More work

Station closing continues this week and we are all very busy getting things ready to go cold.  The buildings and systems that were needed for the large summer population of 275 are no longer needed and have to be cleaned and "de-heated".  Since our fuel has to to last all winter conservation is very important here - if we don't need to heat the buildings we don't.  Fuel is very closely monitored and we have enough for the winter as long as nothing unexpected happens.

The aircraft fueling system also had to be taken up and stored and I spent much of the week helping with that.  Being the new guy I'm sure I helped some and hindered some, but I think the extra hands were helpful.   The picture is of the crew rolling up about half a mile of fuel line that ran from the ice runway to our fuel storage tanks.  Every LC-130 that lands during the summer pumps fuel from its tanks into our fuel storage tanks and it all goes through these lines.  If they were left in place all winter they would be buried in huge drifts by spring and impossible to dig out - so up they come.  I'll talk more about drifts in later posts.

That frosty guy at the top of the post is me.  Yes it looks cold but I am really pretty warm under all that fur and down.  The outside temperature was a comfortable -25F with no wind so staying warm was not hard.  The coats here are so warm I was just wearing a t-shirt under mine, but when it gets colder I am sure that will change.

Inside the station things are also progressing.  The Polies are becoming a community and I have learned almost everyone's name.  Things are very quiet in the station which is actually pretty big for only 47 inhabitants.  It is easy to find a place to be alone, or just as easy to head to the galley to find people to talk to.  My work is turning out to be very rewarding.  I can't talk about it on the blog, but we are in the process of making some operations safer to perform.

On the fun side I get LMC and snowmobile training later today!

My Second Sunday

It is now my second Sunday at the Station which means I've been here 10 days. It seems like a lot longer, but the character of the Station changed dramatically yesterday when we closed for the winter. There are now 47 dedicated souls here that will be here all winter no matter what. The dynamic of the station is now much lower key, people are more friendly with each other, and often the hallways are completely empty of other folks.

I was able to move into my permanent room yesterday which feels like a mansion compared to my first room since it is about 15 square feet larger. That may not seem like much, but it means I don't have to move things to open the door. Pictures coming when I get things put away.

Weather-wise it has been really beautiful with blue skies and low winds of about 8 to 10 knots. Of course the temperature is another matter. It was a balmy (for the Pole) -20F when I arrived and in the past ten days it has dropped to being constantly around -43F. Temperature is not really the hardest part of Pole life for me yet - it's the altitude. The altitude varies with the barometric pressure and right now it is over 10,000 feet. Everything is hard at that altitude, particularly the first week here. I have passed the critical first week danger zone for development of HAPE or HACE, so I am good to go for the entire season. I am acclimating well and can now walk the length of the station or up a flight of stairs without having to stop and rest while gasping for air. I still can't do both yet, but maybe by next Sunday I will be able.

Tonight I participated in a South Pole tradition by watching "The Thing" on the first night of the winter. Unfortunately it was the new version and not the original, but there are some things in life you just have to do if you have the chance, and watching any version of The Thing at the South Pole on the first night of winter is one of them. The other South Pole tradition was yesterday when the last plane left. Several of us went out to bid farewell to it as it buzzed the station on its way to the coast. [link]  This was at 2 am folks, so you know I am a traditionalist.

So far I have been struck by how calm, quiet and relaxed all the Polies are, but winter is just getting started so we will see in a few months. An interesting thing I have noticed is that greetings seem a bit strange to me. Since you may see some people ten or more times in the hallway every day, do you say Hi every time or do you walk past and ignore them? The first time each day is easy, but what about the thirteenth time? I think a lot of people here are having trouble with it. I'm sure it will get worked out over the winter.

Over the next two weeks all us poor 47 Polies will have to close down the station. That means putting out flag lines to the outlying research buildings so no one will get lost when it is dark, blizzardy and 80 below in a few months. We also have to shut down several heated out-buildings that are used only in summer, take down the ice runway flag markers so they don't get buried by snow over the winter, and lots of other things to maintain the station over the winter. I'll keep you informed of how that goes.

I was asked what it is I do here.  I am the Safety person for the station over winter.  Although we have a physician and a small clinic, the nearest real hospital 1,200 miles and six months away, so not getting seriously injured here is very important.  I also do drinking water testing and some environmental work.  In other words, I am the Occupational Safety and Health component of the station staff.

I get to the Pole at last

I arrived in Antarctica last Wednesday (Tuesday for you) on an Air Force C-17 cargo plane from New Zealand. When I got off the plane and stepped onto the ice runway for the first time my first impression was that it sure was quiet in Antarctica – very quiet! Then I realized I still had my earplugs in from the C-17 flight! A large group of us were driven for an hour to McMurdo Station where I would stay two nights because of some training I needed. We were transported in a Terrabus which was a miserable trip at a max speed of 20 mph. Google “Ivan the Terrabus” for a picture. When I got to McMurdo station I learned that my summer counterpart at the South Pole, who was to show me the ropes for two weeks at the Pole had left before I got there! In fact he left on the same plane I flew in on.

