Polies Donate to NZ Red Cross... and other station happenings.

As some of you may have just seen from Facebook, the South Pole’s contributions to the New Zealand Red Cross are now officially $10,000!  For many Polies Christchurch is like a second home, and it was devastating watching another crippling earthquake hit the city two weeks ago.  One of our crew here collected donations, found a donation-matching opportunity, and got our total contribution up higher than I would have ever imagined!  $10,000 is small in the big scheme of things, but every little bit helps.  It felt good to contribute something to the disaster, given our huge distance and inability to help with relief.  We are also considering shipping a large quantity of lightly-used clothes to the Red Cross in the spring from our ‘Skua Shack’.  That’s a long way off though…

Things have continued as usual at the South Pole.  The biggest thing happening on station is the imminent sunset.  Only about two weeks away, the sun is verrry low on the horizon and is very noticeably sinking each day.  Its fun to sit at breakfast and have the outside look like a sunrise.  The same is true at night – it looks like a normal sunset.  The strange thing is having the sun setting mid-day.  When I walk back to the station for lunch around 1200, I always think I’m walking in for dinner and wonder where the day went.  It is an odd feeling.  The fact that the sun is departing for six months is really starting to sink in.  We will have several weeks of twilight before it actually gets dark, allowing us to adjust to walking around at ‘night’ and without the light to guide us.  Just crazy.

Another big highlight (other than the setting sun) of last weekend was the crepe extravaganza.  Two of our wonderful crew took all their practicing and made the crepes a reality on Sunday night.  Wow.  I have to get the recipes!  They made both sweet and savory crepes to order.  It was amazing.  I had the vegetarian savory crepe to start with, which was a crepe filled with cooked spinach and portabello mushrooms sautéed and reduced in white wine.  The crepe was then topped with a reduced red bell pepper sauce and pine nuts.  (I think this was the filling and topping anyway – I may be getting some of the details wrong!)  Simply heavenly.  The dessert crepe was a crepe made with a yeast batter, giving it a slightly fermented flavor which complimented the Nutella and pureed banana filling.  We are so spoiled down here!

For the most part, everything is running smoothly at ARO, giving me time to dedicate to other things such as planning fire team training and cleaning out the Skua Shack.  When all of the summer Polies left and donated items to Skua, there was absolutely no organization.  Literally, everything was piled up on the floor of the small wooden shack on skis.  What a mess!  This past weekend a few of us hauled out about 8 garbage bags worth of items.  Most of them were worth keeping, but many items had to go.  I’m going to be continuing this process for the next two weeks.  At sunset, Skua gets dragged out to weather the winter months with the other small mobile buildings at the “End of the World”.  All of these buildings get moved downwind of the station and stored in a row to minimize the amount of drifting we need to shovel out at the beginning of the season.  Why make several large drifts when you can just make one really large drift? 

We have made it to three weeks of our 2-a-day workouts and we’re still going strong!  One additional person has joined our little group, making a support group of three encouraging eachother daily.  Its great!  Its amazing what 1-2 hours of exercise makes daily!  I think next week we are going to try moving on to Level 3-4 of Power 90.  It should be interesting.  Also a good thing.  We know all of Tony’s quirks on the first DVD and I’m not sure how much more we can make fun of the people demonstrating the workouts.  Doing the workouts everyday, we can recite the dialogue along with the DVD.  At least we have added our own music to our workouts.  Freija and I have compiled our most trashy workout music possible – we have a lovely mix of 90’s club music, Dutch rap, and just plain terrible modern pop.  Love it.

Tours and Crepes

Two days ago I got to take a tour of the entire station and surrounding areas with our facilities engineer, Weeks.  It was an excellent tour!  It was advertised as a ‘3 hour tour’ (I know – very Gilligan’s Island), but it actually went to almost four hours.  And on top of that we skipped the Dark Sector and other outlying science buildings.  The tour started out going through the station – mainly the rooms we don’t normally have access to, and special features of spaces we occupy all the time.  We were able to poke around fan rooms, electrical rooms, the emergency power plant (EPP), subfloor (the space under the floor where the pipes for our utilities run through), etc. 

