Some bad news about the upcoming winter stay at the South Pole.  Due to a circumstance beyond my control I will not be going to the South Pole for the 2012 winter season.  I plan to apply for next year, so I do hope to be returning to the Pole and doing the live blog once again.

To keep this blog alive in the meantime I will be recounting some stories from my 2010 winter at the Amundsen Scott South Pole Station. There are a lot of stories and a lot of pictures I have not posted here.  So get ready for a winter 2010 retrospective!

It Begins Again

I received an offer from Raytheon Polar Services last week for another winter at the South Pole for the 2012 season. That is early next January to early November.  I accepted so here we go again!

It is true that I was very tired of being at the Pole last November and wanted to leave, but after a few months away I began to remember how good it was in many ways.  Or maybe I just forgot how annoying some things were! :)  It is a unique place: one long day and one long night, one sunrise and one sunset a year, temperatures that cannot be described, with atmospheric and celestial shows that can be seen nowhere else on the planet. The night sky at the South Pole is a view fewer than 1,400 people have ever seen in the history of mankind.  How could I not go back?

This upcoming year I will at least be able to see when I am outside.  Last winter my glasses frosted over after a minute or two outside and I couldn't see a thing. After the temperature dropped to below -50F this happened every time I went out, without fail.  This winter I will have contact lenses so I will be able to find the flags between buildings easier.  Because of my poor eyesight it was often quite dangerous for me to go outside, particularly on my own when the weather was bad.  I know some people scoffed at my characterization last year that being some places in bad weather were risky, but I don't know how anyone could say being outside in the dark at -85F with a 20 kt wind, blind, would not be a risky thing.  But the risk is part of the allure.  The South Pole in winter is not Disneyland.  The conditions are real and often dangerous.  No matter what happens the crew has to deal with it, and you certainly can't quit and go home.

So I start again with the physical qualifying medical tests called PQ'ing.  I took my first test today and there are many, many to go. There will also be more emergency trauma and fire-fighting training (this time in Salt Lake City I think), and of course another psych test.

It should be a good year.

2011 Pole Marker

Every year the winter-overs get to design and build the next season's Geographic South Pole marker. The marker design is kept secret until it is unveiled and installed on January 1, when the previous year's marker is retired and moved inside the South Pole Station. Below is the marker that was designed during our winter.  This was a very special marker since 2011 marks the 100th anniversary of Roald Amundsen first reaching the Pole in 1911.

From the Antarctic Sun, January 3, 2011:

The new bronze marker is in the shape of a sextant, an instrument used for navigation in the Age of Exploration. There are 47 individual degree marks on both sides at the bottom of the marker, representing the number of people who wintered at the South Pole in 2010.

In addition, a free-spinning “medallion” sits in between the angled arms of the bronzed sextant, which rests on a pedestal that displays the names of Amundsen's crew. On one engraved side is a well-known image of Amundsen and three other men admiring a tent flying the Norwegian flag at the South Pole. On the other is an engraving of the modern South Pole Station.

Winter-over machinist Derek Aboltins fabricated the 2011 marker based on the design by fellow winter-over David Holmes.

 Photo credit Robert Schwarz.

Safety Award Patch

For the first time ever the winter-over crew this year had a perfect safety record with no lost-time accidents.  There were a few first aids, but those don't really count as occupational injuries.  This was quite a feat and everyone who was at Pole this winter should be proud of that record.  To commemorate the achievement we designed a patch and Raytheon Polar Services Company had one made for each Polie and had them hand-carried to the Pole on the first plane in.  Thanks Raytheon.  We handed one out to every winter-over at the awards ceremony at the end of the winter.

Commemorated on the patch was the coldest temperature of the winter (-104F); the number of safe consecutive days (274); and the number of winter-over Polies (47).

Homeward Bound!

Ironically, I am sitting semi-trapped at home in North Carolina with remnants of a snowstorm outside so I thought it would be a good time to get some of the final South Pole pictures posted on the blog.  I'll probably have another couple of posts soon with some pictures taken out the windows of the LC-130, and some shots taken over the winter that did not get put up at the time  The following photos were taken during my last two days at the station and during the LC-130 flight to McMurdo.  Enjoy.

Home sweet home for the past nine and a half months.  Beautiful, isn't it.  This picture was taken on NOvember 4th, my last full day at the Amundsen Scott South Pole Station.  It was still too cold for planes to land so we were worried that the LC-130 aircraft scheduled to pick us up the next day, the first of the summer,  wouldn't make it.

BUT IT DID !!  It was still cold at -50F, right at the operating limit of the plane.  Visibility was very close to the minimum for the first flight but the pilot made a command decision and landed.  Visibility requirements for the first flight of the year are higher because it is a new ice runway.  The first flight must be able to see markers at three miles, while all the later flights have a lesser visibility requirement, one mile I think.

A bunch of us standing around. Some are waiting to get on the plane and some are saying good-bye to those leaving.. Look at those smiling faces.

 

More smiling faces.

 

My smiling face!

James Travis III, Maintenance Supervisor for the winter. James is crying because he doesn't get to leave on this plane.

Getting settled in the LC-130 before take-off. .It definitely isn't First Class, but were we ever glad to be there! L to R: David Holmes, Warren Lee, Virgil Porterfield, Genevieve Ellison.

