The South Pole and Ridge A

SOUTH POLE STATION (stepping stone to Ridge A)

 The day after Christmas I flew to the South Pole station, a 3 hour, 800 mile plane ride tom McMurdo Station. There I spent three weeks, staging gear for Ridge A, the field site that I was going to be the guide for.  Of course when I left McMurdo I thought I would spend about 3-4 days at Pole, but there were a number of logistical and weather delays, which meant I had to hurry up and wait at the south pole...for three weeks! I ended up finding ways to make myself useful and I enjoyed my time there getting to know some great people who keep their distance from McMurdo :) and Yes it is cold at the South Pole. It is very cold. 

The Pole!

The geographic South Pole marker installed January 1, 2014. 

South Pole Telescope!

   Walking underneath the station in the tunnels. It is really freaking cold down there!

The cargo for Ridge A being forked to the flight line.

The South Pole Station

RIDGE A (the coldest place on earth. for real)

My only solo field guide gig this season was to go out with an astronomy group to a site called Ridge A, which is located 13,400 feet on highest, driest and calmest place on the antarctic plateau.   Ridge A is 600 miles grid east of the south pole station, a 5-6 hour plane ride in a twin otter.  It was around -37 degrees Celsius on average and our only group shelter was an Arctic Oven tent to cook in as well as our own personal mountain tents for sleeping in.  It was a harsh place to get work done.  It was a harsh place to get coleman white gas stoves to work to melt water and cook bacon! We were there for 5 days and thankfully had good weather on day 5 to get us the hell out of there!

Read more about the ongoing Ridge A science project: http://soral.as.arizona.edu/heat/

This is what it looks like at Ridge A.

 

 Here are the guys out working on their telescope and instrument module. 

                             Apparently cooking cornbread at -37 and 14,000 ft takes a long time!!

Pad Thai guys?!

Melting snow for water, thawing bagels and bacon. 

Fixing stoves. All day. Every day!

 This is our Arctic Oven tent. Although it doesn't get windy very 

often at Ridge A, I was happy to have a shelter to cook in:) 

Team Ridge A shovelling drifts off the runway.

 My frozen mug.

Discovering frozen clumps of hair before getting into my sleeping bag .

 The guys enjoying some warm beverages and avoiding 

going back out to work in the freaking cold.

The facilities.

Nic, moments before getting on our plane to fly back to South Pole.

The completed telescope, moments before leaving.