After thoroughly roaming through the station, we proceeded down the Beer Can to the New Power Plant (NPP).  We saw where our water gets treated – the water we are currently drinking is melted ice from around year 100 or so.  It is extremely clean.  It is actually so pure that the water is caustic and needs to be treated – we add chemicals to regulate the pH so it doesn’t destroy our pipes and literally leach the minerals out of our bodies.  It is amazing.  We also saw the ridiculous amount of CO2 we have for the power plant fixed fire suppression system.  If all the CO2 was released at once, it would fill all the spaces at that level to 6 ft – this includes the power plant, ice tunnels, LO arch, and garage if it was open.  How would we ventilate all those spaces?  Good question!  Moving on, we saw all the generators – we have 4 in all.  Three are large generators that we normally run off of (one is running, on is standby, and one undergoes repairs at one time), and a smaller generator that is known as the ‘peaker’ or the ‘kicker’.  If we draw more power than our normal generator can handle, the little guy kicks in and provides the difference.  If we run over the capacity of those two generators, non-essential things get turned off.

From there we went into the LO, the Logistics Arch, where all of our food and materials not outside are stored.  We proceeded to the Fuel Arch, which holds 450,000 gallons of fuel.  The walls of the arch are covered in beautiful ice crystals.  The emergency exit from the back of the fuel arch is a spiral staircase which goes up to the surface.  This space is also encrusted in ice crystals.  It is just gorgeous – I need to go back there and get some good shots with my big camera…

We jumped in an LMC after going through the garage, and Weeks took us around the rest of the station – through Summer Camp, to RF where our satellite dishes are located, the fuel pits, the Otter pits (where the twin otters park), the berms, cryo, and the rodwells.  I could explain more about these places, but it would also take three hours!  I’ll explain a little more in later blogs…  It was a great tour!

Yesterday was a typical day.  I have been waiting for the wind to be from the right direction and the right speed for flask sampling for two days now.  First it was too light (under 5 meters per second), then it shifted out of our Clean Air Sector, and now its back in the right direction, but too light.  I just can’t win!  Hopefully this afternoon it will pick up a bit.  Or at least tomorrow. 

Last night was wonderful – Freija, Susan, and I did an hour of yoga.  From there I went straight to the sauna and then to the shower.  Wow.  I am going to be so spoiled when I leave here.  I may need to find an apartment when I get back to the States that has a sauna.  After that I ate dinner, watched a movie, and passed out at 9:00.  Just lovely.

This morning at breakfast there was a group making crepes.  They were testing out their recipe and technique today in anticipation of making them Sunday night for dinner and dessert.  The dessert crepes were AMAZING.  Wow.  Just as good as the crepes we always ate in Seward, AK.  Very, very goooood!  The savory crepes were more of a challenge.  I asked to help and they let me try my hand at crepe-making.  This is definitely a skill I am going to bring home with me next November…  Needless to say, I’m looking forward to the weekend!  Someone is taking it upon themselves to make brunch on Saturday and we have crepes on Sunday.  Is it the weekend yet???

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…

Back on the Bandwagon?

Okay.  I have definitely fallen off the bandwagon, but I haven’t fallen off the face of the Earth!  I can’t believe I haven’t written in almost two months!  The time has absolutely FLOWN here!  My New Year’s resolution was to keep my blog up to date this year.  Well, since that didn’t really work, I’m making that my ‘winter resolution’.  Winter, when the station officially closes, is going to feel like a completely different year, so I’m making resolutions for that instead.  I can’t make up for two completely silent months in this blog, but I’ll do my best to write the gist of what has happened here during the second half of the summer at South Pole…

Air Drop

About a week before Christmas the annual air drop took place.  The Air Force gets to use South Pole as a guinea pig for new supply air drop procedures and inventions.  They also get in some good training.  This year, sixteen pallets of food were shoved out the back of a C-17.  About a week before the actual event we began the preparations.  Since I am on the winter air drop team (just in case we need emergency supplies in the winter, we have a team set up to lead the ground logistics), I got to help with preparations and learn the differences between summer and winter air drop procedures.  The winter team went out the day before the drop and planted flags at the corners of the winter drop zone where we would place burn barrels to mark the area in the dark.  Although the winter drop zone was in place, the Air Force wasn’t authorized to drop a package there – the winter zone is directly on the skiway – I’d hate to see a pallet crash land and put a huge crater where our planes land everyday!

