The rest of summer -and- 'I Think We're Alone Now...'

Okay continuing with the summer…

New Year’s was a LOT of fun at the South Pole!  A few days before the end of the year, the Austrian/Norwegian ski race made it to the Pole.  This was a huge event – the whole unsupported cross country ski race from the coast to the Pole was filmed for an Austrian documentary.  The documentary support vehicles arrived at Pole a few days before the skiers and set up camp.  The skiers made it just a few days before the holiday.  The Austrians won – Hermann Maier, the world-class retired downhill skier was on this team.  It was pretty neat hosting a celebrity here!

For New Year’s Eve, there was a large party at the Austrian/Norwegian camp, which was about a half mile from the station.  The weather was beautiful – a crystal clear evening with light winds.  We got so hot walking out the camp that the ladies and I that were hiking there shed most of our layers down to long-sleeve fleece.  What stellar weather!  At the party, one of the vehicles was running and had Bob Marley music pumping out of the speakers.  The two teams and Polies mingled, hearing about the race across.  I got to speak with one of the drivers of the vehicles.  He said it was a great drive until they came to an area where they needed to steer 12 hours out of their way to preserve scientific data and clean air.  Upon further questioning, I discovered that he was talking about the Clean Air Sector, which is the ‘wedge’ of clean air I sample from and protect here from ARO.  I thought that was hilarious.  I definitely thanked him for going out of his way to keep my data clean!

We didn’t stay too long at the party – I wanted to see midnight at the geographic pole.  So the ladies I arrived with and I had our obligatory photo with the awesome arctic trucks and then made our way back to the station.  Back in the elevated station there was much merry-making occurring before the turn of the year.  I hung out with my friends and waited for midnight. 

A few minutes before midnight a large group of us ran out to the Pole.  It was a little odd celebrating the new year in the middle of the night with the intense sun shining.  It was an experience.  We counted down the new year in front of the geographic South Pole marker and cheered when we hit midnight.  Very cool!  There was much kissing, hugging, and photo-taking.  I must say it was strange celebrating New Year’s very much ahead of the United States.  When it was midnight here, it was 6:00am on New Year’s Eve at home.  Strange, but overall a great time! 

Because New Year’s was technically on a Friday, it was a work day and our party was postponed to Saturday evening.  During the day on Saturday the gym was transformed to a concert venue.  It was amazing – I didn’t recognize it when I walked in during the evening.  It was better than a high school prom that transforms their gym.  (Okay – I may be biased.)  An elevated stage was set up at the far end of the gym with a full setup for the bands – a professional setup for the instruments.  A professional sound system was also constructed and a killer light system.  There were professional lights suspended from the ceiling (spotlights, lights projecting patterns, etc.) that really set the mood.  Christmas lights were hung around the perimeter of the gym, sparkly décor, and a curtain on crepe paper that covered the door.  Mike from Ice Cube created a bar that was a table suspended by two carved wooden penguins.  It was amazing – I am totally commissioning him to build me a penguin table when I get back to the states!  There were snacks, Mardi Gras beads, hats, and tiaras outside the gym for people to grab on their way in. 

Three bands played during the evening for us: a bluegrass band, a Grateful Dead tribute band (Cold Dead Polies I think?), and a band that played rock music.  As the crowd grew, the dancing started and lasted all night.  Even when the bands were finished with their sets, we switched to music mixed by our awesome IT staff.  That lasted well into the morning.  I think I called it quits around 2:00 or 3:00am.  After dancing all night and staying up late the previous night, I was exhausted.  It was a great New Years!

The rest of the Summer flew by.  I’m not actually sure where the time went.  The highlight of the remainder of my summer was my trip to Christchurch, New Zealand for R&R.  USAP likes to give their winter-overs the opportunity to get off the Ice one last time, rest up, soak up the sunshine, live in humidity, and eat real food before settling in for 9 months of winter and isolation.  It was a lovely getaway.  I literally did NOTHING.  I left January 19^th with five others going on R&R.  Unfortunately, we got stuck in McMurdo for 3 days waiting for a C-17 to transport us to NZ.  We waited anxiously for three days, seeing delay after delay and eventually cancellations.  It was okay though – I got to do some hiking, saw penguins and seals, visited with friends in McMurdo, caught up on my sleep, and toured the icebreaker that was in port.

