One of my favorite things in the world is the Olympics. Around the time of the last summer Olympics, I had just moved into a new apartment and was going to see how I’d get on without cable. Then the Olympics started, and I immediately caved and signed up for some silly number of channels so that I could get all of the Olympics channels and not miss a thing. I spent almost two full weeks doing nothing but watching the Olympics all day long (and then catching up on things I missed at night).

It was one of my great sadnesses that I wouldn’t be able to watch the Olympics this year due to their postponement. I still checked the event updates each morning when the internet came up, but it was not quite the same as watching every event live. However, all was not lost, because each year the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station hosts the South Polympics!

We organized ourselves into ‘countries’ of four people each (my team represented the ‘country’ of Winden (it’s the town in the Netflix show Dark which we had watched earlier in the season (it’s a really good show and you should definitely watch it!)). Of course, everything kicked off with the opening ceremonies; my team and I dressed up in ‘traditional’ Winden garb (which only really made sense if you’d seen the show) and proudly displayed our flag!

Photo courtesy of Lisa Minelli-Endlich

After a week of intense competition, with events ranging from ‘legitimate’ activities (i.e. volleyball) to completely random and silly ones (i.e. the saltine challenge), the ‘country’ of Flat Earth walked away with the most medals! My own ‘country’ of Winden won gold in darts, silver in cornhole and poker, and bronze in both singles and doubles 8 ball (see, very legitimate Olympic events :p).

It would be an understatement to say that there are a few traditions here at the South Pole. One such tradition involves channeling one’s inner Antarctic Explorer by sleeping in a tent outside (yes, outside the station, in the many, many, degrees below 0 weather). The tent we have here is based off of the design used by Robert F. Scott, one of the first two explorers to reach the South Pole. It is shaped like a pyramid with two layers; the outer layer has a flared edge so that it can be weighted down with snow which helps to secure the tent in windy conditions (though it’s not been that windy here, fingers crossed!) and the space between the layers helps keep the inside insulated from the cold. The entrance to the tent consists of two fabric tubes, one attached to each layer, that you have to awkwardly crawl/wriggle your way through. The tubes can be cinched closed with drawstrings which helps to seal up the inside and keep the wind out.

Photo courtesy of Josh Veitch-Michaelis

The specific tent related tradition here is referred to as “90 at 90” for 90 degrees (Fahrenheit) below zero at 90 degrees south.  And so it came to pass that, when it got cold enough, myself and a few friends (more people = more warmth) put on many, many, layers of pajamas and coats, crawled into the tent, bundled up in very warm sleeping bags, and spent the night doing our best to sleep without freezing.

We woke up surrounded by icicles (that had formed on the inside of the tent from where our breaths had condensed on the walls) and frost but no worse for wear. Though, as I wriggled out of tent and made my way back inside the station, I found myself very thankful that I didn’t have to sleep out there every night and that the next time I went to bed it would be in an actual bed in my warm, cozy room.

Time is a funny thing. I started writing this post (and several others) over two months ago. And now suddenly it’s September and I’m posting things from June… Ah well, better late than never, right?

“The Galley would like to formally request your presence at the Midwinter dinner.” I was told this as I was being handed a fancy invitation (which included a personalized medallion and wax seal). Inside was the menu for the 10-course meal we would be having to celebrate the point at which the sun was at its farthest point from us (in most of the southern hemisphere this would be the longest night, but, ya know, it’s been night for 3 months already and will be for 3 more months so…). This was to be our most elaborate party yet, and I couldn’t wait!

The festivities commenced with a speakeasy themed cocktail hour (complete with a ‘secret’ entrance, bouncer, and required pass phrase (which had been included with our invitations!)).

After cocktails, we gathered together for the Midwinter feast. I am constantly amazed by what the galley staff here are able to put together! I had never had a 10-course meal before, and it was absolutely incredible. The planning and artistry that went into each dish was unbelievable! I was absolutely stuffed by the end (each course was so good I couldn’t bear to leave anything on my plate!) and almost had to be rolled out of the galley.