The actual air drop was amazing.  The summer drop zone is almost two miles away from the station,  near the ‘southern’ end of the skiway.  The day of the drop, the skies were clear, but there was an abundance of ice crystals precipitating which created the most amazing halos and other optical displays.  At one point, there were two halos, prominent sun dogs, and several other points of light shooting out from the sun.  The optics made for some dramatic photos, but the ice crystals obscured the view of the air drop from the station.  In fact, the C-17 first did a low and slow pass right over the skiway where the winter drop site was located and the ground crew couldn’t even see it!

After the first ‘buzz’ of the station, it was drop time.  The plane had some mechanical issues which delayed the drop for several minutes, but they finally got it together and made the approach.  Because of our close proximity to the drop site, the direction and speed of the wind, and low altitude of the C-17, it looked like the aircraft dropped the packages right over the top of us!  It was amazing.  Eight pallets were deployed at a time.  During the first pass, two parachutes became tangled around eachother and did not fully deploy.  Pallets weighing several hundred pounds without parachutes drop like rocks!  While the other packages with parachutes experienced a slower descent and relatively ‘soft’ landing, these two crashed into the snow, creating huge craters!  The second pass went better – only one ‘chute failed to deploy.  That one again rocketed out of the sky and made contact with the ground in a cloud of snow, deeply burying itself.  Once the two passes were completed, it was time to get to work.

Parachutes attached to packages are dangerous on the ground.  They are HUGE, heavy, and can remain ‘inflated’ on the ground in the wind.  It is important to remain safe and recover the parachutes quickly.  Luckily, by the time we arrived at the drop zone, all the parachutes were completely deflated and were patiently waiting to be recovered.  Folding a parachute is a job which takes several people – these chutes have a lot of fabric and cord, so they weigh a lot!  The fabric is ‘cigar-rolled’ and folded around the parachute cord, which is first ‘daisy-chained’,  which is pretty much a chain stitch in crochet (nerd alert!).  It was easy to recover the parachutes which deployed, but those which didn’t were thoroughly buried in the snow.  When the packages landed, they didn’t land upright and the parachutes were wrapped around and pinned underneath the boxes.  Ugh.  It was too much work to do by hand – heavy machinery was brought back later to dig out the doomed packages. 

A few goodies were dropped down to us from the C-17 crew – on the first package we recovered, a large stuffed-animal penguin was attached!  We named him ‘Winchester’, after the term used by the Air Force to indicate an aircraft has dropped its entire load.  At our second pallet we recovered, we found a pair of ski goggles that were accidentally dropped.  We were able to give these back to the two C-17 crew members who were on the ground with us to assist with operations.  It was pretty funny.  All of the boxes that were dropped were left in the snow for the night and were recovered later on.

Christmas

A few days after the air drop was CHRISTMAS!  Since I have never been away from home at Christmas, this was definitely an experience for me.  The week leading up to the holiday brought many preparations.  Christmas Dinner is one of the biggest events for the galley, so there was much food prep.  We had potato peeling parties, bean snapping parties, brie-making parties, cookie baking parties, etc.  Lots of food parties!  On top of the food, the ‘Race Around the World’ is traditionally on Christmas Day, so there was much prep to do for the 5K race around the station.  Although I am a runner, I decided to ‘ride’ in this race.  My best buddies at the Pole, the fire fighters, operate a large tractor called ‘Elephant Man’ and use it as their fire truck.  With a name like Elephant Man, what else are you supposed to do besides dress it up like an elephant for Christmas?  This might seem like a strange way to ‘run’ a race, but this race is special.  You can run, walk, ski, bike, ride, slide, or any other possible way of propelling yourself around the station.  I thought it would be fun to do it in style!  A few days before the race, Jason and I spent a few hours creating our elephant.  We took some extremely heavy-duty cardboard and cut out gigantic ears, eyes, and a trunk.  We then used construction paper and watercolor paints to complete the elephant look.  The day before the race I sewed a gigantic tail to affix to the ‘rear’ of the elephant.  It was awesome.

The day of the race we got up early and created our elephant.  Jason got the rig running (not always easy when its chilly outside) while I started dressing our elephant.  We used twine to attach all the parts.  It worked out really well, except for the fact that its quite difficult tying knots with gloved hands.  Brrrrr!  An hour later, our elephant was complete!  (photos to follow when we have more bandwidth!)  We picked up some green and red flags from the Carp Shop, grabbed another fire fighter, and proceeded to the starting line. 

