Nathan Whitehorn, a coworker of mine, and I flew down on a US military heavy cargo aircraft called a C-17 “Globemaster”.

The C-17 “Globemaster.”

The spacious interior of the C-17. It’s large enough to hold four Black Hawk helicopters.

The views from the plane as we flew over the mountainous interior and icepacks are always spectacular.

The mountainous interior of the continent.

An aerial view of the sea ice.

It is always pretty awe-inspiring when you get off the plane and one of the first things you see is Mount Erebus with its volcanic plume.

Arriving at McMurdo. In the background is Mount Erebus.

After we arrived in McMurdo, the first thing we did was get checked out safety-wise to climb Castle Rock. Every time I go to McMurdo I have wanted to hike this famous spot, and this year I finally got my chance. We were able to get checked out, and the weather was good.

It is a 4-mile hike to Castle Rock across the ice.

Castle Rock with Mount Erebus in the background.

Castle Rock (with a warming hut in the foreground).

You actually climb Castle Rock with the help of some prepositioned ropes.

Me climbing up Castle Rock.

Nathan climbing.

The view from the summit is amazing.

Nathan climbing back down.

Another one of Nathan climbing back down.

The path back towards McMurdo.

The two of us after we had climbed the Rock.

It was a really fun day. We returned from climbing Castle Rock at 1:15am (at this time of year, it never gets dark).

Once at the terminal we had to weigh all of our bags and ourselves! Let’s just say it is a shock when you weigh yourself with an extra 40+ pounds of emergency cold weather gear and your carry-on! We were then given a boarding card and had to sit in a small theatre and watch a safety video! After waiting for an hour or so we got the green light to go through the security area and onto a bus. A short ride to the runway and there was our airplane! I think my jaw dropped when I saw the C-17! Soon I would be on a plane heading to Antarctica!

Outside of the Antarctica Departure terminal with my boarding pass.

The C-17 we flew to McMurdo Station, Antarctica

Luckily, our flight was loaded with cargo and the passenger load was minimal. In total there were 11 people, not including the loadmasters and flight crew. Normally the planes are crowded with 50+ people and cargo but we lucked out! These planes are incredible. It felt like sitting inside of a giant electronic whale stomach! Weird I know but there were wires, straps, gadgets and metal EVERYWHERE! The seats came out of the wall of the plane and there were only four small windows on this huge plane! You also have to wear earplugs because it is so noisy!

Here is our luggage on a pallet, ready to go to the ice.

Here is a strange shot of the ceiling of the airplane.

After five hours in the air we were finally descending! The clouds in the sky and the ice were seamless, creating a blanket of white. We were almost there! Soon the plane rumbled and we were gliding down a sea ice runway! Image that, a huge plane landing on sea ice! After we taxied for about 15 minutes, the door opened and we stepped off into the white magic that is Antarctica. The emotions and excitement were overwhelming. The view was truly breathtaking. Glacier-flanked Mt. Erebus, the southernmost active volcano in the world, loomed over the ice and the mountains seemed to just pop right out of the sea ice! I was standing in Antarctica and have now visited all seven continents on this fascinating planet. It is such a privilege to have an opportunity to conduct research on such a vast, remote, and untouched continent. With such a spectacular welcome to the ice I am confident that this trip is bound to be awe-inspiring and spectacular at every turn! Stayed tuned as the excitement continues!

The view from the plane door as we took on first steps onto the sea ice.

Heidi’s first minute in Antarctica! Let the icy adventure begin!

Early September, I made my way to SoCal to visit the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. It probably has one of the best campus locations I have ever seen. It is literally right on La Jolla Beach. Scripps has a couple of sets of flasks that collect air samples down at the South Pole so they wanted to give me some background on their program, history and some information about the equipment. I had to kind of laugh because the first time meeting Kim Bracchi, who was one of the people training me, she was just getting off the beach for an afternoon swim in the ocean. Typical California style. The group at Scripps is led by Ralph Keeling who’s father Charles Keeling is the person who began the longest running data set of carbon dioxide measurements at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. This graph of data is called the “Keeling Curve” which describes the rise in carbon dioxide since the 1950’s. I find it cool that I get to take part in this kind of history.

The Keeling Curve.

The actual training on how to collect the flask samples didn’t take too long. They keep it pretty simple which is good for when you want to do anything for long periods of time. This gave me a good chance to get out and about in the La Jolla area which was fantastic. I was able to spend a few days at the beach, and have a couple nights out on the town in La Jolla and Pacific Beach. Both great locations.

