Flight to the South Pole

We arrived at the South Pole a couple of days ago. The day started a bit ominously. The winds were fairly high and clouds pretty low in McMurdo. Everything was going smoothly, we boarded the Herc and strapped in. They turned the engine on. And then they told us to deboard the plane as soon as the engines stopped.

Once off the plane, we watched about 10 Air National Guard people inspect the engine with the rumor being that they say some ice fly in or out. We went back to the galley to wait for more of an update. After about half an hour, they told us we were delayed 3 hours. The clouds got lower, some snow fell. And the Air National Guard were having some conversations on the phone that did not sound good. We opened computers and pulled out cards games, getting ready for a long stay and trip back to McMurdo.

And then after about 30 more minutes we were told to go the bathroom and get ready to board. Within 20 minutes, we were back out boarding the Herc. And we were off.

The weather was cloudy for the first hour of the flight, but as soon as we reached the Transantarctic Mountains, the clouds cleared and the views were spectacular. Mountains peaks poking out of massive glaciers. Huge crevasse fields and arcing moraines. Since I primarily work in the flat, white interior of the ice sheets – where it’s good to drill ice cores – I’m always fascinated by the more active areas where the signs of flowing ice are all around.

We landed a South Pole and hopped off the plane only a few hundred feet from the station entrance. But that walk is more exhausting than you’d think because you’ve just flown from sea level to 9300 ft, which feels more like 11,000 since there is less atmosphere at the poles. We are currently acclimatizing to the altitude as the field season has officially begun.

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