South Pole

Here's a photo of the cockpit of the LC-130. There are four crew members up top and two people to handle the cargo in the back.














The flight only had 3 people going to the South Pole on it my coworker, myself, and a scientist who was just a day-tripper meaning he was catching a flight out later in the afternoon. There was also a technician onboard to help monitor the liquid helium dewars on the flight.















The mail bag. Even though it isn't the actual postal service delivering the mail, I'm still amazed you can mail something from Alaska and get it down to the South Pole for less than the cost of a candy bar.















Even though you can't tell from this photo, they leave the engines running while at the South Pole which means the propellers are spinning. An interesting thing about the C-130 is that the propellers spins at the same speed even when it's parked like this, they change the angle on the blades to adjust the thrust.















Another shot of the LC-130. It was a balmy -46 degrees F with windchill at a physiological altitude of 10,700 feet. I believe it was about 15 degrees warmer and a couple hundred feet lower in effective altitude when I arrived last year, but it seemed warmer and easier to breath this year.














I got lucky again and got a room inside the station. They have a summer camp outside, which isn't too bad except you have to suit up and walk a couple hundred yards to get to the station for your meals which means taking off your gear again. This year my room is on the outside of the hallway, so I have a window, but it is about 1/3 narrower than the rooms in the middle of the building.















Here's the view outside my window, which will be much the same 24 hours a day.