Readying for Winter, South Pole Station Is Awash in Activity
From November until February, the South Pole is awash in activity. With only four months to ready the station for the coming winter and fix what broke during the previous one, everyone is consumed with work. The cargo and materials specialists are unloading and organizing 70 C-130 airplanes worth of food, fuel and building supplies. […]
Exploring South Pole on Cross-Country Skis
SOUTH POLE JOURNALRefael Klein is blogging about his experiences as he spends a year working and living at the South Pole. Read his earlier posts here. On a clear day at the South Pole, the horizon sits about 16 kilometers (10 miles) away. We measure the visibility at any given point by referencing large wooden […]
Braving Brutal Cold to Tower Climb at the South Pole
Yesterday, it was minus 34 Celsius (minus 29 Fahrenheit) and sunny. Winds were low and visibility was perfect. The sky was a uniform shade of blue, stretching from horizon to horizon like a taut canvas. Walking to work, I felt like a red line running down the middle of a Barnett Newman painting. I was […]
How to Avoid Getting Lost While Living at the South Pole
Cardinal directions become meaningless at the South Pole. There is no east, west or south. You are at the bottom of the world. Any direction you move is north. This makes certain tasks complicated, like giving someone directions to a building they have never been to before, or trying to describe which way the wind […]
My Cramped, Precarious Flight to the South Pole
After a two-hour delay, due to engine troubles, we finally boarded our south-bound flight to the Amundson-Scott Station — the U.S. scientific research station at the Geographic South Pole, the southernmost place on the planet. SOUTH POLE JOURNALRefael Klein is blogging about his experiences as he spends a year working and living at the South Pole. Read his […]