Crews couldn’t begin to assess the damage in the NPP until they had power to run fans (to clear the air) and produce light. The Emergency Power Plant is located in my berthing pod, and soon the pod was filled with the very loud sound of the Emergency Power Plant and the distinctive scent of diesel emissions.

Once the Emergency Power Plant was on-line the call went out to turn off every non-essential item in the Station, including the coffee makers. It wasn’t long before another fire alarm sounded, summoning emergency response crews to the Emergency Power Plant because it was running too hot and producing too many fumes.

Sometime during the preceding, myself and another IceCuber volunteered to work as runners because there was serious doubt about how much longer the Station’s handheld radio system would be able to run since no generators were running and the UPS to which it was connected was rapidly draining.

We were first tasked to go wake people up in Summer Camp, which is the name for the Jamesways. Suffice it to say that we didn’t make any friends rousting people out of the Jamesways and mustering them in the galley. There are three shifts here, and many of the people in the Jamesways had only been sleeping for an hour to two before we rousted them out of bed.

Next we were detailed to run out to the skiway and act as human beacons to keep vehicles from crossing the skiway while a Herc from McMurdo was on approach and landing. Two others had originally volunteered for the job, but as the plane entered its base leg, they were nowhere to be found and out we went. As we were heading out, we were passed by a snowmobile carrying the two missing human beacons so we returned to our stations as runners in the large conference room where resources were being marshalled.

While waiting there for jobs to do, we could hear what the Emergency Response teams were doing over the radio. Four more people ended up in Medical, for a total of six, with smoke inhalation.

Since much of the air inside the NPP was toxic, those entering the room had to be on oxygen until the air could be cleared. In addition, those dispatched to Medical were placed on oxygen. As a result, the station was running out of oxygen bottles, so a flight from McMurdo was dispatched with a variety of emergency supplies requested by the Pole, including another power plant engineer.

It was about lunchtime at this point. There were five runners available (all IceCubers) and we took turns going down to the galley for lunch. Since there wasn’t any power, lunch was cold cuts, cheese, bread, tortillas, salad, bars, and cookies. Runners were dispatched to the NPP, Medical, Comms (the Station’s nerve center), and other locations bearing sandwiches, hot and cold drinks.

Once the air in the NPP was somewhat cleared, and most of the thick glycol lake had been swept and shoveled by the Emergency Response crews, runners were dispatched to muster volunteers to mop the NPP floor so that power plant crews could work on getting Generator #2 up and running.

Soon after the volunteers started mustering in the Barn, the Station’s smoking bar, I was tasked to round up as many mops as possible. So, I started digging through janitor closets on my way down to the Dome. Janitorial supplies are kept in the Dome, so myself and another IceCuber started rummaging around looking for mops. We came up with something like fifteen mops all told, which was plenty.

Once the mop crews got the floor in the NPP cleaned up, maintenance crews got to work bringing up Generator #2. The Emergency Response crews were stationed in and around the NPP in case they were needed.

After a few fits and starts, Generator #2 came on-line. It was determined at this time that the trauma teams were no longer needed, and neither were the runners, so we were all dispatched to our regular jobs.

Tonight, the Station is operating on Generator #2 while crews work overnight to put Generator #1 into service and restore the glycol heat exchanger system. The generators can work without the glycol system, but not very well or very hard since they have a harder time shedding their waste heat without the glycol system. The glycol system drained on to the floor of the NPP early on, which means that 35 barrels of glycol have to be retrieved from storage and fed back into the system. Then, the system has to be pressurized and tested before it can be put back in to service.

To ease the load on Generator #2, the Station is operating under an aggressive power reduction regime tonight. Non-essential systems are disconnected from Station power and won’t be turned on until tomorrow morning at the earliest. Almost all of IceCube’s component bits are turned off as part of this shutdown. The Station’s heat is currently being generated by boilers that were installed to back-up the glycol system.

What can be learned from this incident?

