Its an abstract thing to stand at the bottom of the world. In our daily lives, opportunities to see the curvature of the Earth are rare, so the thought of being at the very bottom of the globe can seem unrealistic… like a dream. So the opportunity to stand there, feet on the ice at 90 degrees South latitude had a surreal sense about it as I took in the view. In every direction I looked, nothing but North. Looking beyond the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station, I felt like I could see New Zealand and my friends in Australia on the other side of the horizon. The other direction, the USA and my friends and family there. A quick run around the Pole gave me the opportunity to share a timezone with them all… Without breaking a sweat, or the bank. But then again, there was no way I was going to break a sweat at -40 degrees.
This is my third season in Antarctica. In the 30 months that have passed since September 2015, I’ve spent 22 of them here. I’ve been to terra firma on the continent in the Dry Valleys and Marble Point, I’ve watched stars shine and the Southern Lights dance in the dark of winter, and I’ve slept in a tent for 7 weeks as one of 30ish souls in an area bigger than Texas. The Flat White, deep into the West Antarctic. But on the other side of the TransAntarctic Range is another Flat White. The East. By my non-technical estimation staring across my room at the map on my wall, the East Antarctic is nearly ¾ of the continent, with the South Pole lying “near” the boundary. So with this season presenting the chance to go to Pole to help “open” the station for the summer season, I was tickled. Throw in a second trip in February to “close” it back down and it was just… Ice-ing on the cake.
The South Pole station sits at 9300ft in elevation, almost entirely made up of ice on top of the continent far below. Due to its location and climate though, it almost always feels like we’re a thousand feet higher. Hypoxia is real here, and arriving on the flight from McMurdo generally sees everyone feeling a little winded for the first couple days. The weather on a good day this time of year is clear, blue, bright and -40F ambient. Add a little wind, and the windchill factor quickly drops it to -60F or below. Winter is a whole different ballgame, with temps dropping well below those held in the summer “warm” months.
So what does it mean to be a Fuelie at the South Pole? First it means you split your time between a massive arch under the ice housing the fuel tanks for the station, and the flight deck bringing in fuel from the C-130 aircraft that arrive at all hours of the day and night. Lets start there… Its a lot of fun to work a flight deck in Antarctica. The buzz of activity as people arrive and leave, cargo getting loaded and unloaded, and the fuel transfers can be a little addictive. Throughout the season, we’ll see Twin Otters and Baslers, ferrying science groups and support staff around the central part of the continent. At the beginning and end of the summer season, these aircraft swing through in order to fuel up on their way across the continent, as their flight path to McMurdo and other stations includes arriving to the Ice via South America. Most of our flights though are C-130s coming from McMurdo (a 3hr flight away), and normally they deliver us at least some fuel. In recent years, the dependency of flights to fuel station has decreased due to the South Pole Overland Traverse (SPOT) dragging fuel from McMurdo, but we still take a sizeable amount from the aircraft. They still fly here anyway, so why waste the opportunity? We offload fuel from the flight deck to the Arch, a storage facility under the surface always sitting at a chill (and calm) -48F. Inside the Arch is 45 steel tanks, each holding nearly 10,000 gallons of diesel. From there, the fuel is used to power and warm the station, the outbuildings, the South Pole Telescope and IceCube, and all the equipment it takes to keep this science machine running.
So what science happens here? The big programs are the South Pole Telescope, and IceCube. I am not going to pretend to understand all the astrophysics involved in either, but its safe to say that they both search to gain better understanding what is “out there” and where it all came from. The telescope is a massive dish set several hundred yards from station, in the “Dark Sector”. IceCube looks for neutrinos via an impressive array of sensors that occupy a cubic kilometer drilled in to the ice. Outside of those two, there are several atmospheric and climate monitoring programs (in the “Clean Air Sector”), glaciology, and others. I wish I had more free time to get a better handle on the science, but unfortunately there’s never enough time in the day… Despite the sun never setting.
Outside of work, the community here is pretty awesome. Being much smaller than McMurdo, it feels more like a field camp… But with a hard-sided station instead of dozens of tents. Most of our “off-time” is spent in the station, besides the obligatory stops at the ceremonial and geographic South Poles. We all hang out in the couple of lounges or in the quiet reading room, or shelter away after a long day’s work in our rooms. The galley food is pretty good, especially when freshies arrive on an incoming flight. Each weeknight generally has some activity going on, whether its basketball in the gym, or scary movie nights in one of the lounges. Of particular fun are the open mic nights, since somehow this continent brings some very talented musicians.
So yeah, its a pretty cool (and frozen) place.
Yeti Ramblings 
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