Happy South Pole Anniversary, Robert F Scott...

South Pole, January 2008"The Pole. Yes, but under very different circumstances from those expected ... Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority." - from the journal of R.F. Scott

On January 17th, 1912, Robert F. Scott, Edgar Evans, Lawrence Oates, Henry Bowers, and Dr Edward Wilson stood at the Geographical South Pole.

They were staring, disappointed, at the flag and tent left behind by Norwegians Roald Amundsen, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, Oscar Wisting, and Olaf Bjaaland - who had arrived at the pole one month earlier. 

One month later (February 17, 1912) Scott's team would all be dead - their last miserable days spent starving and frostbitten, lying in a tent only 11 miles from One-Ton camp - ostensibly their salvation had they made it there.

If you want to read about their journey, you should.

I recommend Apsley Cherry-Garrards' "Worst Journey in the World". It took me four years to read it. I began it in October of 2008, and put it down several weeks later, finding it dry and un-exciting (but still possessing a useful historical summary of Antarctic exploration during the late 19th century and early into the 20th century). I picked it back up again this past October, when I found I could get it for free on my Amazon Kindle. I polished it off in a Herculean effort in the Churchill and Holyoake Ranges this past season: When I wasn't up on a ridge of Cambrian limestone looking for trilobite with Lars Holmer the members of the Swedish Polar Research Secretariat "Hot fossils in a cold land" expedition, I was safely ensconced in a -40° down bag in my Scott Tent, soaking up Cherry-Garrards horrific narrative as fast as I could tap the "next page" button.

The first time I stood at the South Pole was January of 2009. I arrived there in an LC-130 in three and a half hours from McMurdo Station. It was -35°C and the hairs in my nose were frozen within minutes of stepping out of the airplane. We stood at the ceremonial pole for 10 or 15 minutes, taking photos of each other, and of the south pole station, lurking 100m away to... our... North?... 

The new South Pole Stationthe Geographic "true" South Pole marker, with the old dome in the background.

I hardly thought about Scott, Amundsen, or Cherry-Garrard's book that was gathering dust back in my dorm room in McMurdo. I just snapped photos of the pole marker, the stilt-supported station, the decomissioned dome, and lots of hulking yellow heavy equipment pushing snow and cargo around. The steady, loud whine of four turbine engines on a revved up LC-130 was always there in the background to remind me that I only had 30 minutes to take some photos, run up the "Beer Can" enclosed starewell into the station, and buy a T-shirt, bottle of booze, and/or postcard before slowly sprinting (The South Pole is nearly 3000 meters above sea level, so no one sprints that fast) down the stairs and back to the waiting airplane for my three and a half hour return flight to McMurdo.

Inside the new station. En route over the Beardmore in an LC-130

Our flying route took us down the Beardmore Glacier, the same route used by Ernest Shackleton and his polar party on the Nimrod Expedition of 1907-1909, as well as by R.F. Scott on his ill-fated southern journey in 1911/1912.

Cherry-Garrard described the frightening difficulties of traveling up (and down) the Beardmore glacier with sledges and ancient equipment. My bird's eye view of their route impressed me but certainly did not make me ever wish to attempt a similar feat - especially without todays luxurious equipment and navigational aids like GPS.

Cherry-Gerrard was part of the first "return party" of the Terra Nova expedition. He and three others turned back - per Scott's orders - from the top of the Beardmore Glacier, near Buckley Island. Buckley Island is not far from the Dominion Range, where I spent a couple of days searching for Precambrian basement rocks with Dr John Googe et al - when we were based at the CTAM camp in 2010/2011.

My second trip to the South Pole was only days after the visit to the Dominion Range and I was of course accompanied by Dr John Goodge, Dr Jeff Vervoort, Dr Mark Fanning, Tanya Dreyer, and CTAM camp guru Bija Sass. We actually visited the pole twice that day. The first visit was 20 minutes long (long enough to put 600lbs of jet fuel in a Ken Borek Twin Otter). We spent the day searching for samples near Mt. Howe (the southernmost piece of exposed bed rock in the world). The late John Rees was our pilot, and he returned us to the South Pole in early evening - with just a bit of reserve in the gas tank. We were all tired, so we ate dinner in the South Pole cafeteria. I remember having pasta with shrimp with a side of broccoli and cauliflower, washed town with a tall glass of pulpy orange juice. I was wearing a T-shirt. The windows in the  galley offered a good view of the Ceremonial pole (the one surrounded with flags) and the true geographical pole a hundred meter behind. The outside temperature was between -35°C and -40°C. I imagine neither Scott nor Amundsen dined as well as we did when they were each sitting in the same spot. Amundsen probably ate fresh dog. When I finished my dinner, I filled a bowl with three scoops of real ice cream. I washed it down with a cup of hot cocoa, before wandering back outside to the South Pole marker with Bija to get a "hero shot". If you don't know what that is then you'll just have to go down there to find out. When I finally got my boots laced back up and my jacket re-zipped, Bija and I stumbled back to our waiting Twin Otter to join the rest of the crew for a two-hour flight back to CTAM. Our flight route took us past the Dominion Range, Buckley Island, and of course a low pass of the Beardmore Glacier. Isn't it spectacular?

 The Beardmore from a CTAM-bound Twin Otter. We are looking north, down-glacier, past places that Apsley Cherry-Garrard described as places where each team got lost.

