Antarctica 2018: Chapter 16: To All Points North

Link to Chapter 15: The South Pole Traverse Arrives
Link to Chapter 14: Two pictures to sum it all up.
Link to Chapter 13: Visual tour of South Pole Station.
Link to Chapter 12: What is LANDIT, and why does it need the South Pole?
Link to Chapter 11: Work at the South Pole.
Link to Chapter 10: Thank you, friends.
Link to Chapter 9: At the bottom of the world
Link to Chapter 8: Onward, Southward!
Link to Chapter 7: Exploring McMurdo Station
Link to Chapter 6: Touchdown Antarctica
Link to Chapter 5: Flight Day!
Link to Chapter 4: ECWs
Link to Chapter 3: Christchurch!
Link to Chapter 2: Auckland
Link to Chapter 1: From Hawaii to Antarctica

The people I had the privilege of meeting at Pole are some of the most unique people I’ve ever met. And as for me, I worked with my hands, built something, and did the best I could to work around weather that did not want to cooperate. I’m immeasurably proud of that. There’s so much more I could write about — like the amazing Thanksgiving spread, kitesurfing scientists, late-”night” camaraderie after karaoke, STEM sessions via videoconferencing with 200+ Hawaii middle- and high-schoolers… and more. On and on… but all things, even this, must come to an end.

The sun finally sets… not on Pole yet, but on my time at Pole.

The end came surprisingly quickly… because I’d planned on an extension. In fact, the extension was approved… except the only seat on a flight off-continent (Mac to New Zealand) would have put me back in the United States (CONUS) after January 2. For professional and personal reasons, I couldn’t accept that. So I found myself packing, and saying my goodbyes, in a very hurried manner. So hurried, in fact, that I missed my “bag drag”, and had to take my stuff down to the cargo berm after hours to check it in for the flight the next day.

I do wish I’d had more time to properly say goodbye; tell some very cool people that I enjoyed their company, and hope to see them again on (or off) the ice. And when the morning of the departure came, I definitely didn’t feel mentally ready to leave. That morning, people kept asking me, “Did you get your extension?” And I had to say, hurriedly, “yes but no… I leave today”.

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope for bad weather. In fact, bad weather was forecasted. Not only would that have given me the perfect amount of time to say proper goodbyes, it also would have allowed me to squeeze in one more day of telescope time, to make up for a very unlucky streak of bad observing weather. Ironically, the weather had warmed up… which was causing clouds to drift across the Sun. The new forecast was for cold, icing… and wind. Lots of both.

However, as fate would have it, a gaggle of NSF, USAF and other “DVs”, or Distinguished Visitors, flew in to Pole the day before I was scheduled to leave. The weather was bad at Mac, though it was perfect at Pole, and the next day it was forecast to switch. As I mentioned earlier, flights do not originate at Pole. They don’t even turn their engines off at 90 South, because they might not start back up. The only planes out are those that fly in from Mac. So most everyone told me that the plane that would take me out would be grounded at Mac. Then the weather would get bad at Pole… and it wouldn’t be able to get in. Four days, easy.

Perfect.

Except: the DVs. We won’t kiss and tell with names, but we’ll just say: people with significant political pull, including a retired astronaut, a USAF active-duty bigwig, and an undersecretary of the Armed Forces. They were scheduled to fly up to Pole, do a series of powerpoint briefs on the science happening at the Station*, get their picture taken at the Pole, then get back on the plane and fly out. All within two to four hours. Which might seem like a boondoggle, but these people lead organizations that are critical to the Antarctic mission. Like it or not, keeping these people knowledgeable and happy keeps planes flying and science happening.

*If you’re wondering why anyone would fly all the way to the South Pole, only to listen to powerpoint briefings about labs and facilities a short walk away, you clearly don’t work for the US government.

Why did the DVs matter? Well… weather was bad at McMurdo. But when an astronaut and an undersecretary want their picture at the South Pole, they are going to get it. We were all surprised when the LC-130 launched from Mac. The flight instructor in me feels compelled to mention that under an instrument clearance, you can legally takeoff with zero visibility and cloud cover right down to the ground (as long as conditions are above the minimums at your destination)… but I’ll just say it’s rare that a pilot decides, sure, I’ll take off into nothingness. But when you’ve got highly trained military pilots at the helm, and DVs that are too busy to wait… I guess it’s not that surprising that the plane launched.