Straight from there, that same week, I went up to San Fransisco to The Exploratorium. The Exploratorium is a science learning center that has many hands-on exhibits for kids to try to gain some interest in science. The Exploratorium and NOAA just signed a memorandum of understanding so both can benefit from each other. They were holding a media training workshop for polar scientists in celebration of the International Polar Year so that we could be Ice Stories correspondents. This training was great. We learned some basics on shooting video, recording audio, taking still pictures, conducting interviews, and some storytelling. They also hooked us up with a bunch of equipment to use during our time on the ice. They had never had one of their correspondents winter over at the South Pole so they were looking forward to having someone from NOAA participate.

After the Cali excursion, I took two and a half weeks off to head back to Wisconsin to hang out with friends and family. I had a good barbecue at the parents house and got some last minute golfing in. It was also nice to hang out with some old friends before getting thrown into the South Pole with a whole bunch of strangers. This also gave me time to get a bit organized after all of my previous traveling to American Samoa and California.

This brings us into late September where I am finally back to my apartment in Boulder, CO. It was good to relax there for a bit, however I had to jump right into Trauma and Firefighting training. This lasted for about a week and a half and was a useful refresher to what I got prior to heading out to my ship assignment a few years ago. I can guess that I wouldn’t be the best person on a trauma team to assist in any injuries at the Pole so I think that helping on a fire team would suit me better. They require that you are on one or the other. The instructor for the trauma training was an interesting guy though. He was a retired Air Force Para-Rescue medic. He was dropped in some really bad situations with lots of casualties. I have a lot of respect for that work.

So with the training out of the way, I blinked and I found myself in Christchurch, New Zealand after 20 hours in an airplane (yuck!!!). Christchurch was great though. It is a beautiful clean city with lots of good ethnic food. I can’t wait to get back there after the Pole and explore New Zealand more. Can’t think about it too much though, I still have a year of frigid temperatures ahead of me.

View from the Air Force C-17 on approach to McMurdo Station.

Today, I arrived in McMurdo Station, Antarctica. We were told it was -15F with -30F to-40F wind chill. It was cold but it didn’t feel too bad because we had all of our extreme cold weather gear (ECW) on. The flight was pretty good. There is actually quite a lot of room on an Air-Force C-17. I was a little nervous when landing because you can’t see out the windows when in your seat. The approach to the Pegasus ice runway seemed to take FOREVER.

I prepare to don the ECW gear to exit the aircraft.

But when we landed and were able to get out of the plane, I looked around and couldn’t help myself from grinning. It is literally a breathtaking view when you first see it. The mountains are massive and bright white with some jagged rocks sticking out of the snow and ice. There is ice, ice, and more ice down here. It’s pretty cool. Tomorrow I will get my bearings a little better and try to figure out when I fly to the Pole.

So I’m finally in Antarctica with the next stop being the South Pole. Unfortunately, my case containing my camera gear got held up in Sydney and I haven’t gotten it yet. So there will be no video or audio but I do have my camera and computer to write and post pictures. Sounds like that’s all for now…it’s been a busy day and I’m beat. Talk to you all again in a few days.

C17 at Pegasus runway.

We landed in Christchurch at 9:30PM on Saturday night. Once we landed we needed to clear New Zealand customs and then return the cold weather gear we’d been given prior to going to Antarctica.

I flew home to Colorado on Sunday afternoon, but spent Sunday morning walking around Christchurch enjoying the warm weather and the sight of trees, grass, flowers, birds, and lots of other people. After 5.5 weeks in Antarctica it can be quite a shock to see all of the activity in Christchurch, and I’m sure it was an even bigger shock for some of my fellow travelers on the C17 flight, that had spent the past 7 or more months wintering over in McMurdo.

The locals I spoke with in Christchurch, while walking around town on Sunday morning, all complained about the cold, rainy weather. A southerly change (the local name for a cold front, which in the Southern hemisphere is accompanied by a change to a wind direction from the south) had moved through on Saturday, causing the temperature to drop from highs in the 70s on Friday to a high in the 40s F on Sunday. To me temperatures in the 40s F felt pretty mild after 37 days where the low temperature was never warmer than -6 F and the warmest temperature I’d experienced was +19 F. In fact, during my time in Antarctica the daily high temperature was above 0 deg F on only 13 of the 37 days I was on the ice.

As I walked through the Christchurch botanic gardens I enjoyed the feel of a breeze that didn’t threaten frostbite and hypothermia as the bitter cold winds of Antarctica did. The smell of spring flowers blooming was something that you never smell in Antarctica, and almost don’t realize missing until you get off of the ice.

Flowers in Christchurch botanic gardens.

Flowers in Christchurch botanic gardens.