The South Pole station is run by the United States Antarctic Program, and exists to serve and support scientific research. The primary research projects happening at the South Pole are related to atmospheric science (the air is clean and more similar to pre-industrial revolution air than anywhere else in the world), Geomagnetic field research, and astronomy ( in particular - researching Cosmic Microwave background radiation - left over radiation from the Big Bang). Without a doubt, the most impressive, famous, and expensive science effort at the pole is IceCube. IceCube is a gigantic neutrino detector - encompassing a cubic kilometer of polar ice. It is capturing and studying neutrinos released from the galaxy's more catastrophic events (supernovas, collisions, etc...).

View of the station a tourist sees before they are refused access.
Given that the South Pole is an objective to be reached by all of those who follow in Amundsen and Scott's footsteps, tourists frequently arrive at the station by foot or by Twin Otter. ALE (Antarctic Logistics and Expeditions) runs trips to Vinson and the South Pole and elsewhere every year. I imagine this year - the hundredth anniversary - is exceedingly busy. I have mixed feelings about the location of the South Pole Station. Anyone who chooses to arrive at the South Pole outside of the "realm of science" is greeted harshly by the USAP - as in an unwelcome guest. I imagine the stark, austere landscape that Amundsen and Scott each beheld, and now when you stand in that exact same place you are surrounded by semi-permanent buildings, red and green flags, and big yellow vehicles with loud reverse beepers. The location chosen by the USAP is bviously a political. Atmospheric science, geophysics, astronomy, and other forms of research could just as easily be done 15km away - just over the horizon. But alas, the big station, with its' airfield, vehicles, and endless strips of "retro gear" (another term for "trash too expensive to remove right now) will be on the south pole for quite some time: drifting to the north at about 20 feet per year.

 Self portrait - with John Goodge and company in the background.

Pole position - impromptu

Yours truly reflecting on life at the South Pole. 

Last Friday afternoon Nick and I hit a work-related lull. Ship-offload was going on. Most of town was occupied with getting cargo containers off and then back on the vessel that has been sitting docked to the ice pier for a few days now. Science "support" is virtually over for the season, so most of our tasks involve winding down our program now, and prepping it for an efficient start when the next batch of FSTP suckers arrive in late August to set up for next summer's season. 

Kevin, our supervisor, walked in the door and asked one of us to volunteer to get on a plane on saturday. For me, this meant volunteering to leave Antarctica early and fly back to New Zealand - something for which I would be reluctant to do so suddenly, given the world economy and the fact that my stuff is strewn all over town. But Kevin meant that a lottery position had opened up for a "sleigh ride" spot on a LC-130 flight down to the south pole yesterday. It was up for grabs, and Nick and I had to fight for it. Thankfully, it was the first game of Rock-Paper-Scissors I have won all season, so on saturday morning I was sitting at MCM MCC (McMurdo Movement Control Center - a dusty square of linoleum next to the town shuttles office) with seven other "lottery winners" for  a quick morale trip to the pole and back. Quick is an understatement. I spent 25 minutes on the ground at the South Pole. Long enough to run out of the plane, as it dumped Jet-A into Pole's fuel supply system. During this time of year, between two and five flights daily happen between MCM and the pole. Mainly to deliver fuel - at great expense. I can't remember the details exactly, so don't quote me on this, but for every gallon of fuel delivered to Pole, it takes about four or so gallons of fuel burned to get it there in an LC-130. Yes, its an awful carbon footprint. I keep saying Pole needs a nice little modern nuclear reactor and everyone keeps shooting me down. 

During our 25 minutes of ground time, the props never stopped spinning. The pilot and crew sat in the cockpit monitoring gauges and wore oxygen masks, as the elevation of 9000 feet gives way to a "pressure altitude" of 11,000' to 12'000' due to less atmospheric pressure at the earth's poles. 

Our group of eight ran over to the international south pole marker, the reflective orb, and shot a handful of photos. None of us got naked, though we all wanted to, now that nudity has been officially prohibited by the heavy-handed bureaucracy of the NSF. Lots of other things are verboten down here now as well. Read all about it here (and notice how kiwis call it "jelly-wrestling" instead of "jello-wrestling). 

Since I barely learned anything new about the pole that i didn't already know (which isn't much), I forgot that the geographic "true" south pole marker is a short jog away (the 9000' thick sheet of ice that the South Pole Station rests on moves several feet a year, so one marker keeps getting moved every season to the correct spot). A five minute jog to that, a few photos snapped, and we had barely enough time to walk back through the inside of the station. By this point anyone who had a beard had rime frozen to it already. The temperature was -35ºF - the coldest air I have felt since late October, and about 60 degrees colder than McMurdo!

We ran through the hallway of the elevated station (it is built on stilts so that it can be jacked up a few inches every year as more snow drifts in). Some folks saw old friends that they recognized, and others ran into the store to buy kitschy "South Pole Station" t-shirts and shot-glasses with penguins on them. Not sure a penguin has ever been here before...

The intercom announced that we had better get our asses outside and on the plane, so we ran one more stretch, huffed a bunch of thin air, and we re-boarded the aircraft, and took off a few minutes later. There you have it. Another unorthodox day in the office. The eight of us couldn't even socialize in the plane due to the extreme noise-level inside. We just napped, and occasionally took a peek outside the windows at the Trans-Antarctic Mountains, passing below our wings. 

PJ takes in a view of the Trans-Antarctics while another passenger naps.

Our LC-130 pilot - who flies for the New York Air National Guard points out the sights from the cockpit. The Beardmore glacier is the white expanse outside the window. 

The clock starts, and we rush out the plane for one of the earth's shortest and strangest "vacations". 

We were joined on this day by a Lemur. Paul, a helicopter pilot who works in McMurdo, wore his "birthday suit" to the pole. 

Tick Tock Tick Tock. Hustling thru the station hoping to not miss a flight. 

Everywhere you look is north... Every step you take is a different time zone...

On the bottom of the world.