Of course, things went south from there, pun mildly intended. The DVs did their briefings, got their pictures, got back in the plane and took off under beautiful blue skies… and then boomeranged back to Pole. The weather was too bad to land at Mac. The engines ran all day, hoping for a window to launch. The DVs did not want to spend the night at the South Pole. To be fair, altitude sickness can hit you hard (and did, in fact, hit a couple of the DVs). It’s tough to sleep your first night at 10,000 feet; your heart beats abnormally fast and you wake up convinced you can’t breathe. If there had been a break in the weather at Mac, the plane would have taken it.

But there was none, and then the weather started worsening at Pole. Winds kicked up; visibility shrank. The DVs were stuck. The South Pole Traverse had just come in, too, and the morning of my departure, the galley was the most crowded I’d ever seen it. The pilots slept in the library (quiet reading room). The Station was at capacity. The weather was bad… but again, takeoff is not the problem. And as the weather cleared at Mac, I knew there was no way I would be delayed.

Maybe that was for the best. The DVs, at least, now got to actually go out and see the labs and telescopes first-hand, and hear from some of the people on the ground level of research at the Pole. But for me, it meant the most frantic packing I have ever done… and I’ve had some doozies. Packing sensitive scientific equipment rapidly, while knowing that American Airlines baggage chuckers would be in the mix, was fairly stressful. I was really thankful to have help from Mike Legatt (shoutout to Mike for being awesome), one of the ASC research associates. Again, as I’ve said before… all the ASC folks I’ve worked with at Pole are awesome.

I chose not to take all my equipment back, but leave some tools behind for the larger 2019 LANDIT crew. Every pound that has to fly to and from the ice is more taxpayer money, so hopefully this reduces the weight (and pain) that they have to deal with. This box will be waiting for the first LANDIT team member to touch down at the South Pole next summer.

Top: My SuperDARN workspace all packed up. The box front-and-center was left behind for the 2019 LANDIT team. Right: I dragged the remaining equipment on two sleds, back to Station, to be packed, bubble-wrapped and brought back with me to the US mainland. The picture shows the first of those two sleds, with the telescope case and a backpack full of computer equipment.

My thanks, again, to everyone who sent me great food, coffee and snacks for my time at the Pole. I enjoyed almost all of it… but there was still some left over. For all those of you that sent me things, know that they have been put to an additional good use. Come mid-winter, you will make the 41 people wintering over at Pole very happy. I wrapped a package full of goodies up for the winter-overs, most of whom are here already, and gave it to Mike with instructions not to open until mid-winter. By that phase in the season, they’ll be itchy for anything new and interesting, so hopefully everything in the box will find its way to someone who is craving something like it.

The package of sweet goodies, and leftover coffee, for the 2018/19 winter-overs. There’s a smorgasbord of stuff diverse enough that hopefully most of the crew will find something they like.

In coming to the end, you think about the beginning, and the journey behind you. I also found myself thinking about the journey ahead. This was the first of two, and hopefully three, seasons for LANDIT in Antarctica. Getting here was a challenge, and I don’t just mean the weather and logistics.

The day I left, I got an email from a co-worker, telling me that LANDIT had made the report that the Director of my laboratory sends to his boss, a four-star General. This was a big deal… not for me, but for the LANDIT team to follow me next year. Many internal battles had to be fought and won for this trip to be possible. I have no doubt that many more will follow… and momentum from superiors with political will is the only potent weapon to keep misinformed naysayers at bay.

Exactly like with the DVs at Pole.

This is the reality for scientists everywhere outside academia. Successful scientists understand one simple tenet immediately: if you keep the people at the top of the food chain happy and informed, you might also be able to keep bureaucratic “advisors” out of the way of good science.

An excerpt from a top-level report of research within our laboratory, with pictures pulled from this very blog. Keeping superiors well-informed is critical to overcoming objections from professional trouble-makers lower in the bureaucratic hierarchy.

And after that… it was forward ho for me, to All Points Northbound.

To McMurdo, to Christchurch… and some day in the near future, back to CONUS.

The adventure of a lifetime is winding down. I’ve certainly got mixed feelings about it, and at the end of the day, all I can say is… I hope to be back here one day.

The LC-130 that overnighted at Pole waiting for the DVs. The few of us scheduled to leave were placed on the same flight as the DVs, pretty much ensuring that we would leave that day, as early as possible.