New Zealand was beautiful.  It was surreal stepping off the C-17 into a downpour.  It was about 55 degrees, wet, and full of sounds and smells I hadn’t experienced in 4 months.  I experienced a little bit of culture shock.  I can’t imagine what its going to be like in November… crazy.  After clearing customs into New Zealand, we dumped our winter gear at the US Clothing Distribution Center and then made our way to our respective hotels.  I stayed at the Crowne Plaza, which was a great 80’s upper-scale hotel.  Concierge and everything.  I chose this hotel because I heard it had a great bathtub.  While I was there, I took at least one bubble bath everyday.  It was wonderful.

I spent the week wandering around Christchurch seeing the sights, eating excellent food, drinking excellent coffee and chai tea lattes, and generally relaxing.  The Paralympics was in town, as well as the International Busker Festival (street performers), so there were TONS of people hanging around and tons to do.  I didn’t leave Christchurch, which was just fine.  If I couldn’t walk there, I wasn’t going.  I’m actually glad I stayed in CHC and experienced the city, considering the earthquake the devastated the town on February 22^nd.  It will be strange going back in November and seeing a completely different city.

Returning to the South Pole was like going home.  I was relieved to return to my routine, my work, and my friends.  The next few weeks flew by even faster than those between New Years and my trip.  Everyone not spending the winter had major senioritis.  All we could talk about for weeks was what they were going to do in New Zealand, where they were going to travel, what foods they would eat first, where they would find dogs and kids to play with, and their plans until they would return to the Ice next season.  It was a very exciting time.

In the blink of an eye, the middle of February arrived.  Within a week, the station went from a population of over 200 people down to 80.  On February 14^th, Valentine’s Day, I got to marshal in a C-130 (basically park the plane).  Since it was V-Day, I waved huge hearts to bring the plane in to their correct position.  I was so giddy to bring in the C-130!  It made my day.  It was incredible standing directly in front of the gigantic plane skiing directly at you.  I watched the fuelies to take my cues and finally stopped the plane at the fuel pit.  Very very cool.  I was buzzing the rest of the evening from that experience! 

And suddenly it was February 15^th, the day of station closing!  How did that happen?  Two planes were scheduled to bring us a little more fuel and take away the last of the summer folks.  The first plane was loaded with our galley staff and other support staff.  It was difficult saying goodbye to my good friends!  I was very excited for them, though.  They were all so happy!  When the plane departed, the turned around and did a low fly-by almost directly over us.  Verrrry cool!  At airshows you see the fly-bys, but this was a LARGE plane and it was LOW.  Amazing!  The second plane was much more difficult for me.  It was my very best friends leaving.  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t cry.  Luckily I was prepared with tissues.  Unfortunately at -45 F, your goggles fog and freeze very quickly when you cry!  My goggles were pretty much useless.  I hugged them all a million times and finally had to watch them walk over the fuel line, in front of the last C-130, and then out of sight as they boarded.  It was completely surreal.  Then winter-overs brought in the remaining equipment, and the plane taxied (or skied, rather) away.

We all looked at eachother and basically had the same thoughts outloud: Well, we’re stuck with eachother now!  There was a lot of joking, laughing, and jumping around when the plane started its takeoff.  By this time, the visibility was reduced, so we didn’t actually see them takeoff at the end of the skiway.  There were a lot of cheers when we saw the plane emerge from the blowing snow on the ground and bank right.  It took a while, but we finally saw them returning far on the horizon.  This time, they came in low and fast and made a HUGE turn right over us!  These pilots are awesome.  You would never see a plane in the US do that!  They were only a few hundred feet above the ground, making an extremely steep turn.  Later I heard from my buddies who left on that flight – they said it was one of the best roller coaster rides they had ever been on!

When the plane was out of sight, we all wandered back inside.  At that point we had been outside almost 3 hours and were FREEZING.  I went back to my room, crawled into bed and warmed up before returning to work.  It was funny because seeing the planes taking all our friends away was extremely surreal, but as soon as they were gone we all jumped back into the routine.  It felt very natural.  Although the station was now deserted, it felt as if this was the way it was supposed to be.  The summer was the exception to the rule.  In a way it is.  For only 4 months, there are 250 people on station.  The rest of the year the population is under 50.

That night we watched ‘The Thing’ in the gym.  I must say that it was an extremely stressful day, so I was exhausted.  I fell asleep near the end of the movie (Kurt Russell version) – right when they were exploding everything in their station.  I must have been tired!  I woke up for the credits and hauled myself back to my room.  The original ‘The Thing’ was played next, but there was no way I was making it through that one!  Oh well – I’ll have to rent it at some time from the store this winter and finish them both!  All I can say is that this station does not have a flame thrower.  I think this is a huge oversight and I’m not sure how we will make it through the winter without at least one for our defense against malicious aliens.