We weren’t the only ones riding in style in this race – there was an assortment of motor vehicles at the starting line.  The Ice Cube van, a van with tracks instead of tires, was pulling a huge Roman chariot filled with Polies wearing Roman helmets.  There were several snowmobiles pulling some fantastic sled ‘floats’.  One snowmobile pulled a snowboarder.  There were several other vehicles sprinkled into the decorated rigs.  On the runner side, a huge crowd showed up to participate.  One of our Polies is a professional runner, so he took the lead and was the front of the pack.  Most runners were out for fun, not polar PRs, so there were many costumes and fun accessories.  The best outfit was a complete body suit of white sparkly spandex.  This brave runner wins for that in my book!  He blended in pretty nicely with the snow…

The race was a blast – when they started the race, the runners and skiers took off, and the drivers and riders sprinted to their vehicles.  Unfortunately it was really only a race for the runners and skiers.  It’s a little too dangerous racing huge bulldozers, tractors, vans, and snowmobiles.  We had to stick to the 10mph speed limit, so it was more of a parade for us.  It was so much fun!  The course for runners ran right next to the vehicle course, so I spent most of the ride yelling out the window at the runners – encouraging them, of course!  It was also a lovely tour of the station, going to some of the outer areas that I don’t usually get to see or drive by.  At the end of the race, we parked at the finish line and cheered on the runners and skiers.  What a wonderful way to spend Christmas morning!

Immediately after the race, it was brunch – easily the best meal at the South Pole.  The galley went all out with the food – delicious!  After eating brunch with friends, I ran out to work to complete my normal daily tasks and calibrations.  As soon as I was done with work , it was time to run inside and get ready for Christmas Dinner.

Dinner was amazing – even better than Thanksgiving!  We had beef wellington that was to DIE for.  After dinner, the evening was pretty chill.  There was a large dance party in the galley, but I didn’t attend.  Instead, I spent the evening in the lounge playing pool and visiting with friends.  It was a lovely Christmas!

I’ll write more later… running out of interweb time!

Bombs Away!

The air drop finally occurred last night!

Yesterday afternoon the entire air drop crew assembled at Cargo for a safety brief – this included the entire Cargo department, plus the seven of us winter-overs that make up the winter air drop team. It was a full house! During the meeting, Paddy briefed us on what to expect, the sequence of events, and what was expected of us. Our C-17 crew, Mike and Scott, also gave us an inside perspective to the air drop – what we would see if we were in the air, and what we should see from the ground. We then waited for the plan to depart from McMurdo, but in the meantime the crew enjoyed a hearty plate of nachos. Those Cargo folks don’t mess around.

Finally, we got word that the plane had left. We departed soon after to make our way to the drop zone. The C-17’s commute from MCM to NPX (McMurdo to South Pole) is much shorter than the C-130. It takes a Herc approximately 3 hours for the transit, but the C-17 accomplished the trip in less than two hours last night. Since we are super-slow in our tracked vehicles on the ground, we must leave at least an hour before the scheduled drop. This gives us half an hour to travel to the site, and then half and hour on the ground to prepare. Once the convoy consisting of the LMC, Pisten Bully, and snowmobiles arrived at the drop zone, our preparations consisted of hanging around, staying warm, playing in the snow, and enjoying the spectacular sun dog show that the blow snow and ice crystals provided.

Finally the plane made it near the station… and then a Twin Otter squeezed in ahead of the C-17 to land. This delayed us by a few minutes. When the Twin Otter was safely on the ground, the C-17 made its first pass. Since they weren’t authorized to actually drop a package in the winter drop zone (on the skiway!), they practiced a fly-by instead. Of course, at this point in the evening, the visibility had dropped significantly. From where we were about two miles from the station, not even the farthest buildings from the station were visible. Our view of the flyby wasn’t great. They came through fast and low to simulate the drop – the pilots were telling us that they would approach the station at about 800 ft, even in the winter without the same visuals. It was quite impressive.

