December in a Nutshell

             This has been the month of nature at it's best. We are in full blown summer and the temp is warming up to 40 degrees. This means sunning on the laundry loading dock in shorts and a T-shirt with beers and food. Of course we're hiding it from the Skuas that are now circling McMurdo at all hours of the day, ravenous over the warmed food waste that is less of a frozen mess and more of a seeping pile of rot now.
              The animal encounters have become a day to day. With the ice thinning out and the penguins beginning their migration, it's easy to see seals and birds bobbing in the water and scattered across the ice. Even Crary Lab, where the scientists have their offices and labs, is sporting a full aquarium of giant Antarctic fish, octopus, and a touch tank filled with creatures from the bottom that resemble aliens. One is called a giant sea lice, because it's exactly what it is. Imagine a flea and a lobster producing something. The only problem with the touch tank is the water is kept around 20 degrees, so keeping your hands in it long enough to grab a starfish, sponge, or .... thingy, tends to be painfully cold.
              With the ice breaking, the seal studies are at an end as they are too dangerous to get to now. The scientists dropped off the seal bags that are used to house equipment, and sometimes to put over their heads to calm them down. I didn't think much of this until I opened the bags to wash them. The fur and smell that came out was impressive. After washing and drying, the laundry room was filled with the acrid aroma of seal. This can also be called cat pee/wet dog/fish oil. With the doors open to keep from puking I let the dryers run their cycle and enjoyed the cool breezed and sunshine streaming in.
               MAAG, held on Christmas Eve, was a success. I was featured in the "Men of McMurdo" slide show, posing in laundry bins and proving that sexual stereotypes can eat it. Also, my sculpture was a part of the PT's entry educating on hand injuries, having the Stewards do paraffin treatments and using the cooled wax to sculpt anything. Mine, of course, was a tree. Lastly the Stewards, having been working on our Sexy Stewi Calender, featured four of the months. This calender will be a collection of photos of individuals posing in scenes around our jobs. To make it sexy, we ordered matching pink undies from the unisex line of American Apparel. It should turn out to be most entertaining.
                Also this month was Prom. Because the first two times weren't painful enough, Antarctic Prom included hidden flasks, bad sport coats, dancing to the late 90's and early 2000's, a photo booth, and after parties. In conclusion, it was just like all the other times.
                The VMF Christmas party was held in the giant hanger where they tend to every machine. Decked out with lights, inflatable snow men, and giant snow flakes, it almost felt like Christmas. There was a slide show for people to submit pictures of things that remind them of the holidays and home. It turned out to be a slide show of pets, cars, and random pictures of grass... Turns out, over their loved ones, people miss the small things in life.
                 For now we are gearing up for Ice Stock. This year, instead of drinking bubbly out of the bottle, I'm bar tending. I'm expecting hard work, and a good pay off, but will be missing out on the live music and shit show that is this party. As last year ended me with a two week long crud and unexplained hickeys, I'll take the money this time.

