Spending a week in New Zealand was great. Christchurch really has a good variety of restaurants to choose from and it was nice to be able to take a shower every day instead of our 2 per week. You also tend to forget how nice humidity is! The South Pole is so cold and dry that it wreaks havoc on the sinuses and skin. Aside from enjoying some showers and food, I was able to meet up with a friend from high school and college in Queenstown. Queenstown is probably one of the most beautiful towns I’ve seen. It’s set right next to The Remarkables mountain range which provides a gorgeous backdrop. I was even able to get a round of golf in at the spectacular Jack’s Point golf course! The R&R definitely did its job and I came back to the Pole feeling refreshed and ready to endure the winter.

When I got back to the Pole, I’m sure my partner at ARO (Atmospheric Research Observatory) was happy. He did not arrive early enough in the summer to take advantage of R&R so he was left to take care of things on his own while I was soaking it up in New Zealand. He must have been busy while I was gone because things looked great when I got back!

A view of Akaroa Harbor.

A paraglider suspended over Queenstown.

A beautiful round of golf in Queenstown!

Another great view from the golf course.

About a week after I returned from R&R I was getting ready to head out to ARO when I sat down and my teeth kind of bumped together. It ended up knocking off a piece of tooth that was repaired last spring. Luckily I was able to grab a quick flight to McMurdo and see the dentist only days before she was leaving the ice! It really would have been annoying having to deal with a broken front tooth for 8 months through the winter. She did a great job on repairing it though and actually looks better than the previous repair job.

It turns out that this broken tooth was a blessing in disguise. On my flight back to McMurdo, I was able to capture some spectacular video of the Transantarctic Mountains. We also went over the Dry Valleys, out over the open water, and then ended with a great fly-by of McMurdo. Well worth the dental work!

A view out of the LC-130 window as we enter the Trans-Antarctic Mountains.

A glacier spilling down through a valley.

Another glacier carving it’s way.

Beautiful blue sky over some peaks and valleys.

The Dry Valleys.

Some broken off sea ice in the Ross Sea.

Mt Erebus.

McMurdo Station Fly-by.

Now as we approach mid-February, people are leaving by the bundles. A little less than 2 weeks ago we had about 250 people on station. Now we are down to about 125. There are 2 more major passenger flights out of here in which we will lose about 80 more people leaving us with about 48 people for the winter. It’s strange having all the open space in the galley during meal times. And it’s only going increase the next several days. Tomorrow is the last day for any outgoing mail, and Monday, February 15th, we have our last flights! The sun is very noticeably lower in the sky and temperatures the past week have been much colder. Today is the coldest day since I arrived here last October at -40F. Hard to believe it’s just about here but it is. Winter!

When we left McMurdo it was a fairly overcast day. We returned to Pegasus Field (the same airstrip on which we arrived on the C-17) and boarded a C-130 Hercules to fly to the pole.

Three C-130’s side-by-side at the airfield. They are the only heavy-lift aircraft equipped with skis in the world and they are operated by the New York Air National Guard.

The C-130 as we boarded the plane.

Soon after we took off I saw something in the snow from the window and I took a photograph of it. When I zoomed in on the photo I discovered that it was a crashed plane!

“The Pegasus” wreck (in upper left part of the photo) from the air.

It turns out that what I had photographed was “The Pegasus.” “The Pegasus” was a C-121 Lockheed Constellation aircraft which crashed on Oct 8, 1970 in horrendous weather. None of the 80 people on board were injured. The plane had passed the “PSR” (“Point of Safe Return”). Many of the planes which fly from New Zealand to McMurdo do not have enough fuel to get back to New Zealand if they cannot land at McMurdo, so a decision gets made mid-flight whether or not it is safe to proceed to McMurdo. Because the weather in McMurdo is so changeable, “boomerangs” back to New Zealand are quite common. I have actually boomeranged twice in my six trips to Antarctica. In fact, once we must have come close to passing the “PSR” because we ended up having to land in Dunedin (on the southern tip of New Zealand), since we did not have enough fuel to safely get back to the more northern Christchurch airport.

And that’s how the ice runway being used at McMurdo is called “Pegasus”, named in honor of this crashed plane.

A close-up of the Pegasus wreck. Photo courtesy of sandwichgirl.

Another view of the wreck. Photo courtesy of sandwichgirl.

For more on the plane and its story, click here.

