Images of

ANTARCTICA

Return Flight

Photos © 2004 Seth White

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Including the two days when I was out of commission with the flu, the whole visit to Pole took 12 days...right on schedule. I left on 1/31 on an 11:00 flight, nice to sleep in after having a few beers the night before. There were only four passengers on the flight back to McMurdo this day - myself, John the station engineer, Jerry the NSF station manager, and another guy whose name I can't remember. Flying from Pole is a much different procedure than at McMurdo. The skiway is right next to the station, so it's obvious when your plane is here. You just stand around and wait for it to show up, then walk out to the passenger terminal (a tiny hut) when it lands. Or, you can listen to the intercom. There will be a series of announcements for each flight - including one that the plane has left McMurdo and it's ETA at Pole as well as one when it gets to "Pole 3", i.e. 30 minutes away. For passenger flights there is usually another call telling you that it's time to go. Your checked baggage must be at one of the designated pick-up points by 8:45 am on the day you depart. From there it's collected by the cargo people and palletized for the flight. So when the plane lands you walk out and hang around the passenger terminal area as they unload incoming cargo and load the outgoing, which takes about 30 minutes. During this time the pilots keep the LC-130 engines running. Then you get the signal to walk up and board the plane. In contrast, at McMurdo you have to 'bag drag' all your stuff to the MCC the day before your flight, where it (and you) are weighed. Then you go home, keeping one bag full of essential items in case your flight is delayed, and the check-in baggage goes off and won't be returned until a) you get to your destination or b) your flight is delayed more than 48 hours. Then, you go back to the MCC, wait around a bit, then you board either an airporter van or the Terrabus. You make your *painfully slow* way out to one of the airfields. Then, if fortune smiles on you, you will board your plane and be on your way.

Leaning up against the passenger terminal is this thing - a carnival-type cutout, ready-made to assist you in capturing that perfect South Pole Kodak Moment (SPKM). One of the guys on my flight (the one whose name I can't remember) actually had me take a picture of him with his head in this thing.

This is a short .avi file of the Herc sitting on the skiway. I am not sure why, but I stood there and just stared at the plane the whole time it was being unloaded and loaded. Somehow the whole process was captivating to me.

Shortly after we took off, I opened up the laptop and started typing up a new webpage for this site. For some reason I felt pretty nonchalant about the whole thing, you know, flying from South Pole to McMurdo as if I was an old hand at this or something. Then my sanity kicked back in and I realized that I might never be here again. I'd absolutely love to come back to Pole someday, but the way life goes you never know. So I put the computer down, picked up the camera, and strolled back to one of the rearward windows. This was about the time we were hitting the start of the Transantarctics, and this was the view from the mighty Hercules. The glacier below is the Beardmore (presumably).

Another one, with the wing tank.

I looked down to see there were a few oases beneath us - regions of Antarctica which, like the Dry Valleys, are not covered in ice. It would no doubt be very interesting to walk around in one of these areas.

More of the Beardmore. It looks like there must have been some smudges on the window which made parts of my pictures blurry, but I was too busy gawking at the sights to notice.

Looking down at the glacier, this is the sight - soft, graceful lines of ice and snow, virtually liquid in appearance.

Another one of the glacier. This picture would be perfect if it wasn't for the smudge in the middle. AGH.

A smaller glacier flowing into the Beardmore here. I would bet any of those crevasses on the lower right would have room inside for two or three Hercs.

Another rugged Antarctic scene.

This is a movie file (.avi) I took while looking out the window. It gives a better feel for the whole thing than single still pictures.

I went back and typed some more, but as we got closer to McMurdo I went back to the window...but took fewer pictures. It's all spectacular, but it just goes on and on, endlessly. If you can't communicate the beauty of this with 20 pictures (and you can't, really), then the 150th picture isn't going to be any better. This was one exception - a bowl formed by some mountains.

I felt the plane slow down and start to descend, so I figured I should head back to the seat. I was lingering around the passenger area for a minute when I noticed an ANG guy motioning to me. I thought he was trying to tell me to sit down for landing, so I took my seat. But then he came up to me and motioned for me to look out the other side of the plane. I heard him say "discovery", and when I went over to the port side, sure enough there it was: Mount Discovery. Since you can't see Erebus from McMurdo proper, this is definitely the most noticeable natural feature from station. But it's about 50 miles away and although I'm sure some people have been up here, I haven't met any. And here we were, about 1000' over the summit.

