Antarctic Journal

Today I departed McMurdo for the South Pole! I went there aboard a plane called an LC-130, or Hercules. The Hercules is equipped with skis so it can land on hard-packed snow. The Pole is about a 3 hour flight from McMurdo, or about 500 miles. I flew from sea-level to an altitude of almost 10,000 feet! We flew from McMurdo over the Ross Ice Shelf, up over the Transantarctic mountains. In fact, we flew right over the Beardmore glacier, which is the way Robert Falcon Scott took when he went to the Pole in 1912.

When I landed at the Pole, all I saw was flatness and white. The plane pulled up right outside the famous Pole dome, a squat silver dome surrounded by flat white and blue sky. The altitude at the Pole hit me almost immediately. I was light headed, had a headache and was very thirsty and short of breath.

The cold also gets to me. Today at the Pole it is minus 25.3 degrees F. The windchill makes it minus 75 degrees F. The wind itself is at 18 and a half knots.

On my first day there, I spent time talking with scientists who were doing seismology--measuring the earth for evidence of earthquakes and other movement. I visited a seismograph deep down in the ice. I had to climb down a ladder and make my way through an ice tunnel. This machine not only measures earthquakes as far away as Peru (and can measure the waves as they go around and around the planet for up to a year!), but also measures the amount that the earth "stretches" as it is pulled by the moon!

Later on in the day I was visiting with two science representatives at the Pole and they pointed out over the vast white and told me that out there somewhere was Roald Amundsen's tent, the tent he set up and called Poleheim, and then left when he made his successful return to his starting point at the Bay of Whales on the Ross Sea. Amundsen was a Norwegian explorer who started for the Pole almost at the same time that Scott did. Amundsen made it to the Pole and back. Scott and his men got to the Pole after Amundsen, a great disappointment, and died on their return journey.

Later in my stay at the Pole, I'd meet a man who was determined to find and excavate Amundsen's tent from the 60 feet of ice that buried it, to find, among other things, a sextant that Amundsen left behind.

Of course I had to go out to the famous "ceremonial Pole," and have my picture taken. The ceremonial pole is a mirrored ball atop a red and white striped barber pole, surrounded by the colorful flags of the 12 original signatory nations of the Antarctic Treaty. More interesting to me, though, was the actual geographical Pole, which is about 30 yards away from the barber pole. This is the actual other end of the world. It is marked by a very official USGS survey marker--a metal stake about three feet high topped by a thick, gold-colored metal disc. Upon this disc is stamped an imprint of the Antarctic continent and these words: "PLANET EARTH. GEOGRAPHICAL SOUTH POLE. 90 DEGREES SOUTH. JANUARY 1, 1997." The site is dated because the ice moves 30 feet a year here and each year the exact location of the Pole needs to be replotted.

Near the stake is a sign with these words on it: "Roald Amundsen. December 14, 1911. 'So we arrived and were able to plant our flag at the geographical South Pole.' Robert Falcon Scott, January 7, 1912. 'The Pole, yes, but under very different circumstances from those expected.'"

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