Arriving at the Pole

I made it! We successfully had both flights to the pole.  After some mild delays in Christchurch (stay tuned for an upcoming post), we took the C17 to McMurdo, stayed for less than 20 hours, and were on a Basler to the south pole the next day.

At McMurdo, the airfield is a ~50 min shuttle ride from the station proper.  Just in case you you had to go to the bathroom or something.  The shuttle also stops at Scott base where a few Kiwi’s got off.  You know it is Scott base because all of the buildings are painted lime green.  Usually you aren’t supposed to go over there, but they host America Night at the bars on Thursday.

Once at our station, they took us in for an intake briefing and sent us to find our rooms and get dinner.  They told us all about all of the bad weather that could happen, but it didn’t happen so much while I was there.  Just sun.  All day and all night.  Sadly, the shop was not open while I was there, so souvenirs will have to wait for R&R later.

Since we had a flight scheduled for the next morning, we had to go weigh out bags after dinner.  Due to further restrictions of the smaller plane, I had to mail one of my suitcases, but it will all get here eventually…  On the way out we got some great pictures of Mt. Erebus.

Now the C130 Hercules are flying, and they are much bigger planes, but at the time, only the smaller Baslers could make it in and out of the pole.  They are very weigh restricted, fly slower than commercial aircraft, sit about 14 people, and are not pressurized.  Helpfully, however, they have oxygen connections for all of the passengers once we go above ~14k ft.  The major benefit is that you are below the clouds for much of the trip, but the pictures of the Antarctic mountains will also have to wait for another post.

After 5 hrs on the flight and lots of pictures, we landed!  The previous IceCube winterovers were there to greet us and heard us inside (along with a whole lot of other people).  They brought us in for another intake briefing and warned us about the elevation.  It’s physically ~9.5k ft above sea level here, but the pressure is such that the body experiences it as ~10-11k ft.  So you get to be pretty winded going up the one flight of stairs (especially dragging your bags up those stairs into your spacious living accommodations).

It’s all worth it though, because outside you can see both the ceremonial south pole, and the actual south pole!  I just went out to visit them, and the pictures are in preparation.  Watch this space.