As we flew onward, I took a photograph of a GPS. It is roughly a 3-hour flight, and as you can see, we were indeed headed southwards.

The weather at the South Pole was great. Having just arrived, here I am (in the middle) with colleagues, some who are leaving and others who are arriving.

Soon after I arrived, I took this photograph of a spectacular sundog (caused by ice crystals in the air). You can see part of the “parhelion” (the horizontal line), which was particularly bright on this day.

As you can tell, it can be an adventure getting to the pole. For me, everything went on schedule, and it still took a week! Now it’s been several days since I arrived, and the weather in McMurdo has been pretty bad of late. A C-17 boomeranged from Christchurch to McMurdo a couple of days ago, and additional attempts yesterday and today have had to be canceled due to weather. The flights from McMurdo to the South Pole have also had to be canceled due to weather – they have been trying hard to get a flight to pole because there is a person here who got sick and they need to do an emergency medical evacuation but they have so far been unable to. It looks like a plane just took off again headed this way, so I hope the folks waiting to leave will get out of here tonight. Currently IceCube has close to 10 people trying to fly to Antarctica from New Zealand, and close to 10 people trying to get to New Zealand from either McMurdo or the South Pole.

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).

My bags are packed for the last time for a while (phew!) and I am certainly itching and ready to go. We had a great Thanksgiving here at McMurdo, with the highlight being the 5K Turkey Trot Race. I actually won the women’s division! The food tasted even better after the race! We had a wonderful spread of turkey, gravy, stuffing, crab legs, stuffed mushrooms, roasted vegetables, fresh rolls and tons of desserts (caramel apples, homemade chocolate truffles, pumpkin pie, ice cream, pudding and raspberry cheesecake!) There were even fresh strawberries and cherries! I certainly got my fill. Despite really missing my family, it was a great holiday! I am looking forward to Christmas and New Years out on the ice!

It was great to be here in McMurdo hiking and meeting people who work here and getting closer to those who will be my peers and colleagues out on the ice. Now the real challenge begins. We all have to say goodbye to daily warm showers, heated buildings, great internet connectivity and warm beds. At WAIS, life will be a challenge as we will be working non-stop, sleeping in tents and sleeping bags and have minimal heated structures to retreat to when it gets really cold! Thankfully we have all had lots of training now and were issued lots of gear so we will have the skills to survive and stay warm!
I can’t wait to send my next post from WAIS! I hope everyone had a very Happy Thanksgiving! Hopefully you’ll hear from me soon!

Here are some photos of the McMurdo area. I won’t be seeing any mountains or sea ice for a while. White will certainly become my favorite color quickly!

McMurdo Station is surrounded by beautiful mountains.

We camped out on the sea ice for survival training. Here is the area around the camp we set up.

Heidi holds up a block as she helps to build a snow wall that served as wind protection for the camp during an overnight survival training.

We took lots of hikes, including a walk over to Scott Base, the station for the Antarctica New Zealand program.

Heidi hiking around the mountains surrounding McMurdo Station.

At the top of Observation Hill

I’ve gotten out and done a little hiking up Observation Hill, and Hut Point. Observation Hill provided some great views of the scenery around McMurdo including Mt Erebus and Mt Discovery.

Sun shining on Mt Erebus

There was also a cross at the top erected by Capt Scott’s rescue team after finding the remaining men of the expedition frozen in a tent only about 10 mi south of one of their placed food and fuel depots.

Cross dedicated to Capt. Scott

Down at Hut Point, I was able to go inside the Discovery Hut which was one of their staging areas during the winter. It was extremely well preserved because there really is nothing down here to eat away at the wood structure. It’s just too cold. Inside there where tons of crates of biscuits for, some seal carcasses, and a lot of other supplies labeled for “Capt Scott’s Antarctic Expedition.” Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of the inside because I left my memory card for my camera in my laptop (oops).

Discovery Hut

There is one more trail I would like to do before I go but I might save it for another time. There is a Castle Rock loop trail that is suppose to be very good but not all of it is open yet and it is a little more extensive hike. I have already dragged my checked bags up to cargo so all I have is a carry on as I wait for my flight. Otherwise, there is not a whole lot for me to do here during the day. I’m ready to get to the Pole, settle in and start working.

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.

