December 18, 2008, South Pole Station -- Len Shulman
Flying from McMurdo to South Pole Station
On Wednesday I flew from McMurdo to South Pole on a New York Air National Guard LC-130, which is a C-130 specially equipped with skies for landing in polar regions.
I’m waiting on the Ross Ice Shelf to board the LC-130 at McMurdo’s Williams Field. Mount Erebus is in the background.
The group heading for Pole is small and we have lots of room.
The best part of the flight from McMurdo to Pole is the section
over the Trans Antarctic Mountains. These mountains hold back
the tremendous, two-mile thick glacier that covers the entire
continent of Antarctica. Valleys are gaps in the mountains and
fantastic glaciers push through these to the Ross Sea. The Beardmore
Glacier is one of the largest and moves several miles per year.
The view here cannot be matched anywhere on Earth.
Svend Henriksen, an IceCube driller, enjoys the view over the Trans Antarctic Mountains.
The Beardmore Glacier is a moving river of ice cutting through the Trans Antarctic Mountains.
After a short three-hour flight, we arrive at the South Pole,
pressure altitude: 10,600 feet. It’s summer here; daylight 24
hours, and the average December temperature is –16°F, but the
wind chill is almost always –40°F.
Arrival at Pole on two miles of ice.
