Part 2: McMurdo Station

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Part 2: McMurdo Station

November 8, 2005, 9:50 PM McMurdo Time (Greenwich Mean Time+12)

It’s almost ten at night, but looks more like four in the afternoon. The lowest the sun gets this time of year hear is about four degrees off the horizon. And yes, I find that confusing.

But first, back to the final hour of that flight from New Zealand. The captain asked me up to the flight deck again as we continued in over the ice, moving majestically over ice floes swept into myriad patterns and over the crests of mountains that stuck like Earth’s knuckles up through the snow and ice. That’s the reverse of the way things are done in the mountains back home, where the white stuff is at the summits and the lower reaches are naked. But more astounding, everywhere here there is ice. It goes on and on, carved and flowing and cracking into whimsical shapes. It is not separate bodies of ice, but one continuous team of themes and variations. It looks like heavy cream that has been whipped almost to butter, except that it’s dazzling white and it continues past the horizon. The captain pointed out a tongue of glacier that spilled from the land far out into the sea.

“How high up are we?” I asked, trying to spot the altimeter on his control panel. I saw a digital readout flipping down past 16,000 and figured that might be about right.

“We’re at 35,000 feet,” he replied, “and imagine how tall that makes that cliff of ice at the end of that glacier. Now return to your seat, please.”

Antarctica from 35,000 feet

There was great excitement and festivity down in the passenger compartment as people took turns shooting photographs through the two small portholes. We would soon land in Antarctica! Within ten minutes! Then the loadmaster announced that we were still too heavy to land on the sea ice—587,000 pounds with all that cargo—and that we would fly around for a while to burn off some fuel, so there we sat for half an hour longer, the ice tantalizingly close. (One of you asked if it was noisy in that C-17. Answer: "YES." Everyone wore earplugs. This photo will show you why.)

Inside the C-17. That big white thing is not part of the plane.

After another 45 minutes, we at last landed on the sea ice—McMurdo’s floating runway (which they’ll use until it gets too thin and spongy, at which time they’ll move over onto thicker, land-generated ice, which surface requires the use of skis, so no C-17s), and taxied ponderously over its smooth, but rumbly surface. We pulled up next to a rank of LC-130 Hercules (which can lower skis), and at length one of the crew popped open the passenger door. What happened in that instant is difficult to describe. In about half a second, all heat in the plane flew out, as if some huge, frigid monster had put its mouth to the doorway and sucked. Well, I suppose that’s in fact what did happen. Our nice, warm air was instantly replaced by something stunningly cold. The air seemed to shatter into miniscule fragments of ice. Good-bye humidity, hello air so dry it’s going to turn my face to corn flakes.

I pulled on my giant red down parka, and was amazed at how quickly it reflected back my body heat. Then I stepped out into a bright white paradise of broad expanses of ice ringed by volcanic mountains. “Ivan the Terra Bus,” which has big balloon tires as tall as my shoulder, hauled us up to “Mactown” (McMurdo Station) for the first of a seemingly endless series of in-briefs, which I understand will only end when I get ready to leave, at which time they will be replaced by out-briefs. A series of personnel stood up and told us all sorts of things I absolutely had to know in words spaced so close together that I began all over again to realize how tired I was.

In fact I was exhausted. I staggered over to Housing and was given the key to my room, which is located on the second floor of a three-story dormitory in a row of identical buildings built for endurance rather than beauty. Think: Steel doors, airlocks, and enforced proximity. Think: Your worst nightmare in the “suddenly finding yourself back in college” category. Think: Your roommate got there ahead of you and snared the choicest everything (this is not a complaint; mine has been there for months already and will be there for months to come). Think: Shelf materials scavenged from the scrap yard. The words for the day: Recycle, Reuse, Repeat. The room is crammed with two single beds with exotic scrap heap retrofits, two beat-up armoires, a tiny and very stiff couch, a sink, one small window (which emits daylight 24/7), a desk, and a number of packing crates stacked up for use as bookshelves.