But the evening wasn’t over! After we tidied up the galley, we gathered in the laundry room (of all places) for a toga party!

The festivities culminated the next day with the annual showing of The Shining (because what else would you watch after being isolated for 3 months besides a movie about a man going crazy after being isolated for 3 months…) followed by an encore presentation of Doctor Sleep.

It’s weird that the winter is already halfway over but I’m sure that the second half will be just as much fun as the first!

Aka Why I’ve Been So Busy

Here at the South Pole, we make our own fun. Most all of the community events are things that someone here enjoys back home and wants to share with the rest of the community. So, for me, it was almost a no brainer to try putting on an interactive/immersive theater performance. Now, I have no background in theater or acting but I’ve enjoyed interactive theater for a long time and wanted to try my hand at it. I was able to find some likeminded people here and, together, we formed South Pole Interactive Theater.

At first, we kept everything hush hush as we spent hours secretly planning and practicing for our debut event: An Evening At Mark’s (I was told later that no one had any idea what we were up to!). The show was to be one part casino/nightclub party, one part spying, and one part murder mystery. We had so much fun coming up with characters and backstories and secret clues for our audience to find (and practicing our dramatic death scenes!)

In the dead of night, we snuck around the station leaving invitations to the event (and explaining what it was) on everyone’s doors. Part of me was worried that it would be too weird and that no one would come but, as I’ve been told many times, I worry too much. The evening was absolutely awesome (even though almost nothing went to plan!) and everyone I talked to said they had a great time (quite a few people even asked when our next show would be!). Unfortunately, I completely forgot to take any pictures, I was too busy being a spy!

For the immediate future I think all of us involved are looking forward to some time to relax but my mind is already working on what we can do next!

Auroras! Auroras! This wonderful season when we look to the sky for a very good reason!

I was doing my weather observation one night when I noticed what looked like faint smudges of light in the sky. At first I thought I was seeing things but, to my wonder, they began to grow and become brighter. I stared in amazement at seeing my first ever aurora! Once I was sure of what I was seeing, I radioed out “I’m not sure how long they’re going to last, but there are some auroras out here.” I was almost immediately joined by half a dozen other Polies excited for the first auroras of the season. I couldn’t stop looking at the sky, occasionally jumping up and down because I couldn’t contain my excitement.

Over the next few days we were rewarded with more and more breathtaking displays. While I’ve seen some of the absolutely amazing pictures that people were able to take my own attempts have been somewhat underwhelming. Though, I’ve got some time to work the kinks out so I’m not worried, and, until then, I’ll just enjoy the show.

Aurora season brings a bit extra excitement for me because, as the Aurora tech, roughly half of my job is maintaining and monitoring the different aurora experiments on station. Once it got dark enough, each of the different PIs reached out asking me to turn on their cameras and start sending their data north. One of the cameras has a highly sensitive photo multiplier which can get burned out very easily if it is exposed to too much light (it has to be turned off when the moon is out and full because it’s too bright!). This also means that we have to cover all of the windows on the station and only use red lights outside. There is a long tradition of painting the large pieces of cardboard we use to cover the windows; I was pretty happy with how my contribution turned out!

One of the biggest events here at the South Pole is the sunset and we celebrated the whole weekend with a bunch of activities. We kicked things off with a sunset cocktail themed community hour (co-hosted by yours truly). Afterwards we all gathered together to watch Behind the Curve, a documentary about the ever-growing flat Earth community, which was a little bit surreal considering that we’re at the South Pole and the sun was about to set (two things that are not really possible if you believe in a flat Earth).

The next day our galley staff once again outdid themselves putting together an absolutely delicious Sunset Dinner for all of us. Normally for big celebration dinners we cover the windows but for this one we decided to leave them open to enjoy the last bits of light we would be getting. Once we were all thoroughly stuffed, we rolled ourselves down the hall to the big gym where we had set up over a dozen mattresses for a slumber party which was to include face masks, nail painting, a showing of Mean Girls, and other traditional slumber party activities.