Hope your holidays are great,
Chris
              

The Holidays Begin

            
              Thanksgiving was a hit! Not only was the meal awesome, but the morale of the entire GSC community was uplifted. All 84 of us came together for dinner at 2pm and ate our hearts out before having to serve the rest of the community for 6 hours straight. Having the early shift in laundry/setup, I repeated this again for my hour break, and when I got off. I'm now 8lbs heavier and happy for it. That night brought the annual Freezing Man which included a costume table, face painting, hula hoops, a Knuk Tats booth, and a dance party. With the giant frozen blue man attached from floor to basket ball net in the big gym, it was the steam release we've needed.
               Other than the holiday, this month has been better. Although we lost a steward to injuries, we received two more. Having just one extra body to carry forks or grab the garbage has made all the difference. We're expecting more to arrive in the coming months and hope to not break down as fast as the new ones are showing up.
               As for moral I got to do something I wasn't able to last year. The pressure ridges are the ice off of Scott Base that look like frozen waves in the ice. They're formed from the ice shelf’s constant movement against Ross Island, leaving rolling bends, sharp towers, and deep cracks in the ice. There's only a small window where we can take tours of this area before the ice starts to melt into larger pools and the seals take over. Last year they shut it down just before I was able to go because people were falling knee deep throw the ice into the water.
               The tour is lead by a volunteer community leader who walks ahead with an ice ax, sinking it down into the crevasses and cracks to see how wide and deep they go. Once decided weather to large step, run and jump, or turn back, the tour continues past huge blue ice sheets jolting into the air. At certain points Todd, our guide, showed us giant gaps that were only inches apart the week before. With this speed at which the ice changes in mind I automatically wanted to go on the tour the next week just to see. At only 8 people allowed on the tour, however, the chance probably won't happen as the signup sheet is booked.
                One of the coolest parts of the hike was going past an area soft enough for seals to use as breathing holes. Not only were there two chilling on the ice soaking up rays, but when we were still and silent, we could hear the deep breaths of seals under the ice popping into the holes to catch a breath or two before going back down. It was really awesome to be so close to them, yet creepy to think that the ice 20 feet away was shallow enough to break through over the water.
                 Along with the seals starting to show up more, the skuas are back and more aggressive than ever. They are dive-bombing people this year for no reason at all. Instead of just not taking food out or wearing the color blue our food trays are, the idea this year is just to look as big as possible. Still they dive and still we look out of the galley windows and laugh at the poor people not fast enough to get away. Yet we get ours. There was one that snuck into the food waste bin and then got stuck. One of our people went to dump a bag in and when he opened it was just as surprised as the big creepy bird was to see something looking back.
                 The next month is looking up. Christmas, Ice Stock, an End of the World Party, and a 3yr birthday for a waterless urinal in the coffee house. As changing includes fermented urine solids that resemble creamed corn and cottage cheese, and smell like (no words), this is an occasion to celebrate.

Till next time,
Chris

Road End

Finally after a month a new post!

            I'd love to say that so many wonderful things have happened and everything is magical, the physical therapist down here would call me on that lie.

            We are understaffed this year. During Winfly it was stressful, the idea of keeping up was daunting but doable with a lot of burnt out energy. By Mainbody we had 30 stewards all sharing Jano and DA duties and spirits were up. Now that the population has hit over 800 we feel the fact that we are at half the staff of last year. Almost a third of us are in physical therapy for repetitive motion injuries and we are all burnt out in terms of moral.

            I still love it down here though. I got a Boondoggle this week and got to go out with the Fuelies to a place called Road End. It is one of the fuel cache sights where in case of bad weather the smaller plains can land and wait out the storm. With the right GPS they just need to look for the flags and start digging. Refueling is just a few feet of snow away!
           
             I flew out with five other people and a flight crew of three on a Bassler. It is a small craft from back in the day outfitted with skies on it's front two wheels, much like the size of the Pegasus crash plain which was not comforting. We spent an hour flying low past the Royal Societies and Mount Discovery. Rumored to be the original mountain choice for the Paramount Picture logo, it's a great view and makes you feel really small when flying next to it.

            Once we landed on our glacier (surprisingly smooth) and found the buried flags poking out of the snow, the work began. We dug for two hours in roaring winds to uncover nineteen 400lb barrels. The barrels had to be pulled out, tagged, sampled, and reset on the surface to be buried by snow during the next year. It was hard work, freezing, and AWESOME!!!

            The chance to get out of town for a while was amazing, and the experience to finally get my "frozen face" photo was a first. I also got a good workout in, not that I needed one as I am clocking miles of run around time at work. Once we off loaded the new barrels and picked up the empty ones, we re-flagged the neat stack and were on our way. Flying back I marveled in the fact that I had gotten to the actual continent once this season. It made coming back to town a bit more digestible.

            For now, just trying to give my thumbs a break, fitting in sleep somehow, and rolling with the punches. There's always going to be something. Choosing to Mary Poppins the shit out of the job makes it the Hunger Games, but at least it's still a game.