The station has been officially closed for two weeks, but we are already into a great routine and almost settled in for winter.  There has been a lot of effort put into closing the station thoroughly.  We cleaned out Summer Camp, got the rooms completely ready for next season (linens and all), and winterized the Jamesways.  The fuel line was pulled in from the skiway in only four hours (a record, I hear), and our maintenance folk are still working hard to winterize the outbuildings before the sun sets. 

On a personal level, we are starting to set up winter non-work activities.  Freija and I have started a great workout routine: in the mornings we get up at 5:30 and do Power 90.  In the evenings we do yoga.  We’re eventually going to work up to P90X.  Its amazing how much more difficult working out is here.  Combining our altitude (feels over 10,000ft) and lack of humidity, an easy workout at sea level is a killer one here!  Its great!  Other than working out, we have our crochet and knitting sessions (called Stitch & Bitch), Thursday Comedy TV nights with Rachel and Rob, astronomy lessons every Monday, Ladies Night monthly, and parties every weekend.  My social calendar is packed.  Literally.

We had our first fire drill yesterday morning.  We simulated a fire in our emergency power plant (EPP).  The EPP is in B-Pod, our emergency pod on station.  There is a fixed CO2 system, throwing some interesting complications and solutions into the mix.  With a fixed CO2 system, if the CO2 is released, you cannot enter the space where it was released for 20 minutes.  This gives the CO2 a chance to completely smother the fire before it is dissipated by an open door.  However, if a door is open to the CO2 space or if there is a leak in the door, CO2 is hazardous in the quantities we use.  It displaces oxygen, causing someone exposed to high levels to feel woozy, drunk, and eventually pass out and suffocate.  We take huge precautions with CO2 releases in our enclosed station.  The 20 minutes is nice because it gives us a chance to assess the situation, turn off power and heat to the space, and prepare our firefighters for entry.

For our first drill, it went very well.  There were three people ‘tagged in’ to the EPP, meaning we potentially had three victims trapped in the space.  When it was ‘safe’ to enter, firefighters were sent in to look for victims and any fire that wasn’t extinguished.  There was a smoke machine inside the EPP that was supposed to completely smoke out the space, but since power was cut to the pod early on in the drill, it was free and clear.  Lucky for us!  Muahaha.  The fire did a great job making sure the fire was out (it was) and bringing out the two victims we discovered.  Overall, all teams did well working together to handle the emergency.  Almost half of our team was brand-new, since the summer people had left and many winter-overs hadn’t spent the summer on station.  I think we are going to have a great response team this winter!

The sun is now very low on the horizon.  Its just under 9 degrees above the horizon.  If you take your hand, hold it out at arms length, and hold your hand out horizontally, the sun is about 4 finger-widths above the horizon.  Its insane.  Sunset is only three weeks away!  With the sun at such a shallow angle, very little solar energy is making it to the surface to warm us up (plus the snow reflects 90% of sunlight anyway) – its getting a little chilly here!  Today the temperature is -64F.  With an 8 knot wind, the wind chill is -93F!  I think that’s just a little colder than it is at home.  Its not so bad walking outside in these temperatures.  I still get overheated walking to ARO from the station.  The difference now is that no skin can be exposed.  I wear a balaclava, neck gaiter, hat, and goggles everytime I go outside.  I also wear two sets of mittens and a pair of liner gloves.  I can no longer completely remove my gloves to adjust and maintain my outside instruments.  If you touch something metal, you will immediately get burned and probably leave some of your skin on that piece of metal.  Everyone has to be careful about how they are dressed when they venture outdoors. 

We have also all put up our flag lines that will guide us to our laboratories when it gets dark outside.  Our flags out to ARO are spaced about 15 paces apart.  Its important to know the distance because sometimes in the dark when the moon isn’t out, you navigate by sound.  The flags flapping in the wind (its almost always windy here) are a good guide.  If you know your number of steps and listen for the flags, you’re good to go.  Apparently its also good to navigate by the stars.  The Southern Cross constellation is right above us, spinning around itself during the day and night.  If you know what direction you need to go and glance at the Southern Cross, you can maintain that direction during your walk and not get turned around.  There are a lot of tricks to learn!

Hopefully this blog post makes up for my lack of writing lately!  With less going on here during winter, I’m trying to write more often!  Stay classy in the Northern Hemisphere, friends…