Then it was our turn. We waited for them to turn around and line up on the summer drop zone. And we waited. And waited. How long does it take to turn a plane around? It turns out they had some sort of mechanical issue on the plane that delayed the drop for a while. Finally we heard that they were ‘go’ and were headed our way. Authorization to drop was given from the ground crew, and the drop proceeded. Because of the direction and speed of the wind (it was picking up!), it felt like the plane dropped the packages right on top of us! Really, they were offset a little bit, but it was still quite exciting. They came through at an altitude of approximately 1000ft, opened the back, and slid out 8 pallets at a time. On the first deployment, two parachutes got caught in eachother, so the packages fell connected at a very fast rate. It was quite the explosion of snow when they reached the ground! On the second pass, one pallet’s chute didn’t deploy at all. That was another spectacular finale for that package! Once the packages were dropped at the plane was ‘Winchester’ (nothing left to drop), the C-17 did a few more flybys of the station before departing. Then it was our turn to go to work.

The crew jumped back in our vehicles and proceeded into the drop zone once it was declared safe by the C-17 crew. There were a total of 16 boxes to recover. Last night we only recovered the parachutes. There was no DNF (do not freeze) cargo dropped, so there wasn’t too much emphasis or urgency with the recovery. To recover the chutes, we broke up into teams. First, the chute must be detached from the package. This entails removing a shackle. Then the parachute is ‘cigar-rolled’ to control its huge mass. The parachute lines are bound together and daisy-chained to contain them as well. From there, the whole thing is rolled up and put in a box dragged on a sled for transport. On one of the parachutes Grace and I picked up to take to the box, it unraveled halfway across – I ended up tangled in the parachute and lying in the snow once we arrived. It was hilarious. We also recovered some other items from the drop – the crew sent a large stuffed penguin down with the first package my team recovered (he was later named ‘Winchester’), and we also found a set of ski goggles that one of the C-17 engineers lost by accident. The recovered goggles were sent back with our C-17 ground crew back to their owner.

Recovering the failed parachutes was a little more interesting. On the two that tangled together, the crew had to dig down about four feet to free the parachutes. On the chute that didn’t deploy, the box obviously did some crazy aerobatics and crashed upside-down in the snow. We dug down through the crater to the box, but there was no way we could remove the parachute. Instead, we marked the location for someone to later return with heavy machinery to pull it out. Yikes. All the packages will be recovered this weekend with loads of help – and big bulldozers!

All-in-all, the air drop was a fantastic experience. Not only was it amazing to see the accuracy of the Air Force with their air drops, but it was also important to get a feel for what to expect in the winter if we need an air drop. Winter air drops are strictly used for emergencies, so we really hope we don’t need one. Plus, although yesterday’s drop was a blast, we had perfect conditions. -17 F, sun, and about 17 kts of wind is much different from winter conditions where it will be -80 to -100 F in the dark. Keeping ourselves warm will be difficult, finding the packages will be difficult, and recovering the packages will be difficult. A fun maneuver in the summer is quite dangerous in the winter.

Although its not officially the weekend, it feels like it. With the air drop over, that’s a lot less stress on everyone. Our mass casualty drill was also postponed until next week, taking a large load off my shoulders. We have a busy flight schedule for the next two days, and we need at least 2 hours between flights, since we’ll be on the skiway. Add in the nasty weather that’s bearing down on us, and its not a good time for a drill.

This weekend is going to be fun – tonight there will be a rousing game of paper telephone, quite possibly the most amazing and hilarious game in the world. Tomorrow is Round 2 of James Brown Bingo (a crazy event not to be missed), and then a screening of ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ in the gym – costumes included. I’m excited to wear the wig I brought down. I was told a good wig is an essential item to pack for the South Pole. Good stuff.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

December Happenings

Ahhhh!  Again I slack at the blogging.  I apologize!  Things have been quite busy here since Thanksgiving – the Pole is definitely in the full swing of the summer season!

Things have been good at work – all of our instruments have been running well (knock on wood!), we are starting to receive cargo, and we’re also starting to ship out cargo.  Life is good.  Andy left two weeks ago to spend the holidays at home.  Patrick has replaced him, but leaves next week.  Its been really nice having friends rotate through – not only is it great to see various people, but its also wonderful to pick their brains for useful information.  Over the last few weeks we have also an increase in visitors.  There have been several people who have come out to see what we do at ARO from the station.  Additionally, we have had several groups of distinguished visitors (DV’s) on station.  The US Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa came out to ARO for a tour.  The National Science Board also paid a visit to the Pole, but unfortunately they weren’t able to make it out to see us; instead we brought a mini presentation and clean air samples to them.  Most recently, we had an Air Force C-17 pilot and load master check out ARO.  More on them later…

