Veteran's Day Celebration at the Geographic South Pole

Although it was 35 below zero today with wind chill factor of -56 F, we had a Veteran's Day Celebration out at the Geographic South Pole.  It started at 11:11 AM and was short and sweet but a very nice thing that they did for the Vets down here at The Pole.  I had carried a flag down from Alaska that Capt. Larry Graham and Anita Maas (Alyeska Pipeline Security) had provided me and flew it at the Celebration.

It seems unrealistic but here I stand where Norwegian Roald Amundsen and four others stood almost 102 years ago when he was the first in the race to the South Pole.

The Ceremony begins at 11:11 AM.  That's me with the frosted glasses.

The flag that is flapping in the breeze is from Alyeska Pipeline Security.

The whole gang.

South Pole marker with Rick Smith's patch

Alyeska Pipeline Co-worker Rick Smith's Casper Platoon Vietnam patch.

SP marker and my patches.

My patches.

TL - 644th AC&W, Richmond, FL

TR - 744th AC&W, Murphy Dome, AK

BL - 609th TCS, Cannon AFB, NM

BR - AK Air National Guard - 168th ARS

South Pole Station

I have been here at The Pole for 6 days now and I was down pretty hard with altitude sickness for a few days.  Today is Sunday, the 10th of November and I am off work.  Nobody works today except the the cooks, the meteorologist, the power plant operator and a few select others.  The satellite is within range of the South Pole a lot today so I plan on getting my blog caught up.

So where do I start?  Let's talk about altitude sickness.  I had a good shot of it.  The flight from McMurdo doesn't allow one to acclimate en route.  Usually when people get to the South Pole they take it easy for 2 days but altitude sickness can occur up to 5 days after you arrive.  I was sick for the 5 days.  The signs of altitude sickness are shortness of breath, headaches, dizziness and difficulty sleeping and I had all of that. The day after I arrived, Mike and I were trying to program the Wheelock VoiceLink and I fell asleep a couple of times.  The next morning I went to see Dr. Bradshaw and he checked my SpO2 and it was down to 79-81.  I spend the next 2 and 1/2 days in my 6' X 8' room with O2 tube run to my nose and taking Diamox.  That small room got smaller by the hour.  Anyways, I'm feeling a lot better and I went outside yesterday for the first time since I got here and it felt great.  I only use O2 at nights with my CPAP now and my SpO2 is hanging around 89.  I still have shortness of breath and trouble sleeping but last night my body said 'enough is enough' and I slept for 10 hours.  I'm hoping that I can sleep tonight.  Mountain climbers have the same problem.  They go up to a certain altitude, rest and then go up higher, acclimate, etc.  Well, enough about altitude sickness.

The original South Pole Station was built in 1956-57 and is now completely buried.  The second station was, located under a geodesic dome, was completed in 1975, which was dismantled and shipped off the continent in 2009-10.  The new Elevated Station was dedicated in January of 2008.  The winter (a little over 8 months) population is around 45 and the summer (a little under 4 months) population is around 150, although we are at 114 right now.  We live in the Elevated Station but there is overflow for the summer out back in something called Hyertats, similar to Quonset Huts. It is like a space station, you don't usually go out unless your job requires it then you suit up just an astronaut.  They even call parts of the station - Pods! But there are those who go outside to just to get out. My friend Ian has a fat tired bike that he takes out when the weather isn't too bad.  Of course, the smokers have to go outside.  There isn't any designated smoking area - just outside.

The average monthly temperatures range between -18 F in the summer to -76 F in the winter.  The record high was + 9 F, recorded in Dec. 2011 and -117 F which was recorded in June, 1982.  The average snow fall is 20 cm per year and the wind averages 11 knots.  The snow doesn't melt here.  The Polar Plateau keeps getting higher year after year.

