Bonus question

Maria asked: does it feel like the -20 degree temps in the midwest? If so, how are people able to do activities (play) out in it?

No, it doesn't feel as cold here as it does in the Midwest, for two reasons. First, there's not much wind here in the summer, which would otherwise make if VERY cold. Second, there's no moisture in the air and, as the saying goes, "it's not the cold, it's the humidity".

It's "warm" enough that I COULD walk the 3-4 blocks from my sleeping quarters to the station wearing just my coat (no wind pants), but my legs are kind of cold by the time I get to the station, and if an emergency required me to go outside, I'd be in trouble.

 
In the background you can see the ski camp, with a bunch of skiers waiting the day or two before their plane comes and picks them up. It's almost the end of ski season, and the station will close for the winter in less than a month.

That metal post n the foreground is the geographic South Pole. It's mostly there as a scientific marker. There's also a ceremonial South Pole which is candy-striped with a mirrored ball on top. I'll visit that in a week or two for my hero shots, which is what the obligatory South Pole pictures are called.

Drill camp

 

Here's a picture of the drill camp, where I spend much of my day. You can click on the picture to see a larger version.

Those red buildings are all shipping container sized trailers which were assembled in Madison and then shipped to Antarctica back when the IceCube project first started drilling. I work in the DCC (Drill Control Center) building, which is just to the left of those two big piles of snow on the right side of the picture.

One the left you can see some cable spools. These are the 2.5 km long communications cables which get lowered into the drilled holes. As a cable is deployed into a newly drilled hole, digital neutrino sensors are attached at regular intervals. The deployers only have around 27 hours from the time the drill is pulled out of the hole until the ice has refrozen to the point where they can't lower or raise the cable, so they have to work fairly quickly. The IceCube deployers have become experienced enough at this, so there's almost no risk of that happening. AMANDA, an earlier incarnation of the idea behind IceCube, got one of their strings stuck before it was fully lowered into the hole, rendering hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of equipment useless. A lot of time and energy was spent modelling exactly how holes freeze, to the point where we can watch the drill going down and coming back up, and accurately forecast the "lifetime" of the hole.

The white boxy things in front are the icetop sensors at the tops of previously deployed strings. Even though those strings were deployed weeks ago, they're still not ready to be used. It takes a month or so for the hole to freeze completely, and bad things happen to the sensors if they're powered up in water, because water can short out the electronics. Fortunately, ice doesn't conduct electricity!

Summer camp

 
While looking through some photos from my last trip here, I found this picture of the Jamesway building I stayed in then. It's the same one I'm staying in this year!

Since drilling will be finished in a week (MUCH faster than expected), many of the drillers will be leaving before the end of the month. I'm going to stay awake until 8AM to attend the morning IceCube meeting so I can ask to be moved to the main station after some of the drillers clear out. Living in the main station would make those occasional middle-of-the-night bathroom runs much more pleasant!

Big day

This morning I went to sleep at around 9:30AM and woke up at 11:30AM. Since I seemed to be awake, I got up, rushed through the morning ritual of pulling on some jeans and a shirt, lacing up my hiking boots, pulling on a light coat, and then walking the 40 yards to the summer camp bathroom to brush my teeth, etc. Once that was done, went back to my little sleeping cubicle and pulled on my ECW gear then walked the 100 yards or so to the station.

I went through all that rather than lying in bed because the Prince of Monaco had skied in from a camp ~10 km away and was giving a brief talk in the galley. He doesn't look like Grace Kelley at ALL!

After he finished speaking, I got lunch. Today was Burger Day and the hamburgers were surprisingly good for cafeteria-style food ... the Prince even lauded his as the best burger he'd ever had in Antarctica! Someone at my table noted that he could also have safely said you couldn't find a better burger within 2000 miles of here.

After lunch I walked back to summer camp and got another 3 hours of sleep. 5 hours of sleep is actually pretty common down here. I've made it halfway through my work shift already and still don't feel too bad.

As a driller, I technically have the day off, but there are problems with the data acquisition software (which is the system I work on most of the time back home) so I'm taking the opportunity to fix those.

I did go out to the drill camp at the start of my shift to look at the drill computers with one of the drillers who had mentioned that it sounded like one of the computer fans was dying. We pulled apart the computer and eventually determined that the noise he'd heard was coming from a generator fan located immediately behind the computer! This was good news because we don't seem to have any spare fans.

While looking for computer fans, someone needed to check the storeroom in the IceCube Lab building. The driller gave me a quick lesson and I got to drive a snowmobile to the ICL! That was pretty fun and MUCH better than walking!

In limbo

I got my gear yesterday and the order to catch the 5:45AM shuttle in order to be on the 8AM plane. I got everything packed and was in bed by 10PM, but my brain woke me up every hour or so to check that I hadn't overslept. I hate my brain sometimes!

At 3:30AM, my cell phone (which I was using as my alarm clock) started beeping to let me know the battery was almost dead. By the time I dug the charger out of my suitcase and plugged it in, I was WIDE AWAKE! Fortunately, that gave me plenty of time to get ready and I was out of the hotel 10 minutes before the shuttle bus was due. As you'd expect, the shuttle bus was late.

I got to the CDC (Clothing Distribution Center), put on my gear and rushed over to the waiting area, where I sat for a while. They showed us a couple of videos (procedures to follow on the military plane and basic rules for Antarctica), then after another 10 minute wait, we grabbed our gear and got onto the bus! The bus slowly made its way through a couple of gates to the airfield, drove up to our plane, slowly turned around ... and then returned us to the waiting area. The weather was too bad for the 8AM flight. They're waiting until 10AM, at which point we'll either take off or be stuck in Christchurch for another day.

Insider's guide and travel details

If you want a real insider's view, here's a link to the US Antarctic Program's participant guide:

http://www.usap.gov/travelAndDeployment/contentHandler.cfm?id=541

I'll be leaving tomorrow at 12:30 and arrive at my B&B in Christchurch roughly 30 hours later. on Jan 1.

On the 2nd, I'll go to the USAP complex to get my extreme weather gear and, weather permitting, I'll leave for McMurdo Station on the 3rd (probably at some unholy pre-dawn time!)

Gearing up!

I'm getting ready to go back to the South Pole!

I spent yesterday in bed with the flu. Hannah had it on Christmas Eve and it hit Elaine on the 26th, so I knew it was coming and I REALLY didn't want to be sick during the 24 hours or so of travel to Christchurch, N.Z. Therefore, I was HAPPY when I got sick because the timing was perfect! I had a couple of hours' warning before it really hit, so I did all my morning chores, pulled together some supplies, and climbed into bed. I dozed and listened to audiobooks and podcasts from around 10AM to 10PM and felt like the worst had passed. I even slept straight through from midnight until 8AM!

Today I'm pulling together a packing list and making sure I've got everything on it Tomorrow I'll pop into work for a bit, get any last-minute items I think of, and finish packing. Tuesday, I board my plane at 10:25AM and 4 flights and 27 hours later I land in Christchurch!