My flight home on Sunday afternoon was a comfortable one. We flew from Christchurch to Auckland, New Zealand. From Auckland we flew across the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco, and from there on to Denver. The long flight across the Pacific wasn’t very crowded, which always helps make spending 12 hours on the plane more tolerable. My flight landed in Denver at 6:30PM on Sunday night. The arrival time may seem a bit surprising, given that my flight left Christchurch at 4:30PM on Sunday afternoon, but of course we’d gained a day when we flew from west to east across the International Date Line. I was happy to see my wife and 7.5 month old daughter waiting for me when I arrived at Denver International Airport. The 6 weeks I’d been away was the longest time I’d been away from my daughter, Sabrina, and she didn’t quite know what to make of me at first, but after a minute of studying me remembered that I was Daddy and gave me a big smile.

My actual travel time, from when I left my hotel in Christchurch until I’d walked into my home in Colorado was 25 hours, and it had taken 49 hours total to get from Antarctica back to Colorado. Given that the early Antarctic explorers would spend years in transit to and from Antarctica this didn’t seem like a lot of time to travel home from the opposite side of the world.

I hope you have enjoyed reading about our research project and life in Antarctica on this blog. It was great to see all of your comments about my posts. I don’t have any Antarctic fieldwork planned for the rest of this year or for next field season, but hope to be back in Antarctica during the 2011-12 field season working on the Antarctic automatic weather station project. My collaborators and I will also likely seek additional funding to conduct more UAV observations in the Antarctic. I’ll be sure to start a new blog series when I return to the ice.

The weather in Christchurch was beautiful, with sunny skies and warm temperatures with highs in the lower 60s F. This was a bit of a surprise since August is still winter in New Zealand. The explanation for the nice weather is that Christchurch was experiencing a weather phenomenon known as a norwester, which is characterized by strong, warm northwesterly winds. This is similar to the warm Chinook winds we get in Colorado or the warm foehn winds of the European Alps. Regardless of the source of the nice weather I took advantage of it by strolling around Christchurch and walking through the city’s beautiful botanic gardens.

Trees in the Christchurch botanic gardens. Green plants are something I won’t see again until I return to New Zealand in early October.

I also went up to the Port Hills, the remnants of volcanic activity in this region, which provided a beautiful vantage point to watch the sunset over Christchurch, the Canterbury plains, and the Southern Alps.

Sunset over Christchurch, the Canterbury plains, and the Southern Alps from the Port Hills just outside of Christchurch.

Of course, my time in Christchurch wasn’t all play – I also went to the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) clothing distribution center (CDC) to get my extreme cold weather (ECW) gear for the trip south. USAP participants are given all of the cold weather gear they’ll need to stay warm and safe while in Antarctica. When trying this gear on in a more temperate location like Christchurch it is easy to think that it is overkill, but I certainly appreciated it when I stepped off of the plane in Antarctica to a temperature of -45 F (although I’m getting slightly ahead of myself).

The flight to Antarctica needs to be timed to coincide with the relatively short daylight hours at this time of year, and so needs to land around noon. This means leaving Christchurch around 7AM, which requires a middle of the night wake-up to get to the CDC, conveniently located next to the Christchurch airport, to get into our cold weather gear and check in for the flight. On the day that we flew to Antarctica (Wednesday 26 August) I got up at 2:30 AM to catch the shuttle to the airport. By 4:30AM I’d changed into my cold weather gear, which included insulated socks and giant white bunny boots, long underwear, pants, and an outer pair of windproof pants, a long underwear top, a fleece jacket, and a giant red parka, glove liners and gloves, a balaclava, fleece hat, and goggles. We boarded the plane, a US Air Force reserve C17 around 6AM and were in the air heading south just before 7AM.

Me on the C17 waiting for take-off from Christchurch. I’ve taken off some of my cold weather gear off for the flight.

There is no mistaking this plane for a commercial aircraft, as the inside looks like the inside of a giant warehouse. A pallet of airline seats is loaded in the cargo area, that provides seating for about half of the passengers, with the remaining passengers sitting on nylon webbing seats that fold down from the walls of the airplane. The airline seats have the advantage of being more comfortable, but with less legroom, while the seats along the walls of the plane are less comfortable, but provide lots of legroom. Given all of the padding from our clothes, I find the less comfortable seats with more legroom to be preferable.

Video 1. A view of the inside of the C17 during the flight down to Antarctica. The engine noise you hear on the video is loud enough that it makes talking with other passengers difficult and requires that you use ear plugs for most of the flight.

The flight from Christchurch to the Pegasus ice runway in Antarctica takes about 5 hours. On our final approach the pilot announced that the current weather at Pegasus was -45 F. I’m a bit of a cold weather junky, so hearing this got me excited, as this is the coldest temperature I’ve ever experienced. With temperatures like this it is nice to have all of the ECW gear that seemed like overkill when in Christchurch.

One of the passengers on the flight just before getting off of the plane in Antarctica.

C17 at Pegasus ice runway.

Newly arrived USAP participants waiting to be driven from the Pegasus ice runway to McMurdo Station.