First, Emergency Response and trauma crews here at the Pole, while mostly staffed by volunteers drawn from around the Station, are committed and skilled. They worked hard, without complaint or rest, from 09:01 this morning when they were summoned, until 17:00 when the Station officially stood down. Victims were treated and moved to the professional care of the Medical staff as quickly as reasonably possible.

Second, five years after 9/11, the importance of testing emergency equipment is still unlearned. While the Station’s radios lasted throughout the incident, there were serious doubts about the endurance of the backup power supply that provided power to the radios at critical points during the day. Several times I heard how rechargeable flashlights intended to be used by Emergency Response crews weren’t charged, and hence were worthless. The equipment that could have been used to recharge the oxygen bottles couldn’t be used because it didn’t have a supply of power.

Third, it is not enough to have a backup generator or two, they must be frequently and realistically tested. Most people who have a backup generator fall in to three categories:

1. Those who test their backup generator frequently, but not realistically.
2. Those who rarely if ever test their backup generator, being content to simply have one on the premises.
3. The small remainder that frequently test their generator under a realistic load and fastidiously perform maintenance on the system to ensure its readiness.

My experience with backup generators was hard-won while evaluating data centers for some of my past jobs. Most data centers fall in to category one. They may test their backup generator(s) monthly or even weekly, but they almost never test it under any sort of load. Then, when their primary power supply fails and a huge load falls on to the backup generator, they can’t understand why it collapses under the strain shortly after it fires up.

The fire alarm created in the Emergency Power Plant shortly after it fired up is a dead giveaway that Raytheon and the NSF have not established a rigorous testing regimen for the Emergency Power Plant’s backup generators and that they clearly fall in to category one.

Fourth, while we joke about Antarctica being a “harsh continent” while we drink milk made from powered milk in the galley or pour wine into empty beer cans instead of schlepping down to the galley to get some glasses, that statement has more than a bit truth to it. McMurdo provides the nearest help during an emergency and it is an absolute minimum three hours away by plane. That three hours is an almost ludicrously low figure since it is the flying time from McMurdo to the Pole. In all likelihood, you’d be looking at four to five hours before a plane could be dispatched from the coast with needed help and supplies until it lands on the skiway.

If someone is seriously injured, the nearest hospital is in Christchurch, New Zealand, which is a minimum eight hours away. That’s like being seriously injured in Boston and but being forced to fly for medical help to London or Paris with a stop-over and a change of planes in Iceland. Realistically, you’d be lucky to get to Christchurch in less than fifteen hours since they don’t keep C-17s spooled up on the runway at McMurdo for just such an incident. Fortunately, none of the six people who suffered injuries today required a medevac flight.

Hopefully, tomorrow will see the power plant issues resolved and life here at the Station can return to normal.

Christmas has come to a close here at the South Pole. So long, Christmas, 2006.

Observance of Christmas started on Sunday with several activities including a co-ed touch rugby game, signing of POW/MIA flag by veterans at the station, and the headliner event, Christmas Dinner.

Christmas Dinner is a semi-formal affair here at the station with many people wearing ties and dresses. The galley lights are dimmed, candles are lit (empty wine bottles are the candlesticks), and volunteers pour wine and soda for diners. Since the galley couldn’t possibly accommodate the station’s summer population in one sitting, the dinner is served four times: three seatings on Sunday night and one small seating on Monday morning for those who had to work on Sunday night.

Due to our relatively late arrival on Station, all of the seatings other than the first one were full, so that made our decision easy. Unfortunately, that meant that we sat down to dinner at 16:00 and had to be out of the galley by 17:00 so that the next seating could get started on time.

Dinner was Beef Wellington, Vegetable Wellington, roasted potatoes, mashed potatoes, beef gravy, vegetable gravy, rolls, salad, king crab legs, and asparagus. For dessert we had the choice of pumpkin pie, chocolate pie, or cheesecake. And after dessert, we could nibble on post-dessert by grabbing a handful of Christmas cookies on our way out of the galley.

