Crary.

Once upon a time in Antarctica...

...I did a 10k! Go me!

And then I walked. Haha.

Came in third from last (granted, there weren't many people that did it). Whatever, I am not in good running shape and my asthma did not like the cold weather and mile-long hill! But, I did a 10k in Antarctica and that is more than a lot of people can say! :)

I also went on a tour of the Crary Science Building, where all of the scientists on station do their science-y things. :) It was incredibly interesting, and we only scratched the surface of the science that takes place down here.

This is the skull of a Weddell seal. See how his teeth are pretty sharp? Weddell seals make holes in the sea ice to get in and out, and they keep these holes open the entire year. The seals use their teeth to prevent their ice holes from freezing over during the cold winters. Over time, their teeth get really worn down, which you can tell from the next picture. (I thought it was interesting).

We happened to come across some scientists doing work on Mt. Erebus on our tour, so we stopped to talk to them. Mt. Erebus hasn't had a large eruption (with lava flow outside of the Erebus crater) since the mid-80s, but they said it's probably going to have another big eruption within the next 1,000 years. Eek. Hopefully it won't be an Antarctic Pompeii. :) I did get to hold a pumice rock from the crater, which was very interesting. The rock was a decent size, but it was as light as styrofoam!

Pumice Rock

(The entire time the Erebus guy was talking, I kept thinking about Dr. Evil's secret volcanic lair with liquid hot mag-ma. I was trying really hard not to laugh)

We also got to talk to someone from the University of Wisconsin team that sets up automatic weather stations across the continent. These stations don't do much, if any, forecasting, but they look back at weather data over the course of a season. They have about 60 stations on the continent!

Bearded Man with a Weather Station :)

Last, but not least, we got to see a bunch of fossils. Scientists have used this fossil of the fern leaves to support the idea that Antarctica used to be further north and had a climate that sustained plant growth.

Oh, and here is me with a stuffed penguin :)

 Peace, Love & Science-y Things. :)

2012.

Happy New Year!

Antarctica was one of the first continents to ring in 2012! Every year, there is a celebration/concert down here called Icestock, along with a chili cookoff. I hung out at Icestock for a few hours, but I ended up going inside to sleep because I ate too much chili and my stomach was not happy. :) It was fun while I was there though, and the bands were great.

Yesterday afternoon I went out to the New Zealand base, called Scott Base. There are only about 30 people there, so it is significantly smaller than McMurdo.

Scott Base sits right along the ice, and there are beautiful pressure ridges that form alongside the base. There is a great description of how these ridges are formed at this blog. Tours go out to the ridges during the first half of the season, but they've stopped doing them since the sea ice is rapidly breaking up. But, the ridges are still beautiful from afar. I even saw an Emperor Penguin off in the distance! The landscape is so dramatic over by Scott Base, with Mt. Erebus (an active volcano) towering overhead. I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

Peace, love & Ice.

Dude, We're Here.

I've been sitting here staring at the screen for the past 10 minutes, not knowing where to start! The past 48 hours have been so new and so exciting -- I'm not sure how to verbalize everything that's happened because it's been such a whirlwind.

Our original C-17 flight from Christchurch to McMurdo was delayed 24 hours because of fog on the ice runway. The flight that had gone out the night before us ended up boomeranging -- aka, got all the way to the station, circled around, and then decided conditions weren't safe to land and flew all the way back to Christchurch. After our flight got delayed, I was really worried that the same thing would happen to us, since this whole fog issue seemed to be going on for days. I heard about a smaller C-130 that was flying out about 8 hours before the C-17 was, and decided I was going to try to weasel my way onto that flight so that I could get there sooner! (C-130's land in pretty much any condition). So Phillip the firefighter, my travel buddy, and I hauled all our stuff out to the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) in the hopes of getting onto the flight. Even if we didn't make it on, we figured we'd just go ahead and get our gear issued so that we wouldn't have to do it later.

Once we got there, we were told that there was a slim chance we'd get on, simply because of weight. But about halfway through my gear issue, someone poked their head in and said, "Alright, you're leaving in 40 minutes!" So, we threw on our ECW (extreme cold weather) gear and boarded! It was really interesting flying in a military plane -- it's not quite as cushy as a commerical flight, what with the noise-reducing earplugs you have to wear and the cargo nets you have to sit on. But, I did get to go up into the cockpit which was pretty awesome.

Once we landed, a shuttle took us into town, which is about a 40-minute drive. About halfway there, we pulled over because there were 2 Adelie penguins right next to the road! They were SO CUTE. And absolutely hilarious. Emperor penguins are majestic, but they just kind of stand there. Adelies are wild and crazy and run around and have a ton of personality. They were awesome.

So now I'm settling into my surroundings, trying to get acquainted with the environment and the station! This post is getting long, so I'll be heading out, but check back for updates!

Peace, love & penguins!!