All settled... waiting for the plane to start moving!

We're moving!  This is the Gang of Three, the maintenance folks over winter.  A great group of people.  L to R: Paul Smith, plumber; Shelby Handlin, general assistant; Kevin Berck, plumber.  These three, along with James Travis, Ricardo Lopez and David Holmes, kept the station running over the winter, sometimes in some very difficult circumstances. They cannot get too much praise from me.

L to R:  Boyd Brown, heavy equipment operator; Deborah Travis, food monkey extrordinaire; Emily Wilson, physician's assistant.

Francis Sheil, head chef

Virgil Porterfield, VMF supervisor; Genevieve Ellison, Waste, with a "startled chipmunk" look.  Genevieve, again, what waste category is dryer lint?

L to R: Chris Scadden, power plant; Cody Myer, chef; Boyd Brown, equipment operator.

L to R: Nick Morgan, Atmospheric Research Observatory; Mel MacMahon, station manager; Raul Salinas, chef. Raul is reading "Lone Survivor" - but wait, there are 47 of us!

Debra Kolmodin, engineering; Nick Morgan, ARO

Ricardo Lopez, maintenance

Jason McDonald, VMF (yes, he's under there).  Jason was the hardest working person at the station for the last month so he deserves to nap.  By the way, Jason drove to the Pole.

L to R: Genevieve Ellison,waste: and Sheri McKeen, logistics. Where did they get that candy!?

 

Warren Lee, galley staff and SP resident artist; Virgil Porterfield, VMF

 

A quick look outside the plane on the way to McMurdo.  I'll post more pictures of the Antarctic scenery  from the flight in a follow-up post.

And finally, the 2010 winterover picture now on the wall of the Amundsen Scott South Pole Station.  Deborah Travis took the group picture, Warren Lee designed the winterover patch under the photo, and David Holmes made the frame.  I designed the safety patch depicted on the award plaque (right) we received for having the first ever perfect safety record for a winterover crew.  Each winterover got a commemorative safety patch with the number of safe work days (274) , lowest winter temperature (-104F, actually -103.6 but who's counting?) and the size of the winterover crew  (47).

I haven't gotten lost.  After a few weeks of being grounded by weather and by the Airbus 380 groundings by Qantas, I finally made it home last week.  I haven't posted because I have not had internet access until yesterday.  After Thanksgiving holidays I will post some pictures of the LC-130 flight out from Pole and of the twenty of us winterovers who made it out on that flight.

After that I will make some final observations about winter at the South Pole (from a back-home perspective) and post some pictures that did not make it during the winter,. Internet access was very poor at Pole and posting anything, much less pictures, was very difficult and time consuming.  I don't want to think how often I got up at 3 AM to post pictures using the "good" satellite.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I' m crying. After all the flight delays from the South Pole and then from Mcmurdo, i am now delayed in Christchurch NZ because of the AIrbus 380 groundings. It looks like I can't get out of here to go home until the 17th at the earliest.

Christchurch is a nice place but I Want To Go Home!!!

Waaaaaa.

Just a short post from my ipod to let you know what is happening. I finally got out of Pole on wednesday and after more cancelled flghts by the C-17 flying out of McMurdo finally made it to Christchurch NZ early Friday morning. That meant leaving McMurdo at 2 am, but it was worth it. Soon i will post pictures of the LC-130 flight from SP last tuesday and all the very happy Polies on board. Need to get my laptop working first. Also have pictures of the C17 trip to christchurch with equally happy Polies.

Temperatures here are +50F! Temps at pole were -50F when i left! Much nicer weather in NZ to say the least. Better beer, too.

Pictures later.

No way anyone is getting out of Pole today.  At 4 am visibility was less than a mile and winds were at 30 mph.  It seems the weather front that was supposed to be here this afternoon got here a little early.  Since the Herc needs 3 miles of visibility to land, we are not even close.  The forcast is for continued bad weather for the next few days.  I can't even see the South Pole Telescope from the main station because of the low clouds and blowing snow.  The front brought in lower pressures and we are now at 11,350 ft altitude.  That's not too bad for us winterovers, but the new people will be struggling today I think.

Its going to be a pretty boring few days I think.

Today is my last full day at the South Pole station.  Of course the plane to take us out has to get here tomorrow and we have not had any luck in that area so far.  Every scheduled LC130 has been canceled for one reason or another for over a week.  The most recent flight in had to turn back when one of its engines quit part way here!

Today is also Sunday which is the normal SP day off, so I have things pretty easy.  Up at 6:30 for toast and coffee and sitting around with other departing Polies until 10:30 when brunch was served.  Then brunch until 11, then reading and napping until 1 pm.  Yaaaawn.  I will go outside one last time to take pictures of my replacement at the Pole markers.

If all goes well I will be lifting off the ice here at about 12:30 tomorrow afternoon.  That's less that 24 hours!  About five hours later I will arrive in McMurdo where I will spend the night.  I'll leave McM Tuesday afternoon (Monday in the US), and arrive in civilization in Christchurch NZ that evening.  Trees, grass, birds, dogs, cats and all those other things I have neither seen nor smelled for almost ten months.  I can hardly wait.

I'll be in  Christchurch for about a week.  I'll probably continue to post on the blog during that time, but it is getting close to the end time for my adventure at the South Pole and I will probably retire 90Below in a week or two.