Antarctica is the last unfucked-up place on Earth… at least according to the late Anothony Bordain. He visits McMurdo and the South Pole in one of his episodes of Parts Unknown (Season 9, Episode 5, if you’re interested — some of the filming in that episode are really neat, and I would recommend that episode, and that show in general, for a glimpse into the scenery around MacTown and Pole).
Somehow, though, I don’t quite know if we haven’t fucked up Antarctica yet. I guess the population density is just low enough that we haven’t made an impact. The Antarctic Treaty helps by imposing strict regulations on pollution and interaction with the environment, and I know that stations in Antarctica do really well at recycling, trash collection, water treatment, etc., but there is still this twinge of disappointment I get when I see the MacTown. I’m sure it’s much cleaner than any Podunk rural town in the US, but something about it’s industrial nature makes it seem dirty and less charming.
Even the Science-only vibe of AQ is a bit tarnished by the flocks of tourists that fly into Pole on a weekly basis. It makes me a bit nervous and reminds me of how Mt. Everest has been so crowded that people are waiting in a line to summit, like some kind of deadly amusement park attraction.
Still, with all my negative Nacy-ism, as I here writing this post I can look out the window of the Crary Library and see the edge of West Antarctica across the Ross Ice Shelf. It’s an unbelievably beautiful and pristine sight. Weddell seals are sprawled out, sunbathing on top of the ice. A large crack in the ice has provided an easy path for them to reach the surface. It’s amazing knowing that all of this ice will flow out to sea in less than two months, and that that process is a naturally occurring seasonal change… of course the amount of melting that occurs is a different story.
Flight Plans
As of right now, I am scheduled to leave for Pole at 8 am tomorrow morning (Jan 2nd). This means that we have a ‘bag drag’ scheduled for 7pm tonight. The bag drag is so named because you schlep your bags up to the cargo staging building, and all of your checked bags get palletized for the flight. Fortunately I just left my big heavy bags up there since I knew there wouldn’t be any flights in/out before mine because of the holiday.
Transport time is TBD, but I’d imagine is something like 1.5 hours before the flight (since it takes 1 hour to drive out to the air field). If weather at pole is looking good for tomorrow as well, then we may be in business and fly out on time! I sure will miss this warm weather, though. Even in the hot midst of the summer, its still only -15 F at Pole.
Update:
Flight time updated to 9am, with a 7:30am transport. That’s about as good as one could hope for. Enough time to make breakfast, but not too late.
I went for a walk after dinner since the weather was so nice. Very little wind, and some slight cloud coverage, temperature right around 32F. I even stopped to observe some seals sunbathing and got to hear them making their cool noises. If you’ve never seen the Werner Herzog film where he goes to Antarctica and records the sounds of the seals I highly recommend Googling that, it’s pretty unbelievable.
The Obs Hill trail looks like the surface of Mars or something, it’s made up of this dusty volcanic rock which changes from black, to red and even some hints of yellow.
Allen's South Pole Winter-Over 2020 (+) 