The first interesting event of Tuesday was a 9:30 inbrief at the Chalet. The day after a science group arrives on station they will go to the NSF Chalet for an inbrief. At the inbrief, each workcenter supervisor will provide the group with an overview of the support they’ll be receiving and any additional information such as pager numbers, contact information, etc.
There was only one science group at this inbrief; they are studying “Yeasts in the Antarctic Dry Valleys: Biological Role, Distribution, and Evolution.” I’m not entirely sure what that means, but they’ll be in the Dry Valleys until February. I’m sure there’s scientific merit in there somewhere or they wouldn’t have gotten funded for this three-year project. I’d be interested to learn what the results of their findings are and how it affects the world in which we live.
The inbrief was the only meeting on our Tuesday calendar, so the rest of the day was spent doing normal work stuff. For those of you following the POLAR ICE saga, we were able to successfully configure our new local server and have everything pretty much up and running. All we need to do now is test it thoroughly and document everything before releasing it to the general McMurdo populous.
One of the big events of the day was the departure of the South Pole Traverse crew. Last season there was a proof-of-concept study done to determine whether it was possible to build a traverse route from McMurdo Station to the South Pole. They determined that it is possible, and this year is the first year that they will make the full traverse to 90 South. The idea is that they’ll build a regular surface route from McMurdo to the South Pole, freeing up ski-equipped LC-130 airplanes for other missions. It wouldn’t be used to transport personnel, just cargo and supplies. Driving directions to the South Pole are simple on paper – head east from McMurdo then angle across the Ross Ice Shelf; jog up the Leverett Glacier and head due south to the Pole. It’s about 1,000 miles one-way, a bit longer than the 825 miles the LC-130 fly, but potentially more reliable and cheaper.
The traverse is a long caravan of Case tractors and Pisten Bullies towing trailer after trailer of supplies and fuel. The trailers are all on skis, and carry huge fuel tanks, portable berthing huts, flags for marking the route, etc. – everything you can imagine that would be required for an undertaking like this. The team will take about two months to reach the Pole and are led by a Pisten Bully that has a long probe coming off the front of it. The probe is a crevasse detector that should (hopefully) detect any crevasses in time for the team to stop and figure out how to pass. During the proof of concept I heard that they found 32 crevasses in one three-mile stretch. I can’t imagine driving 1,000 miles across the Polar Plateau, taking two months to get to your destination, and not having any truck stops or visitor’s centers to stop at along the way. Allen, our Snowcraft I instructor, is accompanying the team to help them set up camp each night. Now there’s an adventure.
After work I called my parents to check in and let them know I’m still alive and not yet frozen. It’s always nice to chat with the family; while it was 5pm on Tuesday here in McMurdo, it was 10pm on Monday back in Iowa. I’m still getting used to that whole time difference thing.
At dinner we ate with Rob, Mike, and Tim Nicoll. Tim is yet another Courage Classic rider (I’m telling you, almost the entire team is here on station; doing that ride was great for my USAP career). Tim shared some stories about a motorcycle mishap he had in New Zealand – the moral of his story being that if you’re thinking about renting a bike in Christchurch you should first be familiar with the New Zealand traffic laws, be comfortable on an 1100cc bike, and have some motorcycle riding experience or bad things can happen.
After dinner Scott was really antsy. He said he doesn’t handle boredom well so we were looking for something to do. I had pulled out my GPS receiver a little earlier and wanted to play with it a bit here in Antarctica. Since we had all had some ice cream after dinner we decided to walk the loop that goes through the station and see if the GPS could track us at the bottom of the world while we burned a fraction of the calories we had just consumed. Sure enough, the GPS worked like a champ and it was pretty cool to see our coordinates, 77° 85’ South, 166° 63’ East. The wind had picked up and we were all freezing our butts off so we elected to stop the experiment once we got near our dorm.
