1/4/2010 Day 15: Back to the real life!

The C-17 that will bring us back to New Zealand landed at around 4am, which means we had to pack and be ready for boarding since 1am waiting for the plane at a cold terminal building near the ice runway. Although all of us looked very tired, we (at least, I) were very happy to be back to civilization. It's been quite an experience - hard work both at the Pole and field camp.Well, from now on, system maintenance and data analysis will await all the team members after we get back to the States.
 

 

 

The C-17 cabin en route to Christchurch, New Zealand where the exhausted passengers laid on the cabin floor. Some soldier even prepared sleeping bags for more comfortable sleep.

1/3/2010 Day 14: Returning to McMurdo Station

We are returning to McMurdo Station after we are all done with our mission at the Pole. I stopped by the System 4 station briefly before departure. It was so cloudy that there was no distinction between the sky and the ground - where is the horizon?

Our plane, LC-130, that will bring us back to McMurdo Station took off as scheduled - yay!!!

1/2/2010 Day 13: Finishing up the work

Today is the last official work day at the Pole. We finished up our work and prepared our retrograde cargo back to the US.We placed a Virginia Tech banner at the post of our equipment to celebrate our successful mission accomplishment. Hopefully, it will stay there until we come back next year.

 Me at the equipment site with the Virginia Tech banner

 

The new South Pole marker for 2011

 

 Me in front of the South Pole

1/1/2010 Day 12: Pole marker moving ceremony

Every new year's day at the Pole, pole marker moving ceremony is held as the Antarctic ice sheet moves in a certain direction at a certain speed. As a result, the pole marker is moved from one location to another location, which is 10 meters apart, to compensate the location of the geographic south pole. This is how fast Antarctica moves per year!

  

 After the ceremony, we got back to work to finish the System 4 Station. We are getting there!!

12/31/2010 Day 11: New Year's Eve

The South Pole crews gathered around the Pole to celebrate the new year 2011 right after midnight on Jan. 1. I usually celebrated New year's eve watching fireworks in the dark but the Sun here never goes down this time of year...

12/30/2010 Day 10: Going back to South Pole Station

The weather seemed to be ok when we woke up. This morning, we got an update from the Pole that our pilot would try to pick us up again. It was a good news but with a little disturbing news as well that if he missed the chance to come for us due to weather (it was ok here but they said the weather at the Pole wasn't very good) or whatever reason, we would have to wait here until Jan. 3rd because 12/31 and 1/1 are the New Year's holidays and 1/2 is Sunday. I really didn't want to stay here in the cold with only the two others in the middle of nowhere having nothing to do!! This was more or less a psychological challenge for me (probably for the others as well) but I noticed that we tried not to (or couldn't) show our feelings by not mentioning what the radio-ops just told us. We were just silent and trying to do what we were supposed to do for our pullout - taking down our tents, moving our camping gears to the cargo line, grooming the runway, etc.

 

First of all, for today's pullout attempt, we had to shovel our items that were covered by snow drift that happened overnight. 

 

 

We were surprised to find the pit where we retrieved our instrument almost disappeared due to snow drift.

The view of our camp site. It became very sunny and less windy (taken at 10:30am). 

 

The pilots left red trash bags filled with snow to mark the runway for their return when they left us here. This morning, we walked around trying to groom the runway (with shovels) for smoother landing. 

 

 We had a little bit extra time before the scheduled pullout time and heard from the ops that our pilots might not make it today, which disturbed us. Our mountaineer, Julian, was trying to entertain us by encouraging us to do some activity such as snow sculpture, which we didn't do.

 

At around 3pm, our plane finally showed up in the sky. It was a very exciting moment! We are going back home (the Pole, actually)!

 

Me in front of the Twin Otter before taking off. 

  

 Me with "Mustach-cicle"

 

 

Photo shoot with the pilots, our saviour.

 

 Me and Joseph in the cabin on the way back to the Pole. What a day!

12/29/2010 Day 9: Return Flight Weather Delayed.

In the morning, we had a great news, which turned into a bad news a couple of hours later. Our request for camp pull-out today that we made yesterday was approved and the Twin Otter was on its way to pick us up. However, the weather changed dramatically from sunny day to very cloudy, windy day within a couple of hours so the plane had to turn back to the South Pole meaning today's flight is canceled. We moved our camping gears to the cargo line and prepared for taking down our tents but re-setup our camping site, spending more than a couple of hours. We were very disappointed but it was one day earlier anyways and we might be able to leave tomorrow (hopefully).

The weather was good although it was a bit windy (picture taken 09:15 AM)

 It became pretty extreme about 4 hours later. (picture taken 01:40 PM)

Being in the sleeping bag inside the cold tent is somewhat claustrophobic, making yourself zipped in the bag pretty tightly and putting a balaclava and sleep shade on your face while sleeping.