Christmas 2011

Christmas at the South Pole...

Lobster!

Ed with the magical vest

Winning the race around the world

Carlos and I at the finish

All time high

On Christmas it was 10 degrees F, an all time high for the South Pole. Previous record was 7.5 F. I caught the weather page when it was 9.1F :

Winter Solstice

The winter solstice was Dec 22nd down here. I used the south pole to measure the angle of inclination of earth's axis. I got 24.5 degrees, the real number is 23.5 degrees.

100 years

Dec 14th, 2011 marked the 100th anniversary of Admunsen's arrival at the South Pole. The Prime Minister of Norway was here to celebrate.

Ice bust that never melts

Prime Minister checks out the telescopes

Group shot

Traverse

  In the beginning of December the traverse arrived from McMurdo. There were 10 guys who drove the ~800 miles in seven or eight vehicles, so of which you can see below. This is only the 6th traverse in history. 

  The main purpose of the traverse is usually to deliver fuel to the station, however, this traverse is on a mission to remove an abandoned station another 500 away from here, so they didn't have much fuel to spare. Usually the fuel come in the LC-130's, and it takes two gallons of fuel to deliver every one to the station. The traverse is much more efficient, it only takes one gallon for every gallon delivered.

   It turns out that I knew two of the guys on the traverse. Cory, whom I had met in the North Cascades doing SCA crews, I knew was coming in, and we chatted about SCA happenings. The other guy was my NOLS instructor, Paul, from a mountaineering course I took in Patagonia in 2007. The last time I saw him were sharing a snow cave we dug into a glacier on the side of Cerro San Lorenzo during a Chilean blizzard. It was pretty awesome to run in to him down here.

These tractors are custom made for the traverse.

I think these are the best looking.

The fuel bladders.

Eclipse at the South Pole

On November 25th there was a partial solar eclipse at the South Pole. I snapped a couple of pictures with a piece of aluminized mylar over my lens. This worked out somewhat, so I stuck a bunch of them together for the image below.

Return to Antarctica

  So, after the delay in Chirstchurch, we got on the C17 to McMurdo. Our stay in McMurdo was short; only about 12 hours. Colin and I managed to get in a quick hike up Ob hill, you can see some pictures at the bottom of this post. The sun was low, giving the whole scene a nice yellow glow.
  I had a roommate for about 9 hours. He was a grad student going to the dry valleys studying microbes in the lakes there, which are super saline. The dry valleys sounds really cool, lots of interesting things to see out there...the South Pole is a little more mundane.

   The next morning we were up bright and early for our flight to pole. After about 3 and a half hours airborne we were on the ground at Pole. The weather wasn't that great, I was a little surprised we landed at all.
   Being back at the station felt very familiar. Not much really changes down here. For the past week we've been working hard on the telescopes. We have managed to do some fixes to two of them and will be testing whether we have improved them in the next week.
   The first indoor soccer game happened this week too. We had a great turnout, at least 11 people were there to play. Breathing the dry air at 10,000 ft is just about as I remember, hopefully next time I'll be a little stronger.

Mom, here is one of me in the C17. With Chin Lin and Randol, and a sleeping Colin.

Zak and Sven look pretty excited.

High Ceilings!

Looks cold....

Getting off the C17 in McMurdo

Ivan takes us from the runway to town.

Erebus looms

Colin strikes a pose on Ob hill

Carhartts make my legs look so straight!

No hidden corners this year. Unfortunately the unicorn is white and blends in with the snow, the missile silo is underground and the burger king went out of business.

I like this one.