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Goodbye South Pole We were scheduled to leave the South Pole Friday morning. In true South Pole fashion, our flight was delayed and then cancelled. But, there was another McMurdo-bound flight coming in Friday evening so we were bumped onto that one. We waited around the station in suspense – would

My PolarTREC adventure is coming to a close. My family flew into Christchurch today and we had a happy reunion at the airport. We are going to spend a few days together in New Zealand before returning to our daily lives at home in Utah. It feels so good to be with them, especially since our typical

Delays? Of course there are. Our plane was scheduled to leave New Zealand this morning at 9:00. In typical Antarctic fashion we woke up to a four hour weather delay. At 1:00 PM there was another delay rumored to be mechanical in nature. Around 2:45 PM we finally received word that the plane had

The routine has been broken. Our typical McMurdo schedule of long days in the lab has come to a close. We spent a day and a half cleaning up the lab in preparation for lab checkout. The lab is now empty, all of the borrowed equipment has been returned to the stockroom, and the C-507 (C-507 is the

Atmospheric Research Observatory (ARO) Just a quarter mile walk away from the station is the Atmospheric Research Observatory, more commonly called ARO (pronounced “arrow”). It sits in the “Clean Air Sector” upwind of the station and its powerplant. Gavin and Dave conduct research, funded by the

We were invited to visit the Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) facility on Arrival Heights by Xinzhao Chu today. Arrival Heights is an important place for atmospheric research. LIDAR is just one of the experiments happening there. Dr. Chu and her student Zhengyu (Harry) Hua showed us the LIDAR

Slide on Down Head to the far end of the station, go down five flights of stairs and through two doors. You’ll see a slide leading to a dark hole. You’ve found the infamous South Pole Tunnels. The Tunnels sit 60 feet below the station and stretch for 1800 feet. This is where the water and sewage

Sticky Note Questions Before I left for Antarctica, I asked my students to write down questions they had for me on sticky notes. I brought those sticky notes with me to the South Pole and started looking for answers. Here’s are 10 of the most commonly asked questions and the answers I’ve found out

Well, I arrived home just in time for my little girl's birthday. I got in at 7:30 PM last night and got to sleep by midnight. I hit the ground running at 5:30 this morning. I'm not too jet lagged, so back to real life. I have forms to fill out and exams to give. I've got to start cooking my meals