Nowhere To Go But Up

The TODAY Show is coming to the south pole. They have been in McMurdo this week and are flying down tomorrow to film some stuff about the science going on at pole. Don't count on seeing me on air unless they come to my room. Those of you privileged enough to get US broadcast television should check it out.

I haven't decided what I'll be for Halloween yet, or if there's even anything worth dressing up for tonight. I did do this to my face:


Another Herc flight showed up, this time bringing copious amounts of summer people. The station population is up to 147 and growing fast. Last night's flight was delayed all the way until nearly 1am. The sound of the plane landing woke me up so I got out of bed to see three people that I wintered with last year come in. After quick hellos, I was unable to get myself back to sleep in a reasonable amount of time. I fell asleep only to wake up at 5am for no other reason than insomnia suits me.

Only three more days and I'm out of here. Any tips on what has changed over the last year?

The first big Herc flight of the year landed yesterday. There were supposed to be two flights, the first bringing in the fire fighters and their truck while taking home several winter overs, the second would bring in more summer folk. The weather requirements for the first flight of the year are much stricter than for the flights that follow, so that flight ended up being canceled. What we ended up with was a flight that arrived late in the evening to take away many of my close friends from this past 9 months.

I was going to just give everyone a handshake at the door as they left to wait for their flight, but I decided that it was lame not to go out and suffer in the cold for an hour with everyone. I started out once I heard that the plane was on the ground. There was already a crowd of people waiting for their ride out of here and they had already unloaded the fire truck.




Michael & Heidi, Jason and Lynette, Nick, Brian, Bruce, Dainella, Jack, Dave Benson, Kari and Richard, Noah & Leah, Robert Reynolds, Jamie, Nate, Chef Neil, Dave Ford, Dennis, Claire & Tim, Jason McDonald, Chris, Dan Pitts, and Travis all got on the plane. I'll see most of these people in a few days in New Zealand when I catch up, so it wasn't 'goodbye' as much as bon voyage. It wasn't so hard to watch them go as it was watching them go without me.

It's about time for the Herc flights to arrive, marking the official start to summer and the end to the time here for the winter-over crew. We've had a "soft" opening with a few Basler flights, which have brought many of the science crew's summer replacements. My boss, Al, had the science support members who are here come out to the pole marker for a group photo. Last year's winter crew posed with next year's crew:


Later in the day I was out for another photo shoot, so afterwards I body surfed down the hill that has formed in front of the station. They have dug out the entryway to the old dome, so this pile of snow is the result. Several of us climbed up and slide down the hill on our behinds, snowboards, and sleds. Since my ankle is hurt I didn't want to go feet first, so I went on my belly. Later I rode the sled down with Nick, then raced Nick down the hill at the end. Good times.

Believe it or not, it's feeling much better now that my blood has turned to jelly and pooled at the heel. There's still lots of swelling, but it's not a grapefruit-sized mass on my ankle like before. I have pretty good range of motion forwards and backwards, just need to work on side to side by doing "alphabet" exercises. I spent a little time on the stationary bike to work some of the coagulated blood out of my foot. After that I was able to walk without much of a limp. I'm feeling pretty optimistic that I will be fine for my rapidly approaching off-ice adventures.

Welcome one of the two new science techs to the world of blogging:

http://ethansvivifyingadventures.blogspot.com/

Ethan will offer a fresh perspective to life down here that my toasty mind can't formulate anymore.

Last night there was a basketball game involving the some of the winter crew and the summer crew. The folks from the winter have an advantage by already being acclimated to the altitude, but the distinct disadvantage of being toast. There were four games played in all, mostly well contested matches, but the the edge went to the summer folks. To add injury to insult, I managed to sprain my ankle for the 300th time. Nobody around me, I just landed funny. We were almost done playing what we all agreed was our last game (the previous game had been agreed upon to be the last as well). I headed straight to bed, keeping my ankle iced and elevated all night.


The good news is that it's probably not broken, the bad news is that I'm supposed to be hiking in New Zealand in a couple of weeks. I'll be on crutches the next few days and hopefully things heal up nicely. I'm not holding my breath though, with the high altitude here things take a bit longer to get better. I may not start getting better until I'm at low elevation.

Oh, and sorry for the ugly foot photos. I realized after the first photo that I had better clip my toenails. There's not much I can do about the super-dry feet, that's just part of living here at the south pole apparently.