I was able to get a few more pictures of the sun before it set as it was getting closer and closer to the horizon. One of my favorites was when it was passing by one of the telescopes and I was able to catch it right behind the dish.

Unfortunately, on the day of the actual sunset, the visibility was low and we weren’t able to fully see it (silly blowing snow!). I did my best though!

However, the weeks following the sunset were amazing! The sky cleared up and we were able to see all the way to the horizon. There was a least a week of gorgeous colors and skies. And a weird thing happens where, after the sun sets, its light continues to reflect and refract off of the clouds and atmosphere and it’s almost like you can still see it.

I don’t know that I will miss the sun (5 months of constant sunlight can get a bit oppressive) but I will definitely miss the weeks of sunset skies.

P.S. South Pole Triple Crown Update

Miles: 180 (20% complete)

Weights: 425,880 lbs (31% complete)

Beer Cans: 270 (48% complete)

One of my favorite things about the South Pole is the opportunity to volunteer for all kinds of things that I would otherwise never get to do. Probably one of the more unique of those things is getting to fuel airplanes!

Photo courtesy of Josh Veitch-Michaelis

Early on in the summer season a few of us were recruited to help out with the various fueling tasks around the station. This was partly to help out the fuels foreman who, for most of the summer, was on his own, and partly to prepare us for the winter when he would be long gone. In the beginning he walked us through everything we needed to know but before we had the handle of it and by the end of the summer he had put me in charge of the flight deck!

Each day that a plane was coming in, my fellow fuelies and I would go out to the pump house to recirculate the fuel and get a sample to take back to the lab for testing. I learned how to do the tests to ensure that our fuel met the standards necessary for the planes. Most of the time the samples passed but a few times we had to switch fuel tanks because the sample from one of them failed!

Photo courtesy of Josh Veitch-Michaelis

Then, thirty minutes before the plane was scheduled to arrive, we would go out to the fuels barn to wait and watch for its arrival. After the plane had landed and made its way to the fuel pit, one of us would drag the hose and grounding cable out to the flight attendant while the other would wait in the pump house for the signal to start fueling.

Photo courtesy of Martin Wolf

There were several not-too-complicated hand signals that we used to communicate between the plane and the pump house since it’s very noisy inside and there was no way you could hear anyone.

Photo courtesy of Martin Wolf

Once the plane was done fueling, one of us would drag the hose back to the fuel tank while the other recorded how much fuel the plane had taken (there was a meter in the pump house but we also climbed on top of the tanks to get a dip measurement as well).

Photo courtesy of Marin Wolf

What followed was usually a good bit of waiting (in the warmed fuels barn) while cargo finished loading and unloading the plane and outbound passengers boarded. We made sure to wait until the pilots had started the engines, taxied, and taken off before heading back to station, just in case anything went wrong and they needed help (thankfully all the flights during the season went off without a hitch!).

Photo courtesy of Martin Wolf

Now that the station has closed, the fuel pit has been packed up and taken to the end of world where it will live for the winter. The next time it will be used will be when the first flight comes through at the beginning of next summer. I’m already a little anxious about it; hopefully I will still remember everything when the time comes in seven months! Getting to be a fuelie has been one of the highlights of my time here; it was fun and challenging and something I would truly never get to do anywhere else.

Photo courtesy of Martin Wolf

P.S. South Pole Triple Crown Update

Miles: 52.2 (5% complete)

Weights: 112,300 lbs (8% complete)

Beer Cans: 105 (18% complete)

Photo Courtesy of Jeffrey Keller

And so it has come to pass that the final members of the summer crew climbed aboard the last Basler heading north and left behind a crew of 39 to run the station for the winter. While the previous flights coming and going had garnered little attention (any passengers in and out were greeted or farewelled inside the station and the only ones on the flight deck were those handling fuels and cargo), a crowd gathered on the observation deck and at the flag line to send off this last flight. Now, no one will come to or leave the station for roughly 8 to 9 months.