On Friday I was told my flight to Pole had been canceled for the day but an hour later the phone rang and they wanted to know why I wasn’t in the terminal ten minutes ago for the bus to the plane. I finally ended up riding with the New York Air National Guard crew to the airport. That was great since it was just me and the crew they let me stop and get some pictures of some penguins along the way. The plane wasn’t going anywhere without them after all. During the flight to the Pole I got to go to the flight deck and get some pictures.

When we got to the Pole the weather was too bad to land but the pilots decided to circle for an hour before heading back to McMurdo. This was bad news because the flight would end up being 3 hours + 1 hour of circling + 3 hours back – a long flight since I did not have time to grab a sandwich before leaving McMurdo. Luckily the weather cleared enough for us to land after only 40 minutes of circling.

So there I was at the South Pole standing atop 2.5 miles of polar ice sheet beside an LC-130 cargo plane, its engines running and propellers spinning because it was -30 and too cold to shut them off, looking at my new home for the next 10 months. How cool, I thought - how many places are there where airplanes drop you off at your house? Luckily the station manager had taken pity on the new guy and had sent someone to meet me. After that it was easy.

To be continued…

Beneath the Southern Cross

Yesterday I crossed the equator for the first time ever, and if it were not overcast in Christchurch NZ I would be able to see completely new stars!  The flights were long and tiring but not too bad.  After living in NYC for such a long time I got used to being able to fly direct to almost anywhere so the four leg trip to Christchurch was pretty grueling.  At least all my bags made it with me, which was not the case with some of my USAP traveling companions.

Every year the Antarctic Program hands out luggage tags to participants and here is a picture of this year's purple tag.  They aren't just gifts and we are required to put them on our bags so the airline can give those bags special consideration.  That's the theory anyway.  The handing out of the luggage tags is one of the minor high-points of the orientation in Denver every year.

We arrived in Christchurch at 2:30 pm yesterday and made it to our hotels around 4 pm.  We then had the rest of the day off.  (!)  I managed to stay awake until about 10 pm.  Later today we all go to the clothing distribution center to be issued all our ECW gear, then tomorrow we leave at a very, very early hour for Antarctica!

South Pole Dome

After thirty-five years serving as the iconic image of the South Pole the aluminum geodesic dome will be gone just a week before I arrive.  With the dedication of the new station last year the dome was declared redundant and has been mostly dismantled this summer, and by the time I arrive in two weeks it will be completely gone.  Even the hole it had scooped for itself in the shifting snow will be filled in. The dome sheltered station operations and housing for decades and was the South Pole Station since 1975.  I'm sorry to miss the opportunity to walk under it.

From people currently at the pole I hear that scheduling meetings have begun for personnel returning to the US - the first sign that the summer season is drawing to a close.  The station will close for the winter in mid February when it becomes to cold to fly, and by then all 200 summer workers must be gone. Only the winterovers will remain.  A few people like me who are winter-only have yet to arrive.

Meanwhile, here in the warm part of the planet I have eight days before my own deployment but about a month of things left to do.


Linked dome photo: Ethan Goode
B&W dome photo: Forest Banks 

Falling into Place...

Things are getting more solid and real by the day.  As well as having flights booked next month for the Denver training and then on to New Zealand, I now have been assigned a hotel in Christchurch starting on the 24th of January - the Windsor B&B.  The Windsor is a large old house near the city center that has been converted into a hotel.  I'm sure it was chosen by my employers for its economy, but it is exactly the kind of place I would chose no matter what my housing budget. I'll be there at least two days.

The NZ office of the USAP has sent me a schedule for my two days in Christchurch - how to get around, where and when to be fitted for my cold weather gear, where to meet shuttles, and the date for my ICE flight.  If the weather cooperates I will be on the ice exactly one month from today, January 26.  Unfortunately being "on the ice" isn't the same as being at the Pole.  Several days will have to be spent in the mud pit that is McMurdo Station where they will give me survival training (and yet another dental exam). Then onward to the clean ice of the Amundsen-Scott Station.

I've started preliminary packing.  Baggage weight for flights into McMurdo and to the Pole is limited to 150 lbs of personal gear.  This includes the ten pounds of extreme cold weather gear issued at the USAP Clothing Distribution Center in Christchurch.  My ECW will be closer to 20 lbs because South Pole winterovers are issued two complete sets so that one can be stored in a remote building in case of a main-station fire. I don't think I will have any real problem with the weight limit even with the 20 lbs of gear but we will see. I'm an experienced traveler so I probably could get all my clothes for the winter in a carry-on bag.  I'm not sure how I will even fill up two huge duffels. Food, alcohol, chocolate and an Xbox maybe.

Getting close

It isn't long now - just over 30 days.  My flights are booked and my tickets cut.  I leave for Denver orientation on January 17th and then on to the Pole.  My ICE flight (where I actually reach Antarctica) is scheduled for the 26th into McMurdo Station from Christchurch, New Zealand. That flight will be on a C-17 military transport. The flight to the Pole a few days later will be on a ski-equipped C-130.