This morning started with the ceremonial raising of the American and POW/MIA flags on one of the construction cranes. The flag will be displayed until midnight tonight, after which it will be taken down and shipped north to be placed at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in DC during the northern hemisphere summer.

Shortly after the flags were raised, the annual Race Around the World started.

The Race Around the World is a two-mile run/walk/ski/bike/ride/waddle/trot around the South Pole. It’s probably the closest thing to an all-station athletic event and parade that the Station has. A good part of the Station populations turns out to either take part in the race, cheer the racers, or simply watch the spectacle. As someone who doesn’t run anywhere, I naturally chose to walk the course. There were a number of walkers, a couple of skiers, one bicyclist, and numerous runners. I finished the course in a respectable 35:19 considering that the course was snow-covered, the temperature was cold, and I was wearing ECW.

Several groups took time to customize equipment from around the Station for entry into the race. One group decorated a snowmobile and sled with a mini-Christmas tree, garland, ornaments, ribbon, and other fippery. Another group lashed a sofa to a sled, got some people on the sofa, handed one of them a disco ball, and towed the whole mess behind another snowmobile. By far the most original float was the IceCube Hour Shower. Some of the handier and more enterprising IceCubers modified one of the Solars (something like a highly specialized outhouse) by adding plexiglass windows, a shower head, hot water, a shower curtain, a drain, and a water pump, and a gasoline generator. This was then strapped on to one of the larger sleds. For good measure, another sofa was strapped on to the remaining space on the sled. This, of course, was too heavy for a snowmobile to pull, so one of the Caterpillar machines here at the Station was used.

Showers are so dear here at the Station that when I looked inside and saw hot running water, I immediately thought about jumping in. I don’t need an hour in the shower, but five minutes, instead of the prescribed two, sounded like a real luxury.

There were prizes for the winners, but everyone who participated also got a coveted Race Around the World T-shirt.

After that, life around the Station turned low-key as many people took naps or vegetated in front of the television with others. A two-day weekend here is rare many of the Polies took advantage of the down-time to relax. Of course, the obsessives among us (yours truly, included) spent at least part of the afternoon working. Several other IceCubers and I walked over the ICL this afternoon to get in a few extra hours of work. So much work, so little time. I’ve only got nine days left on Station before I’m scheduled to leave so I’m trying to get as much done as possible.

I’ve been sick with a cold since I left Madison over two weeks ago, so yesterday I decided to visit Medical.

My primary purpose in visiting Medical was to ensure that I didn’t have a sinus infection or similar disease that I was confusing with a cold. There are apocryphal stories of diseases and injuries that refused to heal with the unlucky patient was at the Pole. For instance, there is the story of the WinterOver who broke his arm mid-winter and didn’t experience any healing until he left the continent. Unfortunately, my cold seems to be of the same ilk. So, the doctor prescribed a couple of medications to control symptoms and basically told me to wait it out.

It probably doesn’t help that I haven’t had a good night of sleep since I left Madison. Last night, for instance, I went to sleep at 23:00, woke up at 01:00, was wide awake until nearly 04:00, then slept again until 07:22 this morning. Unfortunately, that’s not unusual for me here. One of these days I’m expecting to absolutely collapse, but so far that hasn’t been in the cards.

My group has been working very hard the last couple of days to unwind and turn off old systems and replace them with new systems that we shipped down earlier in the summer. So far, the hardest part has been unwinding how some of the older systems function since they grew organically over time and almost no one who was involved in the building of those systems is still around.

The weather yesterday was quite interesting here. The temperature rose to a relatively mild -13F, while clouds of snow and ice crystals closed in around the station and forced one of our Hercules flights back to McMurdo. After a few hours, the weather pulled back a bit. When we came out of the IceCube Lab around 17:00, there was a spectacular sundog located behind the Elevated Station. Since the sun isn’t scheduled to set here until sometime in March, it was a very unique experience since it gave everything color like you would see around sunset in the North. Suffice it to say that we took plenty of pictures trying to capture the moment.