Holding up for now,
Chris

Bertha, The Beast, Emy Lou, Slim

              There was a point last year that I got in the Ob Tube and saw what the under-side of the ice looked like and realized where I was. The recollection that dishes and pots wasn't the big pictures was as a friend said, "... amazing that we're at one of the most remote science stations supporting studies that will impact the entire world and our job, whether food, garbage, or plumbing, directly impacts that. Without us there'd be none of this."
              I had that moment again this year. With the switch in contractors and the 27 person team this year it took 60 people to do last year there have been a lot of growing pains trying to acclimate and find the energy to give a damn. It's been hard coming back and doing my old job at a higher pace as well as learning the Jano side of life and adopting the laundry room as another arena for fast paced hard work. Add the duties of dumping everyone's garbage and washing the public toilets and the glamour of it all gets lost pretty fast.
            This week we had one night that was clean, still, and relaxed. I went to Hut 10 for game night and stood out on the deck to watch the sun set behind the mountains. Mother nature has had some work done because there is no way anything is organically this beautiful. No pictures, because it wasn't doing it justice. The sun was still glowing dark orange and red behind the mountain range back lighting them as black peaks. The ice shelf filling the gap between the mountains and our island was illuminated by the crescent of a moon hanging over the scene with stars everywhere behind me. In effect it was a Sci-Fi book cover of some distant planet where day and night can be shared in the same sky.

             I looked at the scene and had the thought, "More people have been up there (the moon) than over there (the mountains). Cool"

             With new gusto I have been working in the galley again as well as in laundry and around the station cleaning wash rooms and hallways. As the newly named "Steward" we get to flip flop between the two worlds of DA and Jano. I wash people's dishes and their toilets, just not in the same day or uniform. The "fun" part of the job is following the theme of going back in time. The machinery we use is original to the station and slowly but surely going down the drain.
             Bertha is a huge, loud, ancient dish washer. She takes up a room twice the size of my apartment back home. The rumor mill has it that she has been leaking for so long the floor under her has rotted and the only thing holding her up is an ice pillar from her leak. I've been assured this is not the case, but just to be safe I've requested if I die in a dish related collapse, the people here fabricate a story of me falling in a crevasse or into the volcano, or any story that doesn't involve me going down in dish with the old girl whom I hate. At the moment she has broken again to the point where we are testing the pH of the water to make sure neither poisoning from too much soap nor the serving of rinsed, dirty dishes occurs. There is talk of replacement.
            Slim is the "Old Faithfull" of the group. So far the pot sanitizer has held up to banging, slamming, and the overall chaos that is the pot room. We may have to scrape the walls of bacon grease, chicken juice, and other nasty shit that sprays back from ladles into our faces, but Slim seems to always stay on track and in the lines.
           The Beast and Emy Lou work with me in the laundry room. I wash bed sheets, blankets, towels, ECW gear, oil and fuel soak clothes, as well as anything else that doesn't fit into standard washers. They were interestingly enough produce in East Berlin, Connecticut. I didn't know there was one. These are both huge washers from the 60's still so powerful they shake the foundation of the building when on the extract cycle. The third machine, Gloria Jean, I call the organ donor. These are so old there are no parts available anywhere and she was the first to kick the bucket.
           Although working with such ancient machinery gives me a headache sometimes, I think about the 50 years of tinkering and wear and tear on these puppies and I agree, they DON'T make them like they used to. Get 50 years out of an iPod and get back to me.

Season 2!

                 And I'm back. After a 4 month vacation in the states it's time for "The Real World Antarctica: Season 2". Our second season started with my friends Shelby, Mike, Brian, and myself getting delayed in Christchurch, New Zealand four days in a row that allowed us to live every day as if it were our last, knowing ahead of time what to savor before leaving. Along with walking the botanical gardens every day and drinking gourmet coffee, this included random bus hopping to nowhere, a day of haircuts that ended with Shelby having half her head shaved, and plenty of bottles of Scrumpy (delicious kiwi hard cider). After our fourth "last meal" of every option of fresh fried fish available at a Vietnamese restaurant, we had the conversation of if we don't fly tomorrow we're tattooing the side of Shelby's head. We left the next day.
                The first and only thing that hit me as I walked out of the C17 to the ice was "Damn is dark!" It was kind of great seeing everything in the night with a complete idea of where I was without the memory of ever seeing it this way. The following days produced only hours of sunlight for us to get our barrings again, but the most amazing sunsets bouncing off the mountain range and surrounding glaciers.
                 I have only seen the night stars twice since being back and they are amazing. The chances of seeing auroras at this point are getting slimmer, but with the worst weather of the year it is hard to find a time where the sky is clear and the conditions perfect. Going throw Con 1 conditions where the light post 7 feet away from the window is hidden by 40mph gusts of thick snow has been fun though. Not quite worth missing out on nigh time, but giving the true movie experience of -40 windshear and sounds matching the most epic of storm films. That noise you make with your tong pushed up against the back of your throat to mimic wind actually happens here.
                  There are a few things happening this time I didn't get to experience last season. Since I am here for Winfly and not Main Body, I get to see the weather go nuts and in turn shovel out my work place frequently. There is a certain excitement shoveling your way out of a room, it's just strange when you have to start inside because of the wind blowing threw the cracks created an ice pile in the entry. I am also taking better care to watch out for door knobs. Cold is fine, but super chilled to where it burns my skin isn't as much fun.
                  That said, it is nice having the place to ourselves. Where the number of people hit 1200 last year, right now there is around 300 of us. It's made readjusting a lot easier. And for the next month there are no flights in or out which pretty much means I'm stuck on this barren ice shelf I call home and these people I call family. Another day in paradise.
                