The delay has caused to me think about my time in Antarctica and how much things have changed in the 5 weeks I’ve been here. The weather, which was brutally cold when we first arrived has moderated substantially. During the first couple of weeks of our time in Antarctica we needed to bundle up and cover all exposed bits of skin to face temperatures in the -40s F and wind chills as cold as -90 F.

Waiting on the sea ice to drive from McMurdo to Pegasus. This photo was taken on September 2nd when the temperature was near -30 F with strong winds creating bitter wind chill temperatures and blowing snow. On the next day the temperature dropped to -49 F, which set the all-time record low temperature for McMurdo in September.

Now our high temperatures are around 0 F and it is warm enough that for short walks around the base we can go outside in light fleece jackets without wearing a hat or gloves. It is amazing how quickly the human body adjusts to this harsh environment, since before we arrived in Antarctica I’m certain we all would have thought that a temperature near 0 F was bitterly cold and required bundling up in many layers of clothes.

When we arrived in late August the sun was up for just over 5 hours per day, and was barely peeking above the horizon, with pitch black nights. Today, the sun was up for nearly 15 hours, with the night sky not getting completely dark as the sun skims just below the southern horizon at midnight.

McMurdo at night.

One thing I had been hoping to see on this trip was the Southern Lights. On the night of our first successful Aerosonde flight to Terra Nova Bay I was fortunate enough to step out of the lab for a little while to get some fresh air and noticed the Southern Lights shimmering overhead.

Southern Lights over Black Island and Mt. Discovery. A faint glow from the sun is seen over the southern horizon in this picture taken near midnight.

On my previous trips to Antarctica I’ve never experienced sunrise or sunset, as it had been light 24 hours per day for months on end. I’ve enjoyed watching the sunrise and sunset every day while here for this WinFly trip.

Sunrise over Ross Island.

The cold Antarctic atmosphere is capable of creating some stunning, and sometimes disorienting, optical phenomena. One interesting optical effect we’ve seen quite a bit of is called a fata morgana. A fata morgana only occurs when there is a sharp increase in temperature with height through a thin layer of the atmosphere. When temperature increases with height in the atmosphere it is referred to as an inversion, since this is normally the opposite of what normally occurs in the lower part of the atmosphere. When a very strong inversion exists light reflected from objects on the horizon gets bent, causing objects near the ground to appear to be elevated. In the case of small rocks near the ground, these rocks appear to be large cliffs.

Fata morgana from Pegasus runway. In this photo you can notice distortion near the horizon, at the base of the mountains and also about halfway up the side of the mountains. These areas that appear to be cliffs are actually optical illusions called fata morgana.

The distortion of light as it passes through the atmosphere is not confined to just near the surface. One day while watching the moon pass behind Mt. Discovery I noticed that the moon was not circular in shape, but instead had an irregular outline. The wavy appearance of the moon’s outline was due to differential distortion of the light reflected from the moon as it passed through the atmosphere.

Moon over Mt. Discovery. Note the distortion in the circular shape of the moon. This is most evident on the top left side of the moon in this image.

An atmospheric phenomenon that is unique to the polar regions in winter is polar stratospheric clouds. Almost all clouds that we see in the atmosphere form in the lowest layer of the atmosphere, known as the troposphere, which extends to a height of about 6 miles in the Antarctic. Polar stratospheric clouds form at heights of 9 miles or more, in the layer of the atmosphere known as the stratosphere. Normally no clouds form in the stratosphere due to the dry conditions in this layer of the atmosphere, but at very cold temperatures, what little water does exist can condense to form clouds. Polar stratospheric clouds form at temperatures less than -78 C (-108 F) and are often made up of both frozen water and nitric acid. These clouds are more commonly referred to as nacreous clouds, with the root of the word nacre meaning mother of pearl. The name comes from the stunning mother of pearl coloration of these clouds.

Nacreous clouds from Pegasus ice runway.

Because these clouds are so high in the atmosphere they remain lit by the sun long after the surface and lower clouds have fallen into shadow as the sun sets. This is similar to how the top of a tall building remains lit by the setting sun after the base of the building has already passed into shadow.

Nacreous clouds over Hut Point and McMurdo Sound. The building visible on the horizon is the hut built for Robert Falcon Scott’s first Antarctic expedition at the start of the 20th century.

While I’ve enjoyed this trip to Antarctica more than any of my previous trips, and am very happy with the data we’ve collected I’m hoping that my next blog post will be from New Zealand or back home in Colorado.