12/22/2010 Day 2 at the Pole: Preparing to Work on Our Project at the Pole

I am actually writing this blog after coming back from the South Pole on Jan. 3 because we were very busy with our project and the internet access is generally very limited at the Pole. I will try to cover our daily activity from now on.

The NSF Science Representative, Vladmir Papitashivili, our point of contact for science support, Nick, and my team visited a candidate location for our first system ("System 3") to see if the place would be good for the system's operation. This site is about 1.5 miles away from South Pole Station.

As this location is too far away (?) from where we stay (well, walking on the snow in the cold and at a high altitude is not very easy), we decided to use snowmobile, which required us to take a training for its operation. The training took about 30 min, giving me an idea that starting the engine is much harder than driving it...

 We used a sled to transport our cargo (including us!!) to the site.

The South Pole Station dining hall is quite nice - delicious foods and friendly people - especially characterized by such an extraordinary direct view to the South Pole through the windows.

This is one of my favorite things to see in Antarctica - a pattern on the snow made by the wind. If you click on the image, you can see more detailed patterns, which are quite artistic.