There aren't any ATM nor credit card usage and no check cashing here at The Pole.  You have to come with cash.  There is a store that is open for one hour every other night.  Due to water conservation, we are allowed 2 two minute showers a week and one load of laundry.  We all do housekeeping. They call it House Mousing.  There is a sign on the back of my door saying that the occupant of this room cleans the restroom on this floor on Mondays.  Well, the only restroom on my floor is the Women's Restroom.  I called on Andrea, the Station Support Supervisor, and told her that there must be some mistake.  She said "No, that is the restroom that you clean and besides the Women's Bathroom is always cleaner then the Men's."  So on Mondays about 4 PM, I go down to the Women's restroom, open the door a little, call out and if it is clear, block open the door and start cleaning.  They have complete instructions posted on the wall. 

We have Internet and phones here.  I have a phone in my room.  It's a Denver, Co phone number.  But the Internet and the phone service is dependent on three satellites being in range.  They are listed on the South Pole Website - http://www.southpole.usap.gov/    The three satellites (GOES, SPTR & SKYNET) are on a bar graph and have green bars when they are within range.  We are really roughing it, don't you think?

I'm now caught up on my blog!

A great photo of the South Pole Station taken from the Internet showing both poles.

South Pole Station has two poles.  This is the geographic south pole and .....

.....this is the ceremonial pole. 

We have a greenhouse.

Typical hallway.

That's a whole lot of powered milk.

Mike Epperson, SME, who works for Lockheed Martin, who has the Antarctic Support Contract for NSF.  Mike hired me long distance while he was at the Palmer Station, one of the three US research stations down here in Antarctica.

Skiway side of the station.

The station is built on pilings which sits on about two miles of ice.

Pole side of the station.

We recycle here.  Everything that comes in has to be flown out.  We have quite a successful recovery rate at 62%.

They have some cool science down here.  This is the IceCube project - more about this later.

Telescopes.

My 6' X 8' room.  You have to dance to get around the chair to get to the desk.  It gets awfully small when you have to spend 2 and 1/2 days on O2 in there.

My granddaughter Amelia's artwork hanging on my wall.

Amundsen made it to the South Pole first and returned to the coast to tell the world.  Scott did not.

Nov. 4th - Flight to the South Pole

Monday, Nov. 4th, was a beautiful day in McMurdo.  It was hard to contain my excitement because my goal was 830 miles away.  Ivan the Terra Bus hauled us out to the sea ice runway one more time.  As we loaded into the LC-130 you could look over and see the steam coming from the vent from Mount Erebus.  Soon we were taxiing and took off.

The C-130 is an interesting airplane.  It was built by Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin) in the 1950's and has been in continuous use and production for over 50 years.  The U.S. Air Force had attempted to replace  the C-130 in the 1970's thru the Advanced Medium STOL Transport project which resulted in the C-17.  The C-17 is the aircraft that flew me from Christchurch down to McMurdo.  My son-in-law, Chris, flew C-130s during the Iraq War.  OK, OK, back to the flight to the South Pole. 

Now the LC-130 is a far cry from the luxurious flight on the Boeing 777 from Sydney to Christchurch flight.  You sit in web seats along the sides with luggage strapped down between you. It is very noisy and you have to wear ear plugs and you are unable to talk to the person next to you. The plane has small round windows near the back.  When you go back there to look out you have to carefully step over every one's legs which I did because I wanted to see if I could locate Mt. Kirkpatrick. 

There are many mountains in the Transantarctic Mountain Range but Mt. Kirkpatrick is interesting to me because paleontologists have unearthed dinosaur bones from the Early Jurassic era for the last 20 years there.  It just goes to show you that Antarctica was a much warmer place many, many years ago.  Not being able to locate Mt. Kirkpatrick, I went back to my seat and read.

It didn't seem long before it was announced on the intercom that we were 20 minutes out from The Pole and to prepare for landing which we did because a lot of us had taken our jackets off and stuck them in the webbing to make our seats softer.  We landed and pulled over to the apron. As the airplane was still moving, the back door went down, the cargo was pushed out and the back door was closed to save the heat inside the aircraft.

I looked down at my watch as any explorer would have done.  It was 12:25 PM on the 4th of November, 2013.  The outside temperature was -44 degrees F with a wind chill factor of -73 degrees F.  The South Pole sits at an elevation of 9,301' but barometer reading is low right now so it has the effects of being at over 11,200'.    