The weather has been crap in McMurdo so the onslaught of new people has been delayed a bit. We had Sunday off so I took the chance to do some housecleaning and personal grooming. To make way for the new folks who will eventually be here, I had to move out of my winter palace into the summer cottage.

With all of the new people showing up, it's throwing light on the fact that it's almost time for me to go. My current departure date from the south pole is scheduled for November 8. I will fly from here to McMurdo Station for a night's stay before heading to Christchurch, NZ. From there I will begin a bit of travel through Oceania and brief stop in southwest Asia before heading "home". I will fly to Indiana to visit relatives and my dog in Mitchell, then hop in a car to see more relatives in Virginia, then somehow find a way to go see friends back in Colorado. That's sort of the plan anyway, we'll see how that works out. Below is a nice visual aide to track me as I roam.

There are no flights today, the weather is supposed to be bad. We're stuck right now with a station population of 83, up from 54 during the winter. Several new but familiar faces are wandering around the hallways now, with a few that I've never seen before. It's a bit funny to watch the seating dynamics at dinner time. Some winter overs are trying to make the attempt to socalize with the new folks, others are just sticking amongst themselves. I go back and forth, sometimes it's nice to have a new conversation, other times it's good just to have that familiar banter back and forth. It's a big difference having just 15 or so people come in at a time compared to a Herc flight which brings in 45. Last year half the people that I knew from the winter got on one of the first flights here and were replaced by over 100 new, smiling, brown people. This year is a much more gradual transition. Anyway, just random stuff, here's a couple of photos of the new and old made new again.

Here are a couple of photos that me and the other two research associates were in today. We hung these over out boss's desk, who is arriving today. The first group of people came in yesterday on a Basler. I wonder what they think of us...

On what is traditionally our day off, two flights arrived on Sunday, the first planes to land at the south pole since February. Instead of enjoying a day of relaxation, several polies spent their Sunday afternoon preparing the skiway and fuels area for the arrival of guests all the way from Canada. The two planes, owned by Ken Borek Air, flew from Calgary south through the United States, Central America, South America, Rothera (the British Antarctic base), and to the south pole. The eventual stop for these guys is McMurdo Station on the New Zealand side of the continent, but to get there they had to fly around the bottom of the planet. One of the planes, called a Basler, stopped only for fuel and continued on. The other plane, a Twin Otter, stayed overnight with plans to continue their journey the next day. Mother nature had different plans so now we have guests here in the form of the Otter's three man crew.

At the time of the plane landings, I was working out at the ARO building on disassembling one of the instruments that I'm responsible for in the winter. One of the All-Sky cameras is going back to it's home university for an upgrade. I was working on that, with the aide of Emrys and Jason, so we took a break to watch the first plane landing of the season, the Basler.

It has been a warm (-52F, -48C), windy (around 25knots) week here at the south pole. This time of year, warm and windy sort of go together. We need the warm temperatures for planes to land (at least above -50C), but likewise need calm winds to have good visibility. Without both, there will be some sad polies who will have to wait for better weather to start their summer travel plans.

As the station opening rapidly approaches, the winter over polies are faced with all of the tasking that is necessary to get everything ready for new summer arrivals. A week from now, weather permitting, there will be fresh faces trotting all over the place. Every group has their own to-do list. For the science research associates, it involves writing our end of season documentation and cleaning our workspaces. I'm not going to make this post about writing a report, but I will show the adventures of three science techs as they try to sort through some junk at the south pole.





I managed to lose my goggles just in time to ride around on a snowmobile. Not having the sun protection and wind protection meant that I couldn't drive and that I was fairly cold during any other task. It's good working with the other reseach associates, they make jobs that wouldn't normally be any fun a lot more bearable with their senses of humor and upbeat personalities. It also helps that they work hard and smart. I've been lucky this year to be involved in such a good group. I can't wait to get away from here so I can start missing them.

Claire sent me this today. I can see it both ways, but it starts out counter-clockwise for me.

We took our winter over group pictures this past weekend. Not sure what the final product will look like, but here are my two favorites:

The group photo is an annual Antarctic winter-over station tradition. We chose to have the South Pole Telescope in the background because it's the first year that it has been up and running, and because just about every other backdrop down here has been used. Our photo was a bit late compared to most seasons, but at least we got around to it. Here's what we did last year. All photos are courtesy of Robert Schwarz, except the one of me, which is courtesy of me.