2012 South Pole 300 Club

Posted on April 8, 2012 by SouthPoleLibrarian

Nothing like running amok buck ass naked on the polar plateau to start the winter season

At most work places you play baseball, have picnics, or perhaps volunteers for Habitat for Humanity to build camaraderie with your co-workers. Here at the South Pole we wait until it’s 100 below zero and take off all our clothes then run around the South Pole marker.

There are some rules to this running amok:

The most important rules are: Be safe, be safe, be safe and be courteous.

Then you do the following:

Wait till the galley scroll shows a 100 below, or until the awesome folks in the Meteorology department announce that it is officially 100 below.
Choose the few pieces of clothing acceptable for the 300 Club: hats, gloves, gaiter, boots. Some folks wear nothing but boots. Others folks wear hats, gloves, and boots. It’s all preference.
Take off all your clothes and sit in the sauna until it reaches 200 degrees.
Exit the sauna, go down a flight of stairs in the beercan, go out the door onto the polar plateau, and walk to the South Pole marker. Here you can take photos, enjoy the view (not of each other- that’s skeevy and rude), and then get back inside before you cool off too much.

VOILA! You are officially a member of the South Pole 300 Club!

Now you too can have breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next 8 months with all your co-workers -who saw you darting across the frozen tundra with all your naughty bits frosting over.

This year was a little different from my first 300 Club. My first 300 Club was with a very small crew of folks, it was pitch dark, and we agreed on one cameraman who we implicitly trusted. This year the sun is officially down, but it is still light outside. Light enough to see every one’s naughty bits. I am not shy- in fact, when I was a kid you would have to throw me on my back to get shoes on me. I like the entire spectrum of naked- in the right context. I wasn’t too keen on this year’s context. The crowd was epic and there was a lot of camera action happening, so I was going to wait and hope it got cold enough to do it later in the season. (Translation: when it was dark and not so many people had their cameras going)

This is how bright it was the day before the 300 Club. You can CLEARLY see me.

Two hours after the first 300 Club run I was sitting in the galley and my buddy walked up and said:

“Are you ready”

“For what?”

“The 300 Club. Just us.”

“Okey dokey.”

I am such a follower.

Off we went to do the 300 Club -just the two of us. It was awesome. We left the sauna and strolled to the pole like we were on a garden tour: admiring the moon, admiring the last remnants of the sunset, and having this delicious, quiet, cold moment all to ourselves. After circling the pole we high fived, hugged, and then headed back into the station for a board game and tea.

Quite possibly the most gracious South Pole 300 Club ever.

p.s. No other photos will be forthcoming. If you need a visual- just imagine a daintier Michelin Tire Man trotting across the tundra. That would be me:)

Michelin Polie!

Do You Have a Flaaaaag?

Posted on March 11, 2012 by SouthPoleLibrarian

This week we flagged the berms. First, we lied to a bunch of people who work inside and told them it would be fun. Then we took them far, far away from the elevated station and made them drill holes into the snow, and then stick a flag into it. We did not tell them they would have to do this literally hundreds of times, or that they would have to listen to me endlessly quoting Eddie Izzard.

“We stole countries with the cunning use of flags. Just sail around the world and stick a flag in. “I claim India for Britain!” They’re going “You can’t claim us, we live here! Five hundred million of us!” “Do you have a flag …? “What? We don’t need a flag, this is our home, you bastards” “No flag, No Country, You can’t have one! Those are the rules… that I just made up!…”

Joselyn on Mad Max pulling the sled with all the flags, drills, and extra batteries (which were dying in rapid time from the cold)

Taking over the berms through the cunning use of flags! (and snowmobiles, and drills, and hand warmers)

Each crew had their own rythym. Some took turns drilling while one person drove the snowmobile ahead. Sven the Outrageous Swede didn’t even get off of the snowmobile. He just drove along and leaned over drilling holes and then pulled forward so Carlos could drop a flag.

I boosted morale with my constant Eddie Izzard quotes. It really helped – even though Robert kept saying, “Who is Eddie Izzard?”

I know! My drill is super impressive!

Sven was freaking us out with his off-kilter mouth hole. Thankfully, his drilling technique was remarkeable.

Lynnette, Robert, and Joselyn

I may have forgot to mention- the berms are shelves of snow we use for storage. Once the sun sets and the snow starts to drift -it will be impossible to see where the berm ends and the ground begins. So, we flag each side of the berm so the heavy equipment operators won’t drive into,onto, or through a berm. Each berm is a couple hundred feet long and about 4 feet high.