Yes, I'm at the South Pole, living my dream. I'm at the coldest, driest, windiest, cleanest and most remote place on the face of the earth. Since I left Fairbanks last Monday, I have traveled 14,568 miles. I guess I can check this off my bucket list now.

Boarding the LC-130 in McMurdo.

This is how we ride in an LC-130.  A far cry from the Sydney to Christchurch flight.

Flying over the Transantarctic Mountains.

Opening the back door to shove the cargo out on the apron and then to get the door closed quickly because "Baby, it's cold outside!"

Walking up to the SP Station.

Me and the LC-130 at the South Pole skiway.

McMurdo

I'm at The Pole and I'm not feeling very well because I have altitude sickness.  I want to catch up my blog so I'm going to be less detailed.

After landing on the iceway in front of McMurdo we were hauled up into town by "Ivan' the Terra Bus, dropped off at the main building, had orientation and found our rooms.  When we landed on Friday we heard the that the first flight of the season (P-001) made it into The Pole.  So the next flight into The Pole (P-002) was scheduled for Saturday and I was scheduled for Monday's third flight P-003.  When we got up on Saturday, we found the weather to be bad and no flying happened on that day.  Because of that, P-002 was moved to Monday and I was moved up to P-002.  They dropped some of the cargo on this flight and put on more people.  I'm guessing the old crew down at the South Pole Station had a long winter and they want to get more of them out sooner.

So we had our 'bag drag' as they call it where you have to drag your bags while wearing your cold weather gear on up to the flight office so they can weight you and your bags.  After that I visited Mike Epperson, the fellow who hired me to work at the South Pole.  I read books, checked email and ate meals with my new found friends from Christchurch.  Saturday evening was the Halloween Party.  I didn't go but I heard that it is THE big event of the year in McMurdo.  As soon as one year's party is over, some revelers start planning their costumes for the next year's party.

Sunday was bright and beautiful.  My friend Tom and I hiked around McMurdo and saw most of the sites, taking lots of pictures.  McMurdo has a rich Navy history which I won't get into now but is in some ways typical of other some towns across America and in some ways not typical.  The typical part - it has one church and three bars which is about the average ratio of American towns.  The non-typical part - it doesn't have any schools, nor children, nor McDonald's, etc. which is just like Deadhorse back in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska where I worked before heading down this way.

My friend Tom by the old Navy officer's club which is now a coffee shop.

A Halloween reveler using the only ATM on the continent.

Another Halloween reveler.

Chapel of the Snows - the southernmost church building in the world.

Scott's Hut (Robert Scott 1901-04)

McMurdo as seen from Observation Point.

Scott Base - a Kiwi research base about a mile away from McMurdo.

Many nations in the Antarctic but none of them own an inch of it.

Mount Erebus - the southernmost active volcano on earth.

Nov. 1st - Ice Flight Day

We were up early because the vans were picking us up 5:30 AM.  We rode to the airport in silence, with nobody talking, just listening to the BBC news on the radio.

At CDC, we changed into our cold weather gear.  You have to wear it when you fly in and out of McMurdo.  We also had to pack a boomerang bag.  A boomerang bay is what you pack with essentials if the flight gets turned around because of bad weather and you have to try again the next day.  They don't unload your bags for the night back in Christchurch and that is where the boomerang bag becomes very useful.

We picked up our bags and suitcases which we carted next door to be weighed.  Our gear and suitcases are limited to 150 lbs.  Then we were excused to go to breakfast next door.  The little cafe next door is always open early on ice flight days but they were closed on this day.  Apparently someone didn't get the word.

We got our briefing, put on our coats and filed out to the bus for the ride out to the plane, a C-17.  Before getting on the plane, we were all handed a bottle of water and a lunch.  There were some seats up front but most of us sat in jump seats with our boomerang bags under us.  In front of us were large pallets of cargo.  And so we began our 5 hr., 2415 mile flight to McMurdo.  Mostly everyone slept, read or worked on their laptops.  It was odd to look around at all the red coats with both first and last name Velcro tags on them.  We had only known each other for 2 days and only by first names.

