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Howdy All! I just got back into McMurdo this afternoon, on the heels of what we politely refer to as a "katabatic wind event" down here (after three days of 40-50 knot winds, we had enough of a break today to get a helo in, load it up with about a ton of camp gear, climb aboard, and get the...

Howdy All! Tomorrow at 0800 local, I'm off to the field for the season! All our gear has been staged down to Helo Ops (all 5,000 lbs or so of it), and is ready to load into the waiting helo fleet. I'm anxious, and exciting, and tired (it's been a long week preparing the gear), and a little...

I've been home-brewing mead for about four years now with excellent results. Recently, I've moved into beer brewing because it has a much shorter life-cycle (about a month to brew a solid batch of ale, versus a year or more for mature mead). On the mead front, I do traditional ("show") mead...

It's been a busy day in the sky above McMurdo. The clear, crisp air must make for fine flying, as helos (helicopters) are buzzing about left and right, and the ice run-way is in constant motion with LC-130 cargo planes coming and going. Here's a link to an image of an LC-130 "Hercules"...

Howdy All-- Pictures today! The first is proof that yours truly is in fact on the ice. It's a photo of me sitting on more than 300 man-days of packed food (at least the dried component--the frozen foods we pull on Monday) in the Berg Field Center--the staging area for all field equipment here...

Happy Birthday (observed) KB! I blame time zones. Time zones...and a slowing down of the speed of light due to cold...

Sorry about the lack of arrival photos--I've had some trouble connecting to the network here and have been up to my ears in work and briefings (on the agenda for this morning: "Waste Management at -20*" and "Comms--How Not to Sound Like a Trucker on the Radio." In the interim, he's a shot of...

Howdy All! Greetings from the Ice! Indeed, we've had some beautiful weather here the past two days--cold, clear, and slightly breezy (my nose was the very first part of me to remember what it's like here--chilly!). Unless there's a Poley (South Pole Station personnel) somewhere on these boards I...

Hi All-- Sorry for the hiatus, but life has been very busy in the lead up to the field season. I'm leaving the USA tomorrow for Christchurch, New Zealand, which is the jumping off point for the Ross Ice Sheet (McMurdo Station) side of Antarctica. With some luck, all the flights will connect and...

Basically, to stay warm on the ice, you need calories, fat, and some protien for muscle growth and repair (digging sample pits and wrassling ice cores is hard work!). Although sugar will keep you going in a pinch (early explorers kept themselves going with cocaine tablets for long forced...

Aye--Tang. Developed by NASA, prefered by janitors (turns out it works about as well as Comet on persistant stains). It does a pretty good job of holding off scurvey, too, which is less of a problem these days (particularly with fortified foodstuffs).

guedo79 -- Most science staff fly commercial flights from their home cities to Christchurch, NZ. The US Air National Guard (of NY) and the NZ air force handle flights down to the ice--either in C-130 cargo planes (a solid 8 hour trip, crammed in knee-to-knee with your compatriots and surrounded...

McMurdo is the main US base on the continent and is a funny cross between mining town (all the heavy support equipment moves through it) and college town (most of the science staff on the continent has lab space there, and field parties move through Mac-town. Add on to that dorm living and...