Farewell

The last weeks of my contract were everything I could have asked for. They were filled with drawn out goodbyes of people who had redeployment dates before mine. There was this weird surge of new faces taking over jobs for winter and workers brought in to unload the supply vessel. Last hurrays at the bars before they shut down for the summer season.

The best part of being one of the last flights to go was getting the feeling of solitude. On my last night I roamed the hallways which were very quite at that point. I ended up finding the few people who were left that I knew and spent the night hanging out and being goofy. At midnight a small group of us climbed Ob Hill one last time to witness my first Antarctic sunset, and most likely sunrise as at that point there was probably only a half hour between the two events. The glow of purple and red from the Royal Society Mountains hiding the sun bounced off every white surface creating a landscape of rich color for the first time. It was epic.

The next day brought a slow march to the runway after a morning of finding people and saying goodbye. Once we climbed into the C17 and strapped ourselves into the sides of the big cargo space it was extremely bitter sweet to feel the plane take off away from the ice.

Met in Christchurch by a dark, warm, stormy night, the only thing I could think of was how great the last months had been and how much I ended up loving the simple lifestyle and tumultuous job. The biggest thought I had was similar to the one people have the moment they get off their first roller coaster and love it, "I WANNA GO AGAIN!!!"

With a redeployment schedule of a lazy two months in Australia and SE Asia before heading home, I can only reflect on the work and hard living as the best time to date I have ever had. With my resume and applications already sent in for next year, all I can do is wait and hope that luck will find me going back for another season of no-privacy, cracked skin, long work day, totally isolated living. Can't wait!

Chris

West Antarctic Ice Shelf

        WAIS Divide is a field camp about a thousand miles away from McMurdo. The flight there takes three and a half hours in a Herc military plane that is made to store pallets and cargo, people being strapped to the sides on net seats. The flight is similar to a flight from Florida to New York, if the two had nothing else in between. A little over a mile in elevation, WAIS is a research camp that studies ice core samples for age, gas, and climate change. These facts are then applied to current climate conditions to gage the effects of global warming all over the planet.
         When you arrive at WAIS you will need to be wearing full ECW gear. While McMurdo experiences warm temperatures in the 30's, the same time of year leaves WAIS around 0. With the barren expanse of flat windblown snow drifts and nothing else for as far as the eye can see, be sure to prepare for wind sheers reaching -45.
          You will be welcomed when you get off the plane by ten to twenty people all there smiling and waving. You won't know half of them, but as they spend three months here together in isolation, watching the planes land and welcoming people to camp becomes the social event of the week. If you are one who shies away at new social groups, go into one of the five or six outhouses for some helpful tips. The locals have covered the walls with wonderful pieces of advice which will get you through your pitfalls with some wisdom, or at least a hint of empathy.

"By keeping it light the heavy can be handled"

              If you've been scrubbing dishes, mopping floors, and putting out food for eleven hours a day like myself, you will be ready to jump into the galley and get the job rolling. You then may be shocked to hear things like "9 to 6" and "Take a break whenever you need one." The proper response to this is of course two days of asking if there really is nothing else you can be doing until you finally get the hint and relax. Dishes, garbage, and floors are taken care of by the house mice, or town people, every meal and the only duties you really have are clean the pots and shovel snow.

"Kissing is like drinking salted water,

The more you have it

The thirstier you become."

"When I drink salty water I get diarrhea."