As is tradition (one I’ve been super excited about since hearing about it), to celebrate the last flight leaving and our becoming the most isolated people on the planet (and maybe the galaxy?) we all gathered in the theater gym to marathon all three versions of The Thing. I had never seen any of them (on purpose once I knew that I would be watching them at the South Pole) and enjoyed something about each one (especially the ‘space carrot’!).

We only have a month or so before sunset but there are so many things to get done before it gets dark. Here’s to hoping it warms up just a little bit (so that the vehicles can run) for a few days.

Or a string of vignettes.

The last month has certainly been a crazy one here at the bottom of the world. After all the holiday festivities wrapped up it was crunch time to finish all the summer projects before station close. Perhaps the largest one we completed (taking over 50-man hours) was digging up equipment for an old science project that needed to be retrograded (where we send projects back home to their loving PIs when the experiment is over). We had a bunch of people volunteer to help with the undertaking and we couldn’t have done it without them! Over the course of three days, we drove out about 3 miles from the station to areas marked only by fading flags to dig up over twenty antennas of various shapes and sizes and their control boxes. It’s hard to believe that before coming here, I had never shoveled, much less dug holes in, the snow!

Photo courtesy of Martin Wolf

Speaking of snow, it buries everything, and things that used to be tall eventually are… not. This is definitely the case for the SuperDARN antennas just (grid) east of the station. So, until it’s possible to extend them back up to reasonable height, we needed to make sure that no one accidentally walks into them. This involved making a perimeter of roughly 200 flags spaced about 8 feet apart around all of the antennas. I suppose this would’ve been possible by just measuring the distance but four years of marching band in college (UNC Marching Tar Heels woo!) gave me the ability to take very precisely and consistently sized steps, four of which measure just about 8 feet. So, what did I do but spend an afternoon marching around placing flags (though marching 8 to 5 is a lot harder in the snow!) Who knew that marching band would have such practical applications?

Photo courtesy of Sheryl Seagraves

But my job isn’t all science and playing in the snow. In order to stay sharp and prepared for an emergency, we have continued having fire brigade trainings. Sometimes these consist of station walk throughs so that we are aware of fire extinguisher locations or simply how the rooms we don’t frequent are laid out and what their dangers might be. And sometimes we play dodgeball. In full bunker gear. On air.

Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Chen

Of course, I wasn’t just busy with work. After all, all work and no play would be pretty dull. My evenings were filled with dungeons and dragons, tv show nights, and board game nights (Saboteur has become a favorite down here). The weekends brought extra fun and I even had the honor of being the official science advisor for the Third First Annual South Pole Head Weighing Contest!

Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Chen

Also, for those of you unaware, cribbage is evidently the card game of choice on the continent. We’ve already had one tournament here at Pole and I think they’ve had one at McMurdo as well. With plenty of people excited about playing and teaching, it wasn’t long before I joined in and now play almost daily.

And now for the sad part. As busy and fun as the last month has been, station closing also means that the summer crew is leaving. I’ve had such a great time hanging out with and getting to know everyone here, many of which will stay on for the winter. One of the notable exceptions is actually someone that I knew from college, Dr. John Hardin. As fate would have it, John wintered over last season as one of the grantees supporting IceCube and stayed on over the summer to help the new grantees with their turnover. It had been years since we’d seen each other but so amazing that somehow life had brought us to the same place. He, along with the rest of the summer crew, will be greatly missed.

Photo courtesy of Martin Wolf

Photo courtesy of Martin Wolf

It was a balmy -18°F Sunday morning as I walked to the ceremonial south pole marker which was to serve as the start (and finish) line for the annual South Pole marathon and half marathon. The course was made up of a 6.55-mile loop around the station and outbuildings to be completed twice for the half marathon and four times for the full marathon. Halfway along the course, the fuels barn was set up with food and drinks to give the runners (and walkers) a place to refuel, warm up, and hang out before continuing with their race.