About 3 hours into the flight the plane started to get cold.  I walked back to the round window and looked out.  We were definitely over the Antarctic continent.  We landed on the sea ice runway on the sound in front of McMurdo.  The ice is 10 feet thick there this time of year.  They hauled us up into town.  I was now standing on a new continent, the second in three days.

Inside the C-17.

 

Over the Antarctic continent.

Standing on the iceway.

Taking a ride back into McMurdo.

Christchurch, NZ

About 4:30 AM on Oct. 31st, an earthquake rocked and rolled us out of bed.  It had a magnitude of 4.2 so it was mild by Alaska standards. After breakfast at the Elms, we were shuttled with vans over to the USAP.  We had Antarctic orientation, got our flu shots and picked up our cold weather gear at the CDC (Clothing Distribution Center). There were long rows of two bags each with our names on and a list of all the items inside.  I had filled this list out months ago but for some unknown reason the computer had selected a Doug Eckman who had worked at McMurdo in the past.  This Doug Eckman was a lot taller and skinnier than me.  A white haired man pointed the way to an office and said, "Go see Marlene, she hasn't had a headache this morning yet."

So I found Marlene in her office with pictures of her grandchildren all over her desk and computer screen and I said that a young man with white hair sent me to see you, said that you need a headache.  "That young man is older then I am and he knows that I have been here since 3 this morning" she said with a laugh.  I explained my problem and she adjusted my checkout sheet.  She ripped Doug's name off the jacket and made a new Velcro one with my name on it.  She said something else which I didn't quite catch so I asked her to repeat because I had a little problem with my hearing at times.  Marlene said "So that's it.  I thought you were having trouble with my accent but wait a minute that can't be it because I live here.  You're the one with the accent."  We both laughed.  The white haired man (whose name I can't remember) popped his head in the door and asked "Everything OK then? I said, "Yes, Marlene is fixing me up." Marlene said, "You can't say that here.  That means something different in this country. You can't say that." I was shocked and I felt my face go flush red.  They both looked at me and laughed heartily at my embarrassment.  This Marlene was turning out to be a real hoot.  I still don't know if they were pulling my leg or not but I must say that the Kiwis that I have met at the USAP and around Christchurch all seem light hearted and quick with a laugh.  I liked them immediately.

Back in the warehouse, we all were trying on our cold weather gear, men in one large room and the ladies in another one.  If the clothing didn't fit you went to this half door and traded it in which I had to do with half of my stuff because of the mix up.  It was a scene from my past.  It reminded me of boot camp at Lackland AFB, TX some 43 years ago.  We were told that after the clothing issue we had the afternoon off but tomorrow was our 'Ice Flight' day.

Four of us decided to take a bus downtown and see the sites.  Downtown you can still see the damage of the Feb. 2011 earthquake that killed almost 200 people.  It had a magnitude of 6.3. Some buildings still lay in rubble and I saw the heavily damaged famous Christchurch Cathedral. We also shopped and saw the Botanical Gardens which is one one the prettiest places that I have seen.  It has lots of flowers and smells so good.  I saw lots of ducks, geese and squirrels, etc. while you are walking down the trails and people are boating by on wooden canoes in the small river.  Lindsey, a repeat 'Polie' (someone who has worked at the South Pole) said that this is the first place that she comes to when she comes 'off the ice' because the South Pole is void of wildlife and vegetation and has no smell.

Before we took the bus back to the Elms, we popped into a Sports Bar for dinner.  On one of the many silent TV screens I saw the Red Sox receiving the World Series trophy.  I had missed the last baseball game for this year.  Now that winter is looming on the horizon for North America, Spring Training seems so far away.  By the way, baseball season will open 2014 in Sydney and the Australians are excited about it. I think the Dodgers are playing the D-backs.  

Flight to Christchurch photos

I'm at the South Pole now and I will now have time and computers to catch up my blog.  I want to keep the events in order so let's go back and look at that luxury flight on a Boeing 777-300 from Sydney to Christchurch.

Coming in over the coast of New Zealand.  It looks like Alaska, doesn't it?