I made it to Antarctica

This post is a bit premature as I don't have photos yet to include to show a lot of the stuff I am talking about, but I understand there may be some people that would just like a little information.

So I flew down to Antarctica on Wednesday morning. We had to be at the base at 6 am and then got in all our gear and loaded the C-17. The flight was about five and a half hours, there were about 70 people flying down and a lot of gear plus all of our luggage. The landing was relatively smooth on an ice runway a couple miles from McMurdo. We then loaded up our gear on these large vehicles and road into the base. It was about -18 degrees F when we landed. I'll try to get some pictures of all that, I didn't take any at the time, but some other people did.

I'm sharing a room with one of my coworkers. The building I am housed in is essentially a large dorm building. I can't complain. The water never gets very warm, but apparently other buildings in the complex have hot water. The base is functioning 24/7, but I don't feel bad for the night workers because it's just as sunny then as during the day.

The weather has been pretty mild by Antarctic standards, I actually find it a lot more bearable than I had anticipated. It is always sunny out, but the sun is low in the sky. It is generally cooler during the nighttime hours, but the weather has been sub zero for the whole time. However, the ice on the roads has started to melt, as the volcanic gravel is pretty dark, and so it heats up above freezing. From my understanding it is a bit early in the season to see that. By mid-January the weather should be around freezing.

McMurdo is an interesting base, as it is quite large by Antarctic standards with nearly 1200 people at capacity. It handles most of the logistics for the other American bases as well as the support of the nearby Kiwi base. All the "polies" (those traveling to the South Pole) must pass through McMurdo as well as the people traveling to various camps throughout Antarctica. It's quite an interesting mix of people here as well. We have our own fire station, post office and waste water treatment plant. There are people who drive bulldozers around all day, shuttle drivers, military personnel for all the flights, cargo handlers, dishwashers, biologists, physicists, climatologists, mechanics, janitors, administrators...

The food has been dissappointing for the most part. All the milk is powdered which affects a lot of the dishes they make. The majority of the food is brought in in January or February, and then stored here over the winter. Fresh vegetables are flown in about once a week from my understanding. At the balloon base we have our own chef, who somehow manages to get salad every day and makes some really amazing dishes every day. He's managed to set a pretty high bar for himself. Just today he made sun dried tomato, olives, and Sicilian pepper pizza on dough he made, in addition to a shrimp, garlic, and pesto sauce made from scratch pizza, and more traditional sausage and pepperoni pizza. We also had a yellow split pea soup with ham and some sort of raspberry cake for desert.

All in all I think Antarctica is a beautiful and amazing place. I don't know that any photo could capture the stunning landscape. I definitely wish more people were able to experience it.

This weekend, I hope to go to on a tour of some nearby ice caves as well as a hut from Scott's expedition, so hopefully I'll get some photos of that to share. I have to go to snow school on Tuesday and Wednesday, which will involve me camping outside overnight which should be interesting. I'll try to get a photo of me with a lot of my gear on as I figure there are those that might want to see that sort of thing.

This photo was taken at the LDB(Long Duration Ballooning I think) facility. In the background is Mt. Erebus, an active volcano. I don't know how far away it is, but it's about 12,700 feet tall. Standing in the photo is my roommate. The black building in the middle of the photo is one of the toilets at the balloon base. It consists of a wooden bench with a styrofoam toilet seat. There is a pit below which contains formations known as poopsicles. It comes equipped with a flag to warn others you are making use of the facilities. Other toilets at the base come have urinals that occasionally freeze up.