Photo courtesy of Martin Wolf

I had never run a marathon or half marathon before, let alone in the cold, walking on snow, at a physiological elevation of over 10,000 ft, so I had no idea how far I’d actually be able to go. I decided to just walk as far as I could and see where that got me (I knew if I tried to run I would be too tired to make it very far at all). 4 hours 22 minutes and 3 seconds later I ended up coming in first in the women’s half marathon! I pretty much collapsed right after finishing, I don’t know how those that finished the full marathon did it (one guy even ended up running 90 kilometers!!).

Photo courtesy of Martin Wolf

And my prize for coming in first? 5 extra minutes of shower time to be used between now and when I leave next summer. I’m thinking I will save it for some time in the middle of the winter when I might need a little pick-me-up. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to a few (or several) lazy Sundays before I do that much exercise again.

Photo courtesy of Martin Wolf

5 miles away from the station, down a 30ft ladder into a vault in the snow is the South Pole Remote Earth Sciences and Seismological Observatory (SPRESSO). There are a few different projects that use the vault due to its remote location but the main one is one of the seismic stations for the Global Seismographic Network which monitors earthquakes around the world.

Most of the time the site operates without anyone having to go out there; all of the data and computers can be accessed remotely which means I can check to make sure everything is ok from the comfort of my desk. But sometimes things go wrong, or equipment stops working, or we just need to check how squished the vault is getting by the snow and we have to drive out to the site (going 7mph – tracked snow machines are not known for being speedy).

Since it was our first trip of the season, the resident safety engineer came with us (to check the oxygen levels) and well as the firefighter captain (to rescue the rescue tripod that was left at the bottom of the vault). We were lucky that the vault hatch had not been buried since last year (a state that would unfortunately not hold true for the other 6 vaults I would have to enter). After the safety checks were done, I headed down to take some deformation measurements and take care of some of the equipment.

A few days later we went back out to check the six vaults that are used to measure the expansion of the power and information cables leading out to the vault. A few of these were buried under 2 to 3 feet of snow. Thankfully, there were quite a few people who volunteered to help with the digging. There aren’t a lot of opportunities to drive so far from the station and it’s pretty cool to have an unimpeded view of the Antarctic plateau.

Unlike the main vault, which is more like a buried building, the expansion vaults consist of four plywood walls and often a ladder of just 2x4s leading roughly 12 ft to 15 ft down into the snow.  At the bottom there are reference markers that are used to measure how much the cables have moved since the vaults were installed a decade ago.

If all goes well, I won’t be needing to make another trip out to SPRESSO until next year when I turn over my position to the next Aurora tech RA. While digging up the vaults and climbing up and down (what felt like a million) ladders was exhausting, it was definitely fun and something I would never get to do anywhere else!

I suppose that most people’s first white Christmas is not at the South Pole, after all, there are easier ways to be somewhere snowy in December. Nevertheless, here I am, seeing snow on Christmas for the first time while at the bottom of the world.

The holidays were a very busy time here at the South Pole. The festivities kicked off with a gym-turned-movie-theater showing of the Nightmare Before Christmas on December 23. This was another first for me as I had somehow avoided seeing it my whole life, though I surprisingly knew many of the songs. I suppose a decade of Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween and Very Merry Christmas parties will have that effect.

On Christmas Eve we had an open mic concert where the many talented people on station read poetry, told stories, sang songs, and played instruments; there was even a seven-piece ukulele orchestra! It even got a little scary (mostly hilarious) when Krampus and Santa Claus appeared during an acted-out poetry reading.

Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Chen

Christmas day brought brunch mimosas and intracontinental caroling. Fueled by mulled wine we, along with carolers from McMurdo and the WAIS (Western Antarctic Ice Shelf) divide field camp, sang carols to each other across the continent. I can’t recall ever having gone caroling before but sending out songs over radio waves and hearing others call back doing the same was a pretty magical experience.

Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Chen

What followed was more gym-turned-movie-theater showings of holiday classics such as Die Hard and Lethal Weapon. The movies finished just in time for me to run to my room and change out of my pajamas into something festive (complete with Christmas lights!) for Christmas dinner. The galley once again outdid themselves, treating us to steak and lobster and an entire waterfall table full of delicious Christmas treats.

Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Chen

The festivities didn’t end on Christmas though. On the day after Christmas, I participated in the annual Race Around the World with several other onesie clad polies (I was a unicorn!). Starting at the ceremonial South Pole we raced about two miles around the geographical south pole and the station while being cheered on by those dancing along to music on the ‘party barge’. It was a lot of fun and definitely some good practice for the South Pole marathon coming up in a few weeks’ time.

Photo courtesy of Geoffrey Chen

After the race I came inside and curled up with a cup of tea and my Christmas coloring book for some relaxing before our Secret Santa gift exchange. We evidently had a record number of participants and the presents varied from bottles of wine to hand crocheted gloves and hats to a boxed whiskey glass set (made from the bottoms of wine and beer bottles).

And with that I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The last two weeks have been a whirlwind. My days have been filled with work and hanging out with my fellow Polies.

First, work!

There are six experiments that I maintain (though three of them won’t get turned on until March or April when it starts getting darker). The ones that are running have daily checks that I perform to make sure everything is going smoothly. In addition to those, I also help the meteorologist observe the weather and launch weather balloons. For each observation, I climb up to the roof to get a 360 view around the station. I can see for miles and miles and miles and miles….

When there are no planes on their way, we perform four weather observations a day. But when there are planes on their way, we make hourly observations and sometimes even more if the weather is changing quickly. Plane days are very busy days.

Now, since I’m a professional weather observer and all, I feel I should give a weather report! The temperature has been between -10 and -25 Fahrenheit with a windchill around -40 Fahrenheit. It’s probably 50/50 cloudy and sunny with only a few completely overcast days. The sun never sets, it just circles around the sky (it makes me want to make a 24-hour sundial). It never really snows, I think it’s actually too cold for snowflakes to properly form. We do, however, get ice crystals which are tiny bits of ice that fly through the air and make it sparkle!

Second, people!

After everyone finished getting here and settled in, it was time for Thanksgiving (only about a week late)! Since the population was relatively small (about 80 people) everyone was able to eat at one seating instead of the normal two. Everyone helped to setup and decorate the galley to make it special for our Thanksgiving meal.

Our galley staff really outdid themselves! There was turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, rolls, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, four kinds of pies (which I didn’t try because I was so full from dinner!), and more!

After dinner everyone chipped in again to undecorate the galley and then partied the night away at the Gobbly Wobbly Dance Party!

To thank the galley staff for their incredible Thanksgiving work, the next Saturday everyone on station pitched in to cook. The facilities department made breakfast, science and IT put together lunch, and cargo and supply finished up with dinner. (I was so busy that I forgot to take any pictures!) It was really fun being behind the counter for a change but also made me appreciate even more everything that our amazing galley staff does for us every day!

And just like that my flight is next. After 26 days (out of a scheduled 11) in McMurdo and watching three planes of Polies fly south, this morning it was finally time for me to haul my bags up the hill to be weighed.

For all that it has felt like it was dragging on at points, and that it seemed like we’d never be able to leave, I have enjoyed my time in McMurdo. I have gotten to know the Polies with whom I will be spending the next year as well as some of Townies who I’m sure I will be excited to catch up with when I pass back through McMurdo in a year’s time. I’ve gone on some breathtaking hikes and had such unique, amazing experiences (including a snowmobile ride to the base of a volcano, post coming soon!).

And then I remember, this has only been the beginning. Tomorrow I might fly to the South Pole or my flight might get delayed another week. Either way it’s all a part of the adventure!

I will leave you with these two little guys, who showed up just in time to wish me off.