             Shoveling snow will turn out to be much more important than just keeping your tent from caving in. "Clean snow" will be bulldozed up from the outer areas of camp. You then shovel snow into a clean large garbage bin and drag it to the door and inside where it then needs to be lifted up and poured into a melting tub. Once the three or four loads it takes to top the tub off are in then you can pump water into the holding tank that feeds into the sinks, showers, and dish steamer. If showers or laundry are available, you must first add the necessary amount of snow to run the processes. If you don't come out of this experience with a new appreciation for water conservation, as well as weight lifting, you've done it wrong.

"Sex at Noon Taxes"

              Although you are doing the same job that you are beginning to hate a little more each day, it is important to focus on the positive. For example, being in a portable kitchen no bigger than one in a house leaves you cleaning pots and pans the size of normal pots and pans. No more 50lbs industrial mixing bowls here, just the usual sized with a regular sink and even a window to gaze out of. The kitchen staff will be you, Russ'el, Rosemary, and Kody, three very amazing cooks who are capable of producing options that will cause you to gain 5lbs in nine days.

"A mind is a terrible thing to WAIS"

            While you are breaking and trying not to get on the cooks' nerves by offering more help, take some time to enjoy the galley tent. It's about 40ft long and attached to the kitchen mod. Here you can relax at the red and white checkered tables, drink tea, and have one of the many snack options of the day. Read, zone out, or chat with other's coming in to warm up by the stove heaters. If you're feeling more active, the crescent moon tent supports are good for climbing from the floor, up, across and back to the other side. Exercises that keeps the mind invested.

"Sexual frustration graph project-

Please initial appropriate week and level"

             If you are lucky you could get a tour of the science facility here. The Arch was built in 2006 on the surface of the ice. In 2012 it is now so buried by snow drifts that one can drive heavy machinery over it. Walking down a steep ice slope gets you to the door that opens up into a giant frozen underground bunker. It is the closest I'll ever get to being on Hoth. A lofty bright metal arched ceiling running the length of an air bunker, The Arch is a frozen lab complete with a 30ft crevasse cut out of the floor into the ice below. The drill here is one complicated piece of equipment taking days to get down into the ice to pull out samples dating back into 1600's. They then take a look at the pressure lines and bubbles in the ice. Since the ice is porous, the ice itself is from the colonization of America, while the air dates back to the Industrial Revolution. The sample shows spikes in methane and carbon dioxide, which is recorded and then put in to use as data for aging other ice samples around the world. The facility, buried under heaps of snow, is still refrigerated to keep the samples as cold as possible and ice and frost hang from most surfaces. 

"Someday an archaeologist is going to be excavating this shit hole and find my sunglasses and wonder 'what the fuck?'"

               Another science excursion you can take is going out to the snow trench. A hole carved just over two meters deep, squared off with chainsaws and covered with plywood. Then about a foot on the other side of the hole pits are dug to let in light. This creates a glowing blue room under the surface that lets in enough light to observe the patterns of snow fall for years at a time. Like looking at sediment, you can see the effect the environment had on the surface and where abnormal patterns occur. As you get lower, the snow compacts and becomes bluer, denser, and one more step closer to solid ice.

"Haiku's are awesome

Sometimes they do not make sense

Refrigerator "

                  After seeing the snow trench you can take a walk out to where the practice ice core samples are discarded. Then, as is custom at WAIS, play baseball with 400yo ice sticks. After exploding a few centuries of natural history load up the snowmobiles and the sleds they pull that you rode in on with more samples to carve into ice shot glasses for later that night. The ride back, much like tubing behind a speed boat, may get a little dull staring at snow going by at high speeds. If there are two ski doos pulling people on sleds, make a fun high speed snowball fight out of it, sled vs sled.

"This place smells like heaven"

                 There are weird mythical situations that happen out in the middle of the ice. A pink unicorn trafficking in military planes was the first sign that I wasn't in reality anymore. Fog in this kind of climate is really just ice crystals blowing in the wind. They're a tween's dream. Glittery flecks of ice making everything sparkle. To add to it the ice in the air created sun dogs, which are full rainbows that circle the sun. If you're lucky you get a light pillar from these which turn the sky into a giant bright keyhole, with a bright beam of light hitting the horizon.