Even though this is my 9th trip to Antarctica it was my first trip that wasn’t during the height of the Antarctic summer (December and January) and I was excited to experience late Antarctic winter, with cold temperatures, strong winds, and dark (during the summer the sun is up 24 hours, so despite having spent many months in the Antarctic previously this was the first time I’d see the sun set and have a dark night). The low sun angle when we got off of the plane cast the familiar landscape of Ross Island, Black and White Islands, and the Transantarctic Mountains in a new light for me.

Ross Island from Pegasus ice runway. This photo was taken near noon, yet the sun was low in the sky.

After arriving in McMurdo we went to the mandatory in-brief that gets all new arrivals up to speed on the basics of life in McMurdo. After that we were assigned dorm rooms and picked up our luggage from the flight. The rest of the afternoon was spent getting settled into our lab space in the Crary lab.

By dinnertime it was already dark out, with a glow of orange along the northwest horizon. By the time dinner ended it was completely dark out, and I saw the stars from Antarctica for the first time.

Our first full day in McMurdo (Thursday 27 August) was spent at more meetings and training sessions, as well as getting our lab space setup and all of our gear unpacked. This will continue for the next few days. While we are getting all of our gear setup the last flights to Antarctica, until the end of September, are scheduled to arrive. Once the last flight arrives we will begin setting up our unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) launch facilities at the Pegasus ice runway. We’re hoping to make our first UAV flight sometime early next week.

The Christchurch Botanic Gardens, New Zealand.

The Croquet Club, Christchurch.

On Dec 9 we were scheduled to take a South African Hercules to McMurdo but ended up flying on the massive C17 “Globemaster” instead. The C17 was going to make an aidrop to “AGAP” after it dropped us off in McMurdo. You can see that the air-drop cargo was all ready to go (there is a parachute on top of each piece of cargo).

The C-17 ready for Airdrop.

During the flight I saw a lot of pack ice, and also got a nice photograph of the Antarctic coastline. We landed at Willy field (a runway on the sea ice). It was a nice day and you could see Mount Erebus in the distance (an active volcano).

Pack ice from the air.

The Antarctic coastline.

The C-17 ‘Globemaster.’

After being debriefed and getting our room assignments I took the Terrabus over to Scott Base (the New Zealand station). From there I could see the pressure ridges, and also the Happy Camper (Antarctic survival training) folks in the distance.

Having landed at McMurdo Station with Mt. Erebus in the background.

Scott Base pressure ridges, Terrabus and Happy Camper at foot of Mt. Erebus.

I knew that Mary Miller and Lisa Strong from the Exploratorium were standing there next to the two Scott Tents. The Happy Camper school was taking place at the foot of Mount Erebus. In the photo above, you can see the Terrabus between the pressure ridges and the Happy Camper school.

This first movie is a pan around the cargo hold just after we boarded the jet while we were settling in for our journey. You’ll see Lisa (waving), then Mary. The guy in the Orange shirt waving at the camera is Ralph Harvey, who collects meteorites on the ice. Though we didn’t know him at the time, you can find him featured in our webcasts.

This second movie is our arrival and debarking from the jet into the blinding whiteness of Antarctica. All people on the jet are required to wear extreme cold weather (ECW) gear. The C-17 looks bigger from the outside!

My first look at Antarctica from the window of a USAF C-17 jet.

This season a small contingent of researchers from multiple universities will be working to install and maintain very high precision global positioning systems and seismometers. It is our goal within POLENET to cover a large portion of the continent with these sensors to begin to understand the science of interaction between the great ice sheets and the earth below. This understanding is vital to understand the historical relationship of the ice and the rock in the past as a window of what to expect in the future.

GPS and a seismometer installed by POLENET in Antarctica.

This season we will be working mainly out of McMurdo Station using helicopters and Twin Otters, a propeller driven fixed wing aircraft, to go install new equipment, as well as service and upgrade equipment that we installed last year. One very exciting portion of this season will be working out remote tent camp far south in the Trans-Antarctic Mountains.

Just arrived after landing at Pegasus Field on the ice shelf.

The USAF C-17.

The title of this story is “It takes a lot to get here.” In a sense, that can be said about the many commercial flights from Ohio to Christchurch, New Zealand (the ingress point for all personnel going to Antarctica), to the US Air Force C-17 jet that flew me down to the ice, and all of the support running the facilities here at McMurdo Station. But I guess I meant the title to reflect a much larger statement.

The amount of planning for a project this size has taken years to get us even to this point in the story. Of course, it first began with the idea that Antarctica has so many unknowns that it would take observations on a massive scale to begin to break the secret of the earth that lies beneath miles of ice. This project from concept, to funding, to implementation of each field season has taken the dedication and ingenuity of many scientist and engineers all across the world.

I will look forward to bringing you this.