Did we get 20,000 pounds of corn dogs yesterday via air-drop?For the first time ever, a C-17 conducted an air drop of dry food yesterday at the Pole. The drop was a test for both Boeing and the Air Force to see if the airplane’s computers could handle navigation and drop computation this close to the Pole. A pair of Air Force officers and a handful of Kiwi Army soldiers have been on station for four or so days preparing for the drop. We ate lunch with the Air Force officers the other day and gleaned some valuable insights into the why and how of the drop.

The C-17 airdrop was originally scheduled to occur around 20:30 local time last night, which put it hard on the heels of three arrivals and departures from the skiway. Around 20:00 I put on a slew of my ECW gear and went out to the skiway to watch the fun. The evening started with the arrival and departure of an LC-130 Hercules. After that, a plane known as a Basler came in to land. The Basler is basically a DC-3 with a fancy paint-job and modern five-blade turboprop engines. Just minutes after the Basler landed, another Twin Otter came in to land, joining the one from the British Antarctic Survey that has been flying in and out of the Pole for the past couple days.

What I didn’t know, because I’d been outside to watch all these landings and take-offs, is that the air drop had been pushed back to 21:30 or later. So, I ended up sitting around the RF pad for roughly an hour waiting for the air drop. Finally, about 21:30, word came over the radio that the C-17 was ten or fifteen minutes out.

The C-17′s cargo was about 70,000 pounds of food. The local wags started wondering if there was a pallet of nearly 20,000 pounds of corn dogs in amongst all that food. The plan was for the plane to come in about 1,000 feet, make one pass over the drop zone, circle back around, and then release the food on the second pass. Meanwhile, the Kiwi Army guys and the Air Force officers were stationed in the drop zone in piston bullies and on snow mobiles.

The C-17 is an impressively big plane when it flies overhead at 1,000 feet. The first pass was uneventful, and the circling around process took about ten minutes which had all the spectators wondering if the air drop had been called off for some reason.

Eventually, the plane came around for its second pass. As it neared the drop zone, drogue chutes started appearing from the back of the plane and soon food cartons were falling through the sky. Shortly after being pulled out of the back of the plane by the drogue chutes, the main chutes opened and the food cartons floated softly to the snow and ice. The crowd on the RF pad let out a spontaneous cheer (hey, who doesn’t cheer a successful air drop?). Then, the show was over.

I trudged back to the station, which took about twenty minutes. By the time I got back to my room I was feeling the cold since I had been out in -45°F wind chill, standing on snow and ice, for over two hours. ECW gear is good, but it isn’t perfect.

That is the First Iron Law of Life at the Pole.
Both yesterday and today I’ve been working hard and long to help smooth out some of the waves that we’ve created. But as the First Iron Law dictates, nothing goes very smoothly. So, things that worked well in the North fall to pieces here or fail to function at all. Systems that were built and tested extensively now appear to be nothing more than loose affiliations of gremlins and demons conspiring to ruin our peaceful existance.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad. We had a reasonably tasty lunch of homemade mac and cheese with some chili that I didn’t try, but that got resounding nods of approval from all other takers. Dinner was less than spectacular. The blackened catfish fillets sounded like a good idea, but perhaps they were brined or something as they were really, really salty.

There has been a request for more photos of me, so I’ve included one that shows my typical headwear. Because the snow and ice reflect so much sunlight, glacier glasses are key to preventing snow blindness. In addition, we’re under the ozone hole here, so the UV rays are much stronger than they are in the North. Keeping your skin covered is an effective method to prevent sunburn.

The Met people tell me that today set a new record low for this date, -32.7C/-26.9F. And yes, that’s before wind chill.

A team from the British Antarctic Survey has been flying in and out of the South Pole the last few days in their bright red Twin Otter. Tonight on our way to dinner some of my collegues and I had our picture taken in front of the plane.