On Monday, I was invited to go to Happy Camper, which is an overnight camping trip where you learn winter survival skills (i.e. what to do in a white-out). Happy Camper was to be held Tuesday and Wednesday, so I would have missed 2 days of work. That was my legitimate reason for not wanting to go. My silly, girlish reasons were that I did not want to have to sleep in a dug-out snow cave and I did not want to have to pee in a bucket for 24 hours.
So, I did not go to Happy Camper. (Darn).
On Wednesday morning, I woke up abnormally early. I couldn't fall back asleep, so I decided to just move on with the day and grab breakfast. I ran into the gal who schedules "sleigh rides" to the Pole, and she mentioned that someone *might* be dropping from the flight, and that I *might* be able to go *if* said person *actually* dropped. But she told me to have my ECW gear on hand just in case.
At 7:20, about 25 minutes before passenger transport for the sleigh ride, I got a call telling me to GO GO GO. I made the flight! So I threw on my ECW gear, ran/hobbled up to the transport building, and was on my way!
So then I flew to Pole. Talk about being in the right place at the right time!
Our flight to Pole was 3 hours long on an LC-130, covering about 840 miles. The plane itself was delivering fuel to the Pole, and about 30 of us just went along for the ride!
Once we landed, we had 30 minutes on the ground. It was a whirlwind. Because there are actually two "poles" to go see: the Ceremonial Pole (mostly for photo opportunities) and the Geographical Pole (the actual Pole, which moves about 33 feet per year due to shifting ice). So we clicked away at one pole, hobbled over to the next pole, clicked away again, hobbled inside, used the bathroom, and then had to get right back on the plane! It was -30°, so quite frankly I was very excited to be on a nice warm plane again. My nose hairs had frozen and I seriously felt like I had wads of boogers hanging out. Gross, I know, but seriously. That's what it felt like.
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| Ceremonial Pole |
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| Geographical Pole: Every direction points north! |
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| Tebowing in every time zone. I only did this for you, Mike. |
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| Standing on 9,000 feet of ice! |
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| Pole marker. A new one is crafted every year. |
I also got to sit in the cockpit during take-off on the way back to McMurdo. It was an amazing experience!
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| How do they keep all these gauges straight?! |
Also, the discovery of the South Pole has a really interesting story to it. For the factual version, go to this website: http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/09/amundsen/alexander-text. For the comical/explicit version, go to this one: http://vimeo.com/35084075. :)
Peace, Love, & BottomOfTheWorld.