Last Chance to Get Out of Dodge

Posted on February 28, 2012 by SouthPoleLibrarian

: Waving good-bye to the summer people!

The last flight out of the pole left three weeks ago. I have been a little busy getting the DNF (do not freeze) materials in from the outer buildings, changing rooms, rifling through all the stuff left in skua, and playing jump rope with Christmas lights to get this posted.

Needless to say to go from this….

South Pole Anniversary Photo 2012

…to 50 people on station has been an adjustment. From now until next November there is just us, no planes, no mail, no new anything. If it wasn’t on station before last flight, then we will do without it till next fall.

Just this morning a buddy and I were wishing we had one of those liquid shaker things with a blender ball in it so we could mix our dried milk. Funny, I always thought those were stupid. Honestly, how hard its it to use a spoon? Now, it is one of those items that most people could just pop into a store and buy and we just get to remember how stupid we once thought they were- while desperately wanting one.

Last Flight- get on now or suck it up till November!

Taking the last fuel and loading the last cargo for the season.

Lynnette- It's all fun and games till I can't open my eyes.

...and that is the last ride out of the Pole.

Fire School

Posted on December 24, 2011 by SouthPoleLibrarian

Way back in August, I attended fire school at Rocky Mountain Fire Academy and trauma training with the Wilderness Medicine Institute. Part of wintering over at the South Pole is being a volunteer for the Emergency Response Team (ERT). The folks who winter over at the South Pole give up a lot in order to live this experience: not being able to leave the station (or the continent) between February and November, not receiving any snail mail, and no WATSU sessions followed by a sea salt scrub. And they take on many responsibilities that would not be in an ordinary job description. Such as, the safety tasking for the entire station, and all the inhabitants. There is a station doctor and physician assistant here at all times, but all emergency responses are the responsibility of volunteers. Ultimately, we will need to depend on ourselves, and each other for our safety.

In an effort of full disclosure, I hate fire. Oh I know, no one exactly likes fire- unless you’re an arsonist, but I am a highly functioning fire avoider. I do random things like unplug the toaster at night just in case it ‘remembers’ and burns the kitchen down. I actually had a fire alarm above my dogs bed- just in case. I also am not content with self-contained breathing devices. I was a certified scuba diver and was never to keen about the mouthpiece. I could see myself being someone who might want to take it out against my better judgment, so the whole SCBA (fire mask) is no a favorite of mine either.

My Uncle Larry was a firefighter. He retired as a Fire Chief. I have always adored him for being so amazing and calm. He is just the kind of guy you want around when bad things are happening quickly. The trainers who taught us at the Rocky Mountain Fire Academy reminded me a lot of my Uncle Larry. The training was laid back, but intense. The training was so focused that by the time I was standing in a building while a huge fire was burning next to me it felt ok. Not great. Not normal, but ok, and I had no urge to tug off my SCBA or unplug anything.

The fire training was modified for the South Pole. We don’t have a large amount of water. That is a bit of an understatement, we don’t really have water. Not enough to drag fire hoses, or even to take a shower every day. In fact, water is so precious that we are allowed two-two minute showers a week. You read that right: two showers a week that last two minutes each, so four minutes of showering a week. Our fire training consisted mostly of fire extinguishers and rescue situations. Which is good, because we have a ton of fire extinguishers and about a million places where people could get into trouble and need pulled out of

The trauma training was super fun too. Not to be all infomercial like here, but the Wilderness Medicine Institute training is awesome. The instructors were informative, approachable, and funny. We would do a few hours of classroom training and then immediately do a scenario and practice the skills we just learned. I have been to so many work trainings where some monotonous bore would read right from the power point slide and then give seizures with the obnoxious use of a red laser pointer, that an actual educational workshop stands out.

This One Time at Happy Camper

Posted on December 16, 2011 by SouthPoleLibrarian

Welcome to Happy Camper!

Generally, I am happiest camping when there is good beer, a few rowdy dogs, a roaring fire, and a gaggle of good friends along. So, when the company I work for made it mandatory for everyone to attend a two day snow craft school and they called it “Happy Camper”. I figured I would hate it because it has nothing that makes camping enjoyable. And usually when mandatory training contains the word “Happy”- it is anything but.

Fortunately, I was wrong.

