Flight to McMurdo

  Our flight to McMurdo left early in the morning. In order to check all of our bags and get on our ECW gear (Extreme Cold weather gear…ie the big red jacket) we had to leave our hotels at 5:45am. Once we made it to the CDC (clothing distribution center) we managed to grab some breakfast at the antarctic center. Here at the center you can pay $65 dollars to get a 'antarctic' experience, complete with a room at -15 degrees. I'm sure it is very educational, but I felt pretty lucky that I actually got to go there! And didn't have to pay $65. Lucky indeed.

    The CDC is also the terminal for flights going to McMurdo. We sorted our gear into four categories: that which was to be stored in McMurdo, our checked luggage, a carry on and a 'boomerang' bag. The 'boomerang' bag is that which you get back if the plane can't land in McMurdo and instead has to boomerang back to Christchurch. The rest of your checked luggage gets packed away on a pallet and not returned to you until you get to McMurdo, no matter how long that takes. The record number of boomerangs is 7. Its a 10hour round trip flight. Chao-Lin said he has waited 2 weeks in Christchurch waiting to get to McMurdo, although he didn't even have to get into the plane because they knew the weather was bad ahead of time. 

    Fortunately for us, the weather was supposed to be good. We were to fly on a C-17, an Air Force jet with the largest tail stabilizer I had ever seen. Inside we found two enormous liquid He dewars (10,000 gallons) destined for use in BICEP2. These took up most of the space in the center of the plane. The passengers sat on the outs edges of the plane, craning our necks to look through tiny round portholes.

   Which was OK, because most of the flight was over open ocean. It was not until 3-4 hours later that when I looked out the window I saw ICE. And lots of it. There were sharp black peaks that stuck there tips out above the flat featureless white. It was quite a sight.

    Eventually we crossed over the piece of the continent that separates New Zealand from the Ross Bay and I saw an ocean cluttered with icebergs. They cam in a meriad of sizes,  of but I couldn't really get any grasp on the absolute size of any of them. I knew we were high up though, so the must have been large. 

    The pilot announced that the temperature at McMurdo was 40 degrees F! Much warmer than I was expecting. Unfortunately, he also announced that the plane was overweight and the warm temperatures were causing the ice on the runway to melt, making landing an overweight plane dangerous. So, we were going to circle around for an hour and half to burn off some fuel and lose some weight. I remember wondering if this meant that we wouldn't have a enough fuel to return to Christchurch if we could land, but I am sure they had plenty. 

    Fortunately in this extra time, I got to go up into the cockpit and look out the front windows. This was much better than the same portholes down below. IN the cockpit I also saw Mount Erebus for the first time. A magnificent volcano. For some reason I hand't envisioned the area around MCmUrdo to have so many mountains and volcanoes. Nearest to the station and at 12000 feet, Mt Erebus was the most impressive, but there were other volcanoes around as well. Across the bay is the Royal Society Range, which is a section of the Transantarcitc range. 

    The landing was super smooth, before I knew it we were on the ground and out on the ice. The ice itself was actually sea ice, we have landed on a frozen Ross bay . Apparently it was one of the last days the runway we had landed on would be open, before it melted too much. In the next few days the runway would be moved from right in front of McMurdo to 'Pegusus', which is ~30km from the station back on solid ice sheet that never melts.

  McMurdo itself wasn't as bad as the rumors make it out to be. Yes, it looked a little like a freeway offramp, but what do you expect with no trees, howling winds and large trucks driving around all the time. We got an orientation and dropped off our carry on luggage in our rooms, then went to dinner. We didn't even bother picking up our checked bags or boomerang bags because we were leave on a flight to the south pole at 8am the next morning and luggage was to be checked at 7pm the night before. 

   After dinner, Sarah, Chao-Lin and I walked up to 'Ob' hill, which looks like a bit of a hike from the station, but really isn't that bad. I was still feeling pretty disoriented, not being able to tell which way was north. I knew the sun wouldn't provide any hints, instead just circling around over head. 

  From the top of Ob hill we could see a glimmer off in the distance of blue water, so we figured that must be roughly north. In the other direction was a vast ice sheet which lead to the interior of the continent. Across the bay were the Royal Soceties, truly a magnificent mountain range. And of course, Mt Erebus was nearest to us, rising up with smooth snow slopes to a puff of smoke at the top, as it is an active volcano.

   

   I would find out the next day that part of the reason I had been so confused about what part of the bay we were on and which direction was north was because we were on an island. And Mt Erebus was another island to the north of us! A 12000' volcano on an island. But otherwise our intuition on Ob hill was roughly correct.

   After our walk up Ob hill, we went over to Scott's hut. It was amazingly well preserved. Outside was a dead seal, perfectly preserved from when the had killed it almost 100years before. Inside the windows you could see boxes of biscuits and other canned food which had made polar exploration possible. 

   

   I went to bed at about 11:30pm, with the sun still as high as ever.