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!

SOUTH POLE STATION, ANTARCTICA– South Pole is a constant construction site. The new station is still being finished up, but is very nice inside, sort of a cross between a high school building and space station.

The new South Pole Station, under construction.

Heavy machinery runs day and night to remove the snow that accumulates around camp. Walking between Summer Camp and the main station usually means dodging one or two of the large Caterpillars running around. There is a steady haze that hangs over the station from inversion layers…cold air pressing all the exhaust from the buildings and the machinery down towards the surface.

Part of the heavy machinery fleet at Pole.

We are here at the beginning of the summer season, and so there is a constant influx of Herc (LC-130 aircraft, or Hercules) flights, so far since we have been here there have been at least 3 each day. It diminishes any sense of isolation you might otherwise have. The winter-over crew, on the other hand, are all leaving as this steady stream of newcomers arrives. They seem a little overwhelmed at times, having had the station all to themselves the last few cold, dark months. The station population is now 243 people.

At times, there are more people than seats in the galley at meal times. It’s time for us to leave. Unfortunately, we can’t leave. After getting six of our group and minimal cargo out to Camp Winter, “bad” weather moved in, and the last few days the Basler aircraft that was scheduled to come and take Tom, Lou and I to Camp winter has been canceled. “Bad weather” is reduced visibility, and high winds (around 20 kts), but not a white-out type of storm. It’s actually warmer out than it has been (-38 deg C!), but the wind does make it a little more miserable to be outside than the last few days. To me now, after being here a week, -40 and calm winds feels like a nice day–enough of a nice day that Lou and I will remark to one another, “wow, it’s a nice day out today.” We’ve been working outside almost all day every day, sorting cargo, and somehow have become accustomed to the colder temperatures. It’s a bit of a relief for me, knowing I won’t be miserable working outside all the time when it’s that cold.

Rune and Tom outside sorting cargo on a cold day.

We have been in contact with the group once or twice a day since they left using our Iridium satellite phones. They are doing well, which we are glad to hear. It is a little colder and windier where they are, and can feel the difference in elevation…it’s 350 m higher where they are.

Einar and Tom talk to John at Camp Winter on the Iridium phone from inside our Jamesway.

Now we are stuck here at the South Pole, ready and raring to work, and the group out at Camp Winter has done as much as they can with the tools they have, with the skiway all ready for the Basler to land.

The large, heavy (over 4000 lbs) tent that will be used as a garage to fix the vehicles, in pieces. The rest of our cargo is behind it.

We are all ready to get down to business, setting up an enormous tent so that the mechanics can fix the vehicles, including making modifications to the vehicles which are currently operational. Last year, the vehicles had problems with the differentials. Seven were replaced in the field, in the open, by Kjetil, the team mechanic and medic–obviously, the team super mechanic and medic (although the vehicles, luckily, needed more attention than the people). The differentials have been re-engineered, and things should go better this year. Lou, our driller, and I are going to drill a ninety meter core while the mechanics fix the vehicles (well, Lou is going to drill, and I am going to do the core handling…measuring, weighing and packaging the core to get shipped back to the US from the Pole). Both of us are excited to get started on our hole.

SOUTH POLE STATION, ANTARCTICA– So far in this trip, the main goal of the team has been to sort and pack our cargo. We have 21,000 lbs going out to Camp Winter alone, not including the food and supplies for the trip from South Pole to Troll which we will start mid-December. I personally, have dreams about stacks of wooden boxes on pallets and TCN numbers (the cargo tracking numbers assigned to all our boxes in the US Antarctic Program).

Our science cargo. The white boxes are used to ship the ice cores that we take in one meter sections.

This box is going to Camp Winter (CW).

I’d like to think that we have one of the most well-organized, well-sorted, 10 ton piles of cargo ever produced. Every box has been inventoried to the item–all the bolts, wrenches, rolls of toilet paper, peanuts, candy bars, rolls of duct tape–weighed, measured, and sorted several times in terms of priority, in terms of tasks needed to be accomplished, and in terms of the flights, which continuously change on us. If we get 5 flights into camp instead of 6, it means something has to be left behind. And that something must not be important. Flights are pretty flexible here due to weather, which can be bad here or at McMurdo, where most of the planes are coming from, or because of conditions, such as the fairly rough ones out at the vehicles. This means that we have to be flexible—we’re talking contortionist-flexible.

Just how rough was it? The team consults with the Twin Otter pilot before the first flight to Camp Winter about how bad the surface was for his recon flight.

We were supposed to have two Twin Otter flights into Camp Winter, but due to the rough surface and possible damage that could be inflicted on the plane, the pilot only wanted to do one more flight to bring in passengers. The pilot told Einar that the surface wasn’t the worst he’s ever experienced, but that it was pretty bad. This is understandable, but meant that we had to scramble this morning to reprioritize what cargo should go on the plane, once again. And hopefully, the flight we are losing now in the Twin Otter won’t mean we have too much cargo for the remaining three Basler flights.