It was so close it seemed as though you could just jump out and take a stroll to the top. The soil here looked very dark, almost black.

Here's a view of the Royal Society Range after we passed Mt. Discovery.

Then it occurred to me - what are we doing flying over Mt. Discovery? It's not exactly on the flight path from Pole to Williams Field. We continued on northward, passing over Brown Peninsula. This is a view to the east, with Brown Peninsula below, White Island above, and the beginning of Black Island to the right.

Down on Brown Peninsula was this lunar landscape.

As we went north some more, Erebus came into view. I hadn't even been away from Ross Island for two weeks, and it somehow felt as though Erebus was welcoming me back. This is surely the world's most friendly and inviting volcano...

We flew north a little more and then did a turn over the open water, past the ice edge. Looking out I saw my first actual, legitimate floating iceberg. Last year all I saw were bergs trapped in the sea ice, which extended a long ways from McMurdo due to the gigantic iceberg B-15 blocking the inlet to McMurdo Sound. This year, that iceberg finally broke up and the sea ice has flowed out to the Ross Sea significantly more. As I write this from Arrival Heights (while waiting for one of the test on the UV system to finish), I can look out the window and see open water. And through the binoculars, the icebergs 30 miles away are still incredibly impressive. I didn't get any good pics of the open water, but this is one of Erebus with the ice channel in the foreground.

So we headed southward and landed at Williams Field. On the way off the plane I thanked the flight crew for the little detour over Mt. Discovery and the ice edge. They of course are under no obligation to do this, but for whatever reason the pilots decided some sightseeing would be nice. I agree.

While straggling along to the van waiting to take us to the station, I managed to get this picture of Erebus under the wing of the LC-130. It turned out pretty well. I was actually a little ambivalent about coming back to McMurdo to work for a couple weeks. On one hand, it would be nice to catch up with some of my winter-over friends from last year who were coming back for another winter. A few beers, a few games of pitch, and maybe some half-life would be most excellent, and I really looked forward to that. Working at Arrival Heights is also a definite plus, and the area itself is spectacular as usual. On the other hand, the bureaucracy and structure of rules that controls McMurdo life was not appealing. And the dust too - the winds pick up and blow the volcanic grit right in your face. Yes, that sucks, definitely. But I'm realizing that most importantly, there is a certain attitude that seems to pervade McMurdo - during the summer much more than during the winter. It's almost like there's a certain swagger prevelant among many of the people here, as if they are something special because they're in Antarctica. Well, so am I...big deal...get over it. It's hard to put my finger on, but it's something that many of my friends here have noticed too. And I have also heard the same thing from people at Pole. When I was at Pole, even being a complete newcomer, I didn't get that vibe from people at all. No doubt there are some poseurs at Pole who carry attitudes around with them - it's unavoidable in any sizeable group of people. But it's more obvious at McMurdo, especially among the summertime hordes of twentysomethings that invade each year (the old-timers and annual winter-overs don't seem to have this kind of air about them as much). It's a superficial, subtly condescending approach to social interaction that I see in comments I get from people, in the way people interact, in the conversations I overhear in the galley, and even in the way some people carry themselves. The closest thing I can relate it to is a fraternity/sorority atmosphere. I should say, though, that although I didn't see this hardly at all at Pole, there is another kind of attitude you get from Polies. This is when you mention the word "McMurdo". Invariably, some snide remark will come out, they will roll their eyes, or shrug their shoulders, or whatever. To a certain degree I can understand this, and in fact I like Pole better than McMurdo. But there is one key point that seems to elude some Polies' fields of view as they look down their noses towards McMurdo. It is this: if it wasn't for McMurdo Station, South Pole Station simply would not exist. Every molecule of food, fuel, construction materials, beer, and every other item necessary for life in the harshest, most desolate place on earth comes through McMurdo. I don't think many Polies realize just how utterly their existence depends on McMurdo Station. And there are a lot of people at McMurdo busting their asses to keep Pole running. Last Winfly, the crews were out for days during the coldest and windiest time of the year getting Pegasus field ready (grooming the runway, setting up the power supply and landing lights, navigational equipment, etc.) just in case the South Pole medevac flight couldn't return to Rothera and had to divert here. For this, they got a little pat on the back and then it was back to setting up the sea ice runway...which was ready on time, by the way.