"It’s hard to soar with the eagles when you work for turkeys"

                 Once the day is over and dinner is served it's time for some r&r. While McMurdo's big city life may include internet, the bar scene, and socializing with everyone, WAIS Divide finds different ways to let off steam. B movies projected for the galley to watch while other's play hearts, cribbage, or board games is a common night. On the more spirited evenings ice cups full of Jameson and Glenlivet are passed around before competitions like getting over, under, and back on a table without touching the floor begin. This would also be the night tent support climbing can be witnessed. If the galley doesn't suit, the medical mod is always a great place for sitting around as a group of twenty something and singing along to acoustic versions of "Hey Ya" played by Russ'el on his guitar and going around and making up song lyrics for a run on story about squirrels. Because of hard work and full stomachs, the group usually taps out by eleven.

"Remember it’s better to pee in your water bottle than drink from your pee bottle"

              Going to bed includes a march to Tent City and deciphering which yellow tent out of thirty was yours. It may take some time, but you get the hang of it. Shovel your tent out of the snow that has drifted around it as the day has progressed and get into three layers of clothes, a fleece bag, and then into the -40 sleeping bag. Make sure you've peed at the peegloo built as a urinal. If sharp flakes of ice whipping at your scrotum in below freezing wind doesn't appeal, there's always sitting in the outhouse, no standing allowed. The sun will be glowing through the tent, but if you burrow down enough in your bag it won't matter. You'll want to anyway, your nose will be cold.

"How do you enjoy your morning constitution with a -20 breeze blowing up your ass?"

               When you wake up everything will seem darker. It will also be louder because the wind from Con 2 conditions will be blowing the crap out of your tent and smacking it with snow. With 1/8 a mile visibility and 25knot winds it is acceptable to sleep in and wait it out for better, safer weather. When you get to the point where both the full pee bottle and water bottle are solid ice and your stomach starts rolling from hunger you should muster the motivation to pull yourself out of the layers of warmth and put on the cold coveralls, jacket, pairs of gloves, bunny boots, gator, hat, and goggles to venture out. If you are prepared with no skin showing it feels pretty warm, but that doesn't stop you from having to kick your way out of the wall of snow that has built up around your tent and crawl out of the small opening trying not to let a mound of ice fall in.

"Experience is not what happens to a man; it’s what a man does with what happens to him…"

                Once you get to the galley tent everyone has accumulated in you play the cabin fever game. There are only so many card games and old magazines that can hold you over till you suit up and make it a point to visit every outhouse in camp and write down your favorite one liners. It's also a good time to really experience what Antarctica has to offer in terms of severe weather, and what the NSF has to offer for warm clothes. Put the clothes to the test and you'll be impressed.

"The boat may be a confined space but from it the horizon is endless…

WAIS may be a confined space but from it… you can’t get anywhere Jack."

                If you're as lucky as me, your Antarctic vacation will be prolonged due to two days of severe weather and you'll have a few more days with really great people in a really positive atmosphere.

"A good listener is not only popular with everyone, but after a while actually knows something."

                 I was really impressed with the leadership and how much the camp respected the director and manager. The group as a whole wasn't fed up with each other but totally at peace with living day to day and maybe not getting out of there for weeks. Scheduled to get out this week, sixteen people flew back with me. The entire place should be shut down and packed away by the end of the week and it was impressive to see how efficient they were at making thing disappear around us. Really happy I had this opportunity I brought back ice core samples to share at the bar with the rest of the DA's, including some from the Taylor glacier that are 120,000 yo. Pam, I think that counts as old ice with my drink.

Until next time,

Chris

A few more of my favorites sharing the experience of sitting over a deep hole in the ice:

"Don’t touch the seat with your dick

You may be sorry because it’ll stick"

"I have a dream and this isn’t it."

"Shitting on this awful ice sheet

 I freeze my ass to the seat

Though I have work to do

I’m stuck atop all this poo

Gazing ruefully down at my feet"

"It’s so cold,

I haven’t seen my balls in days

I hope they are still there"

"Spell PIG backward and say funny"

"I am worried… for I fear I may have shat my lower intestine into this awful abyss"




"Here I sit all broken hearted, came to shit but only farted"

 

 

 

"Mother Nature may we call a truce?

I’m here trying to have a duce

But the wind you send swirling

Has all my toes curling

And it won’t let my sphincter be loose"

 

 

 

"Field Camp Janos!

Scrubbing frozen feces with a smile since 2011"

 

 

 

 "Big Trubs"