Come to find out that there are four things you should do continuously when cold weather camping:

eat (fats or sugars)
drink
move
if you get damp or cold- change clothes

Are you kidding! I could medal in devouring fats and sugars, drinking copious amounts of cocoa, and wandering around- even when I am not cold.

Happy Camping school started with a morning of classroom training. We covered how to light the temperamental little stove (which was just a Mazol Tov cocktail with a stove burner), the basics of risk management and camp protocol, and how to avoid cold injuries. (See the four awesome things to do above) Then we loaded all our gear up into Piston Bullies and drove about a mile away from the station. It was a cloudy day, so we couldn’t see the berms, or the station which made it feel like we were far, far away.

Mouse and the dodgy little stove

Unloading from the Pisten Bullies

Our first task was to build a snow wall. It seemed pretty easy. Dig a trench to work from, saw little blocks, tug them out with a shovel, stack them on top of each other and Voila! A snow wall. We had some talented craftsmen on our team- carpenters, fire fighters, plumbers, and electricians and yet, our snow wall looked like a a gaggle of drunk toddlers built it.

Corey, the Happy Camper guru, said at one point, “Ok finish one more row and then lets to call it good. Don’t worry if you are someone who has to finish things- we just need to move onto other things now.” I think it was his nice way of stopping the snow carnage, since we obviously were getting no better at snow wall building.

The Basics of Snow Wall Building. Basically, we are bad at it.

Sawing Snow Blocks

We were masters at melting snow and setting up tents though. Then we had the option of building a snow trench to sleep in. Think of a snow trench as a little snow grave topped with blocks of snow. I chose the tent option, but helped with the igloo building. Which took the same skills as snow wall building. Thankfully the igloo looked smashing and two folks actually slept in it.

Matt and Pete Discussing the Nuances of Trench Digging

After all the snow shenanigans we made dinner. I am totally on board with the ‘cooking’ part of snow camping. You shovel snow into a pot, melt it, then pour it into bags of dehydrated food. Easy peasy, except the Beef Stroganoff smelled exactly like my dog, Gunny’s, geriatric dog food, so I passed on that. There was a bag of Mushroom Pilaf that was really delicious, but, for some reason, no matter how much I ate the bag never emptied. It was a dreadful magic trick that ended with me not liking mushroom pilaf very much.

Jesse Lighting the Stoves

A Shovel Full of Snow Makes the Dehydrated Food Go Down

The restroom was a pee flag and a bucket behind a snow wall. Another Happy Camper Class built that snow wall before we got to camp. Each and every trip required that I remove my coats, my vest, my gloves, my neck gaiter, my hat and drop my Carharrts. Using the bathroom basically was an adventure in going commando on the polar plateau, behind a snow wall, with the temps at 35 to 40 below. This activity did not jibe with me maintaining a happy camper attitude.

A Snow Block for the Igloo

Igloo in the Making

Except for the trips to the loo, the only time I was incredibly cold was in the tent trying to fall asleep. Most of me was comfortably warm (feet, legs arms), but my hip was freezing where it touched the sleep pads on the ground. I know people throw the word around “freezing”, but I am not kidding. My hip was so cold I thought it was on fire. I tucked mittens, an extra fleece, a sleeping bag liner under me. I changed all my long johns, took off , and then put back on my Carharrts. I drank a Nalgene full of warm water, I ate a candy bar, and then tried to eat a frozen peanut butter sandwich that turned out to be way more frozen than I expected. All this commotion made me have to go to the bathroom. By this point my friend, Mouse, probably felt like he was sleepingin a tent with an over-active hamster, because I was scritching about and making so much noise. At some point I fell asleep only to wake up sweating. Obviously, I have some work to do on my cold weather sleeping skills.

Tent Town

Mouse and Lynnette

In the morning we played some white out scenarios. Since it was a beautiful clear morning the “white out” was created by placing a bucket over our heads and wandering around on the end of a rope ‘searching’ for our lost comrade. It was suppose to be serious and a learning experience, and our team discussed in great detail what we would do if our friend was missing. It seems that our first inclination was to rifle through all their things and wait for the storm to die down. Which, come to find out, is a perfectly acceptable option.

WHOA! I have a bucket on my head!

Buckets and a line of rope! Good Times!

After staggering around with mop buckets on our heads, we broke down camp by filling in all the trenches and pushing over the igloo. When we were done, except for a few intact snow blocks, it looked like we had never existed at this place in Antarctica.