In the meantime I have been busy cleaning up around the house for a year's absence, installing security lights, shopping for cameras and other personal things, building a carport, and arranging for lawn-mowing and mail-forwarding services.

There is only one more training session after the fire-fighting and emergency responder training - Survival School. That is done in Antarctica under real conditions. After some classroom instruction they will drive us out onto the ice sheet and teach us how to build ice shelters (igloos!) and dig survival trenches... and then they make us sleep in them overnight!  Luckily I will be there at the end of January, which is the warmest month.  Temperatures for my night out should stay above zero.

Although I have known I am going to the South Pole for months, it adds quite a dose of reality to have flights scheduled.

Further Progress

I just heard from RPSC and they have moved my deployment date up to the week of January 18th.  That means it is now less than 60 days before I leave for the South Pole.

Fire Training Update

I found a picture of the firefighters' halligan. This versatile tool is a combination pry-bar, adze, hook, ax, and reach-extender and was invented by (you guessed it) Hugh Halligan of the NYFD, and is now used by firefighters worldwide. It is also useful because when crawling along the floor on hands and knees it the two prongs on the end form a raised triangle that keeps the fire-fighter's hand off the floor. If the hand holding the halligan ever touches the floor the firefighter knows there is no floor ahead. Very useful knowledge to keep from going headfirst into a hole or stairway in pitch black conditions. As I found out, this thing is heavy steel and weighs about 10-15 lbs. - much heavier than an ax. Using one increases equipment weight for the average firefighter to about 70 lbs!

South Pole Firefighter Training

I spent the past week at the Rocky Mountain Fire Academy in Aurora, Colorado training for the South Pole Station Fire Brigade. Apologies for not posting during the week, but you would not believe the stuff I was doing. I was exhausted every day. Every muscle in my body ached all week and I have a new respect for firefighters - the things they do are HARD.

Monday, in just one exercise, we crawled through a "burning" building (simulated smoke but zero visibility) on hands and knees sweep-searching for victims. In this case the scenario was "an infant reported to be in the building". As we discovered there was also an unexpected adult victim. My partner and I had to extract both (we always go in two-person teams). All this was done with 65 lbs of bunker gear, helmet, face-piece and self-contained breathing apparatus. It was all I could do to crawl out of the building with the baby under my arm, hand it (him?) off and collapse. The smoke was so thick in the building that at one point I could not find the open exit door when I was only a foot from it! I shouldn't admit it, but I probably dragged the "baby" out by the neck. Luckily there aren't supposed to be any babies at the Pole, but anything is possible.

And this was just one exercise of a 5-day course. On the last day we all had to sweep-search for victims and put out a fire in a live-fire exercise.  You can see the remnants of the fire in the picture to the left. I cannot say I was looking forward to the search part since searching is hard enough without real fire (putting the fires out is a lot of fun though). In the end all went well in my fire-attack but my sweep-search could have been better. By the way, "could have been better" is a euphemism for "terrible". On the second floor searching for victims I got confused in the smoke and did not search the entire room.  As a result I left the room early and missed the victim (a bright orange traffic cone) which was behind a door.

The one thing I was not worried about was getting burned. On the first day we had been taken into the fire building in full gear while the trainers set fire to a pile of wooden pallets next to us. Thankfully all we had to do was crouch on the floor in the relatively cool air and listen to a short ten-minute lecture.. The lecture they gave in that room took on new meaning when there was a raging fire ten feet away and the smoke/air interface was dropping by the minute. By the end of the lecture the fire had turned into a raging inferno and the smoke had dropped to about 18 inches off the floor and was so dense we couldn't even see the fire ten feet away (but we could sure feel the heat)! We were in full bunker gear and bottled air of course. The firefighters told us that five feet above the floor the temperature was about 1,000 degrees, and if any of us were to stand up the heat would melt our face masks. Needless to say we all crawled out the door on hands and knees after the lecture.. I've learned that firefighters spend most of their time on hands and knees. As we were crawling out another firefighter warned us not to remove our gear for a few minutes because it was too hot to touch!

On one of the non-fire mornings we crawled down the Gerbil Tube - 80 feet of eighteen-inch diameter concrete sewer pipe - to learn how to negotiate tight situations. It was so tight we could only propel ourselves with our toes. Later that day we squirmed, crawled and scooted back and forth and up-and-down through a building called The Maze (which I tended to think of more as the Building from Hell) that had a complex multi-level wooden stud structure built throughout (complete with the occasional hanging electrical wire) to simulate a tight attic space - all in complete darkness with full kit and SCBA. On other days we learned forced-entry techniques using a halligan and ax, practiced extinguishing vehicle-fires (left), propane tank fires, extracting victims from cars, etc. Whew, it was quite a week of exhausting training and the thin air of Denver didn't help much.

And the best part is I was actually paid to do this! I can't say I was the best in the class, but I held my own - particularly when you realize that most of the other students were 20 to 30 years younger than me.  I'd like to take the course again, but I'll prepare myself better in advance next time.

110 days to the Pole!