and so far I have acclimatized well and haven't done much else. I have
taken many pictures are the ceremonial South Pole and a few at the
geographic South Pole (its ugly). Hopefully I will be able to upload
them tonight when we get satellite coverage and can have internet
(from 3-11am).
Also today we took a tour of the new South Pole station. Our tour
guide was the current station manager who was also the lead engineer
in designing the new building. We started inside the station which if
you are able to see some of the pictures at
reminds me a little bit of the movie DOOM. The entire time I was
waiting for a giant tomato looking thing to shoot fireballs at me just
so I could blow it up with a big plasma gun twice my size.
After that we went outside and looked at the old station which part of
they are refurbishing into a new garage and food storage. After that
we went into the dome part which you often see pictures of. It pretty
much only used as storage but because it is buried by about 25 feet of
snow they are likely going to take it apart.
Finally we then got a special tour of the sewage tunnels… exciting
huh? They stretch for over a kilometer and are dug through the ice. At
the start of the tunnel you are about 25ft below the surface… which
was the surface about 30 years ago. At the end of the tunnel you are
about 50 feet below the surface. The temperature inside the tunnel
according to the one thermometer there was -62 degrees Fahrenheit. The
guy giving us the tour said that he suspects the thermometer is broken
and the temp is closer to -70. If you look at the pictures you will
see that my nose hairs froze, my eyes started to freeze ☺ and I had
icicles on my eyelashes. My balaclava froze and the fur around my coat
also froze. To say that I was cold today is an understatement.
Tomorrow morning a bunch of us (including me) will head up to AGAP
South camp to start working. First we will have to acclimatize since
camp is at 11,600ft and the pressure altitude is just over 14,000ft.
We will spend 48 hours acclimatizing not including the day of arrival
and then it will be full go! By this time I will likely only be able
to work for roughly 2 weeks assuming there are no other delays.
Off to bed. There is a good chance this will be the last time I am
able to write on here. We will have a few modems out there but they
are super slow and I may not have the time.
Till the second week in January… Adios my people
No comments:
Post a Comment