Happy 100th Anniversary to Roald Amundsen

Posted on December 14, 2011 by SouthPoleLibrarian

Amundsen and his darling squinty dogs at the Pole

100 years ago today the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen and his party were the first to reach the South Pole. The irony is he had his heart set on the North Pole, but Robert Peary got to the North Pole first in April of 1910. So, Amundsen cast about and decided to be the first to the South Pole. In doing so Amundsen dashed the hopes of Sir Robert Scott. Who arrived at the South Pole 33 days later on January 17th. Sir Scott’s party all died on the return trip to the coast. Adventurers were hard core then.

I think Amundsen would freak completely out out if he could see the South Pole today. There is an elevated station with a galley (and ice cream), a gift shop, a full size basketball court, a computer lab with internet, a sauna, an arts and crafts room, a weight room, an elevator, and oddly enough- at the bottom of the beer can -which is a metal casing that protects the outside stairs- Amundsen’s head is lolling around.

: Amundsens Ice Head in the beer can

Actually it is an insulated ice mold of Amundsen’s head that is propped up with a few rolls of black duct tape and a cargo strap, but it lolled around the other day when we used the elevator and the vibrations made it fall over. Perhaps almost 200 people eating ice cream and buying shot glasses in the gift shop wouldn’t perturb Amundsen, but his disembodied ice head lolling around definitely would.

McMurdo: Observation Tube

Posted on December 13, 2011 by SouthPoleLibrarian

While commuting to the South Pole I was able to spend some quality time at McMurdo. McMurdo is the largest American science base in Antarctica, and there seems to be some solidly held opinions about it. Some say McMurdo is far superior due the entertainment offerings, the unlimited showers, the wide variety of people and amount of people (over 1,000 people in the summer), and the fact they have wildlife -seals, penguins, skua’s (big, naughty food stealing birds that make pigeons look feeble).

Others say that McMurdo is technically not even on the continent of Antarctica, since it sits on the Ross Island surrounded by the Ross Ice shelf and Ross Sea, so all the other arguments are moot. All I know is they have an out of this world Halloween party and the Observation Tube. One of which the South Pole does not have.

Before you can visit the Observation Tube you are required to attend the Outdoor Safety Lecture. Here is where you learn how to recognize what the color of the flag lines mean, how to traverse over transition ice (where the ocean ice meets the land), who has the key to the OB Tube lock, and some other very important things that I missed because I was trying to quietly open a bag of Whoppers I found in my backpack. So, I knew where to get the key and which flag line to follow. I was, however, out of Whoppers (candy is rationed to only two bars a day at the McMurdo store, but that’s another story).

The Observation Tube is a metal tube just big enough to clamber down that is shoved down into the sea ice. At the bottom of the tube sits a small observation area- roughly the size of a two cat litter boxes. You can turn around in the observation area, but only if you take a deep breath first. The “ladder” down the Ob Tube is metal and slick. It’s not so much a ladder as bent horseshoes jutting out of the wall. At the bottom of the tube the metal stairs give way to an unsecured rope ladder that swings and bangs against the sides.

The ladder looking down and up. It was wicked far both ways.

After you gracefully dismount the rope ladder ( I preferred to drop like a sack of sand and untangle myself at the bottom) there are windows in every direction that look out under the ice.

"OH LOOK! KRILL!"

Before I went to the Ob Tube, there were amazing tales of seals, and octopus(i) –is there a plural for octopus?- and colorful fish. I saw millions upon millions of krill. I kept saying to myself, “OH LOOK! Krill!” and then giggling. There also was a good view of the ice ladder next to the Ob Tube. The sounds in the tube were lovely and serene. Kind of like what a depravation chamber may sound like, or a really good pair of noise cancelling headphones on an airplane.

On the walk out from base to the Ob Tube we crossed transition ice and followed a flag line, so the Outdoor Safety Course came in handy. In the photo on the left the person in the distance is my friend Zondra, and the warming hut and Ob Tube is ahead of her.

Walk to the Ob Tube

It was a lovely experience marred only by me thinking at one point,

“Wow! You are in a metal tube just big enough to shimmy through and you are twelve feet under a few feet of sea ice in Antarctica! This is amazing! A government contractor built this. OMG! I am going to die. GET OUT!”

Some days my mind is a bad neighborhood that I shouldn’t be in alone.

South Pole Librarian

A Year at the Bottom of the World