The weather has been BEAUTIFUL, so we have gotten a lot of work done outside.  Andy and I raised all of the 2-meter meteorology instruments on our tower.  After several years the snow accumulates, burying buildings, towers, and instruments.  Every so often the instruments must be raised to maintain the 2-meter distance off the snow.  Yesterday Patrick and I raised our albedo rack.  This is a T-shaped stand stuck in the snow that holds 3 solar instruments which look at the albedo, or reflectivity, of the snow.  It was easy to raise our instruments on the tower – that only required wrenches.  The albedo rack was a little more fun.  Patrick and I (ok mostly Patrick) dug a huge 8-foot hole in the snow in order to expose the bottom of the rack post.  It was quite the job.  Once we were at the bottom, we were lucky to have Marco and Joselyn assist us in lifting the entire rack.  We shoveled and packed snow under the post until it was at the correct height.  Then we filled it all back in.  This whole project took from about 10:00am to 3:00pm (including a lunch break).  We were blessed with sun and little wind, so working outside was easy.  During the shoveling I stripped down to liner gloves, a hat, and no jacket.  I never thought I would be so hot outside at the South Pole in -20 degree weather!   After all that shoveling yesterday, I’m a little sore!

On this past Monday the Air Force was supposed to conduct two air drops: a winter and a summer drop.  The main differences between the summer and winter drops are the air drop locations, how the packages are dropped, and out of which hatch they are dropped.  In the summer, we send packages grid South of the station, but in the winter we would direct a plane to send the package over the skiway.  The summer drops are routine because the C-17 is able to open its rear cargo bay hatch and send out the packages by gravity on their sliding mechanisms.  This procedure is well-practiced and is fairly easy for the crew.  The winter is a little more complicated.  The hydraulics don’t work well in the temperatures we are talking about here in the dead of winter (-100F), so the cargo bay hatch cannot be opened.  Instead, cargo is physically pushed out of the paratroop door (the door on the side of the plane parachutists jump out) on the side.  There is no gravity assistance, and its COLD!  To matters more interesting, a winter air drop is done in the darkness.  This is not a problem for the C-17 crew – they are used to this stuff!  It’s a little more difficult for us, the crew who has to pick up the crashed cargo.  Last week we had several meetings to discuss how we would run a winter air drop, how we would set up, and how we would recover the cargo.  In preparation for this week’s drop, the air drop crew learned how to light the burn barrels that will illuminate the winter drop zone.  We also planted flags at the surveyed locations which indicate where our burn barrels would be located.  It was a lovely boondoggle in a pisten bully out about 2 miles away from the station. 

Well, Monday rolled around and the air drop was scheduled for 1800 (6:00pm).  During the day the drop was put on delay, then mechanical delay, then indefinite mechanical delay before being cancelled all together.  Today was their next opportunity, but it turns out the C-17 needs a part shipped in from the US and there is no way that part will arrive today.  Tomorrow perhaps?  In the meantime, the C-17 air crew (pilot and load master) who came to assist on our side of the air drop are loving their mini vacation at the South Pole!  They are a great group of guys, and we are very glad to have them!

The ERT team (emergency response team) is in full prep mode this week.  On Friday we are scheduled to have our annual mass casualty drill.  I can’t speak too much about the prospective incident, but I know it will involve a mock plane and several people down.  It is going to be a real test of the system we have set up.  I’m nervous for the event, but I’m also pretty excited for it.  We’ve put in a lot of hours hashing out how we would handle several serious injuries at once, including initial response and transportation, so I’m looking forward to see how everyone handles it.

Other than work and emergencies, I’ve continued to have a lot of fun down here.  The weekend after Thanksgiving there was an Open Mic night at Summercamp.  It seems half the station crammed into the Summercamp lounge to see our fellow Polies show off their musical talents.  And a talented group we are (myself not included!).  I was completely blown away by my co-workers, friends, and peers!  I was very much inspired to continue my goal of learning at least a little of the guitar this winter.  We had extremely talented guitarists, a keyboard player, a banjo player, and a few other types of instruments.  There were soloists and groups that performed.  It was wonderful.  The music ranged from folk to bluegrass, to classic rock, soft rock, you name it.  I had a moment of “Whoa.  Here I am.  In a tent.  Its -40 degrees outside.  I’m listening to awesome music with my friends.  I’m at the South Pole!”  I have those moments every so often where I have to take a step back, assess my situation, and remind myself I’m at the bottom of the world! 

