Even in summer, Antarctica is breathtakingly dry. Friends that have gone to the Pole* describe it as "ten times drier than McMurdo", which is a little hard to grasp - while the winter has gotten drier than it was over the summer, it's always really dry. Weird things happen. I understand the purpose of body... Continue Reading →
Letters: Winter has started
Winter here has started and it's finally actually gotten cold. It's 1°F today with -14 °F windchill, which has been par the past few days. It's snowing very lightly but sideways. This is also normal. It doesn't feel super cold though. I dress a lot more warmly than home (long johns, all the time), but... Continue Reading →
First Winter Snowstorm
Despite the fact that the final flight was moved from February 23rd to (very late) on February 22nd, and despite the fact we were told "weather is coming" several times, the weather only finally cooperated a couple days ago, dumping several inches of snow on us at once. Being that it's so dry, most of... Continue Reading →
My Antarctican Autumn
It snuck up on me sometime over the last couple of weeks: the sun went from overhead with not much variation to a change in color across the sky. It's sort of a relief, mostly - I've always had a really good sense of what time it was (in the same way that some people... Continue Reading →
Kelly Days
By contract, we work a minimum 54-hour week. Fire department schedule is 24 on, 24 off. For example, my schedule over two weeks would look like:Mon-Wed-Fri-Sun (which comes out to 96 hours) Tu-Th-Sat (for a total of 72) We are lucky enough this year to be near-fully staffed, and so we get a Kelly Day... Continue Reading →
Letters: One week in
Backdated post with excerpts from a letter to a friend back home. Con 2 page Antarctica is good. It's a lot of people, some of who have a huge amount of experience, coming from all different places. There's a handful of medics, so it's not just me (which is nice); our captain that runs our... Continue Reading →
Book and Ladder 