The first floor lounge in our dorm has a pool table, so we played a few games of cutthroat. Meanwhile, on the other side of the lounge, debate night was going on. They were debating whether or not the media is responsible for the problems seen in American Society. I had quite a few things to say about their viewpoints, but I was good and kept my mouth shut.
Scott decided that he was jonesin’ to play some guitar and we remembered that there’s a music room here on station. Not knowing where it is, we grabbed our coats and set out to find it. Luckily we ran into Kelly, the map girl, and she pointed us in the right direction. We opened up the door and the sweet, sweet sounds of “The Blarney Stone” by Ween came wafting out. As some of you know, Ween is the greatest band in the world, but hearing them anywhere in public is a fairly unusual occurrence as they are just about as far from mainstream as you can get. This was actually the second time I had heard unsolicited Ween since arriving – the first time someone played “Dancing in the Show Tonight” at Gallagher’s. Hearing a little surprise Ween action always brightens my day.
Anyway, the music room is basically a music studio with amps all over the walls, guitars, microphones, etc. You have to reserve the space through the rec office, and someone already had it for the night. He did a pretty nice version of the Ween tune, and then Scott and I headed to Gallagher’s to see if we could find Rich (the Aussie). Rich wasn’t there, probably due to the fact that they were having swing dance lesson night, so we checked the Coffee House next. Sure enough, there he was, so we sat down and chatted for a while about the pros and cons of rugby vs. American football. He was flying high on the recent Australia Wallabies victory over the New Zealand All Blacks. I hadn’t heard about that yet and was bummed, as I’ve become a big All Blacks fan since I left the States.
A couple other points I wanted to mention: Sara made a comment yesterday about how she was worried that I’d never come home since I’m having so much fun. It’s true that this is a lot of fun, but it can also get fairly mundane at times. We work 10 hours a day, 6 days a week, and I don’t write about the times where I’m sitting alone in my tiny dorm room, bored and homesick. Nobody wants to read that, and the last thing I want to do is sound ungrateful for this opportunity. Obviously whenever you spend almost 6 weeks away from your family you’re going to get a little homesick, and the irrepressible wind and cold do start to take their toll after a while. I wouldn’t trade this opportunity for the world, but I am certainly looking forward to getting home and seeing my wife again. Antarctica is incredible, but being away from home for almost 6 weeks definitely takes its toll. I don’t know how the people that spend an entire season down here can do it. Just knowing that this is it, there’s nothing else for over 2000 miles, and that the comforts of home are over 10,000 miles away, can play with your head if you let it. I try not to focus on that and instead want to take advantage of the incredible opportunity I’ve been given.
One other thing I haven’t really mentioned much is the wind chill. While the temperatures here are usually pretty tolerable (most days are in the teens), the wind never lets up. Walking around town, the wind chill usually averages about 20-30 below zero. If you go anywhere outside of town, like on the sea ice, Ob Hill, or Hut Point, the wind picks up quite a bit since you are no longer sheltered by the hills behind the station. The outlying areas around McMurdo have temperatures at least ten degrees colder because of this. Scott Base is less than two miles away but on the other side of the hills and has average temperatures of below zero to single digits. They also get hit with even more wind than we do. It’s always windy here. Just walking from the dorm to the galley – a two to three-minute walk – requires bundling up with a stocking cap, heavy parka, and gloves.
Tomorrow we continue our workcenter meetings, first observing the fixed wing coordinator’s tasks and then we head to the GIS/GPS department. Speaking of which, I pulled down a map of the routes around station that should hopefully give you a better visual of where some of the things I’ve talked about are located in relation to McMurdo and the rest of Antarctica. You can find that in the photo album. I also posted a picture of my wedding photo taken at the South Pole. As I mentioned previously, Scott, my boss, spent a few days there and I gave him this picture to take to the Pole. He had to put the picture between the fingers of his glove (getting frostnip in the process, you should check out his blog entry about that) in order to prevent the photo from blowing away. However, the picture turned out pretty well and is a cool reminder of what awaits me back home :-)