My roommate had left me a very pleasant note, but it did little to mitigate the impact of my first confrontation with my sleeping space. Write it off to fatigue, but it brought to mind a little-used section of subway platform. The room is about 12 feet long and L-shaped, widening from maybe 7 to perhaps 10 feet wide, and is joined via a bathroom to its mirror image. Four grown women live in this “suite,” or at least I assume that the people beyond the other bathroom door are female. Decidedly, this is not a place for people with claustrophobia or overweening modesty. I suffer neither of these maladies, but am accustomed to privacy, solitude, and a little more control over my environment than all that. So I changed out of my ECWs, unpacked, and got the hell out of there before I imploded.

My end of the room

November 9, 2005, 9:30 AM…7 AM temperature +10F, but -11F with the wind chill, forecast is for gusty winds and light snowfall by evening.

I’m sitting here now in my office at Crary Lab trying to figure out what to attempt to describe next. I confess that the days since I’ve arrived here have become a jumble in my overtaxed little mind, but fear not, I’ll hit all the high points eventually. I’ve spent a lot of time learning what’s where and who I need to talk to to get where I need to go and get there safely (I’ve already seen a man with frostbite along his cheekbones), but have a long way to go. I have talked with people who run an amazing array of systems. I’ve gotten to know my roommate, who is a darned nice person, and have learned that the room was set up the way it is by the people who occupy it over-winter…certain things get left in trustworthy hands over-summer, such as knitting books, a TV, a room humidifier). I’ve learned that our room has the best TV outside the lounge, which is a waste considering that I didn’t come here to watch TV. I have a turgid recollection of taking a nap the day after I got here. In the background, my roommate was listening to a documentary about Scrabble champions.

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were trying to sleep,” she said. “Would you like me to turn this off?”

“Don’t worry,” I told her. How could I explain that it was no more hallucinatory than anything else around me?

I’ve spent a lot of time walking between buildings over ground-up vesicular basalt. I’ve become acquainted with everyone from the top NSF guy to the dishwashers (this is a marvelously egalitarian society). I’ve learned to lock my dorm room door when I’m in there naked or trying to sleep because all dorms look alike and people sometimes walk into room 206 in dorm 208 thinking it’s dorm 207. I’ve learned to grab doorknobs with the long cuff of my big red parka so I don’t have to wash my hands as often (there are “Don’t pass the CRUD” signs everywhere…reminders that living in a compacted community under environmental stress has things in common with a Petri dish). I’ve learned to swill water, and have consequently mapped the locations of all the women’s restrooms. I’ve learned to presume nothing. I’ve learned to expect that things will not go by plan. I’ve become an epicure of things cooked in giant kitchens. I think so far I’ve gained weight. I’ll need it.

The first full day I was here was Sunday, the weekly day off for most McMurdo-ites. This rustic little beehive of humanity is built on the Hut Point Peninsula of Ross Island within the Ross Ice Shelf (try to find that in your home atlas, I dare you). It’s named Hut Point because fated explorer Scott built a warehouse hut here in 1905. The hut is a protected landmark, but it was open to visitors for that day, so I walked out there with the manager of Crary Lab, Jim Mastro. Jim did me a huge favor by telling me to go put on my ECW’s for the very short hike to the hut. It was pretty balmy about McM, about +19F and no wind, so I had thought to stroll out there in my corduroy slacks and big red parka (there’s an acronym for everything else, so perhaps I should call that my BRP).

“How many layers?” I asked.

“Three,” he said, “and don’t forget your bunny boots.”

I thought that might be excessive, but figured I’d take his word for it. There are LED signs over every major exit door around here announcing the weather conditions outside—Condition 3 for "Okay comfortable", Condition 2 for "Make sure you’re completely covered", and Condition 1 for "Watch out, sucker"—and this was a Condition 3 day. So what the hay, I put on three layers and wiggled into my big blue boots for the first time, which are much nicer than the white inflatables, I say. Well, we strolled down the hill past my dorm toward the point and I was wet between the shoulder blades within about 100 yards, but then we came around the corner into the wind…

Scott's Hut, Hut Point, Ross Island, Antarctica

Now I know why McMurdo Station is built where it is built: it’s in a wind shadow. Within another twenty yards, I was glad of every inch of polypropylene and down I had on.

And here’s a picture of yours truly enjoying the day.

Me at McMurdo—smile quickly and then put the hood and sunglasses back on.

With best wishes from 77 south,

Sarah

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