I’ve also kept up with my swing and salsa dancing.  We’ve been learning more and more advanced moves, but we are also gaining attendance during class.  I think a lot of people think dance lessons would be silly or stupid – but that’s until they try it.  I was able to convince several friends to attend a class, and now they are hooked.  Or at least they are having fun and don’t feel so silly.  It was awesome the other night at the Carp Shop party – a rock song was playing (I forget, but something on the hard side of rock), and my buddy and I were able to salsa dance to it – and I think we looked pretty good!  I was impressed with our ability to make the salsa fit into that situation and not completely screw it up.  Dancing is definitely a good skill to have.

Christmas, although it doesn’t feel like it down here, is right around the corner!  Some people have done a little decorating: the galley dish pit is very festive, and Comms went all out on their side of the building!  Its nice that Christmas is on a weekend this year so we can actually celebrate it on a weekend.  Like Thanksgiving, there is a feast and a party.  But before all this happens on Christmas Day, there is the Race Around the World, a race around the station and grounds.  This is a crazy race: you can either walk, run, ski, bike, board, ride, or whatever you can think of.  I am trying to convince the fire fighters to let me ride on their rig for the race.  The fire ‘truck’ is named ‘Elephant Man’, so we’re going to decorate it like an elephant.  I think I know what I’m doing Sunday.  A little sewing, anyone?  I want to make a big trunk to strap to the front!  Plus ears and eyes.  And probably a tail.  Nice!  Christmas, although not at home, is going to be a blast, I think!

Tonight is ARO movie night and we are showing a modern New Zealand classic:  Black Sheep.  This is not the 1996 Chris Farley Black Sheep.  Oh noooo… this is the 2007 zombie sheep flick.  Basically, New Zealand has more sheep than it has people.  Imagine the sheep becoming infected or genetically changed, and craving human flesh.  It is going to be fantastic!  I’m secretly glad the C-17 is still missing parts, so the film can be shown tonight!

That’s about all that is currently going on around here.  We’re free from the Christmas buzz at the South Pole.  There are no radio or tv commercials, no ridiculous holiday displays at stores, and so far no real Christmas music.  I hope you’re all enjoying it back home!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving at the Pole was FANTASTIC!  Holidays are a community effort down here on the Ice.  Everyone pitches in to help out and make things run smoothly.  The week before the big dinner, there were several sessions of community preparations.  One night about 15-20 people pitched in to bake pies.  We baked in epic proportions.  I helped out with the pumpkin pies, as those are my favorite.  I have never added gallons of pureed pumpkin to a bowl before!  And it was definitely not a bowl – more like a cauldron.  I stirred the filling with a HUGE whisk, and it required two hands.  It was awesome.  The next night there was the potato peeling party, which was more like vegetable cutting and prep. 

Last night was our Thanksgiving dinner.  There were three different shifts because we have so many people on station.  I was in the first seating with the majority of my friends – it was a blast!  Before dinner, the ladies got dressed up and it felt like we were going to the prom.  I found some killer red pumps in skua and tested those out – success!  Everyone arrived in the hallway outside the galley 30 minutes before the start of dinner for h’ours d’oeuvres (sp?), music, and mingling.  Then we proceeded to dinner.  I was shocked by how beautifully-decorated the room was.  All it took was some lighting, table cloths, candles, and a fake fire on our tv displays to turn the galley into a fancy banquet hall.  The food was served buffet-style and we had wine and pie stewards running around keeping our glasses and plates full.  It was quite different than my normal Thanksgiving dinners and was quite a treat!  I loved it!

After our seating, I took an hour off to work off the delicious turkey dinner with a few games of fooseball in the lounge.  It was great.  After some play time, I returned to the ‘hall’ to help clean, get another seating ready, and serve wine and pie.  It was a blast volunteering, but I think next time I am going to work in the dish pit cleaning dishes.  They really had a party going in there – disco lights and all!  The party migrated later on in the evening to SummerCamp, where the dancing didn’t cease until after 4:00am.  All in all, it was a great event!