Dispatches from the Bottom of the World: The View From Arrival Heights, Warm Weather, and other Miscellanea


A selfie up at Arrival Heights. On a clear day, you'd be able to see Mt. Erebus behind 2nd Crater.

So, McMurdo has changed a lot since I got here a month and a half ago. We are now at about 900 people, which is about as big as it’ll get. We still have more people coming in, but field camps are opening up, so a lot of the science groups will be heading out as soon as the helo’s are available.
I’m still waiting to find out if I’ll be getting a roommate. Since there are a bunch of people no longer coming down due to the shut-down and start-up, there is room in the upper-case dorm (like the one I’m in) and the administration has opened those dorms up to folks with fewer ice days (It is going from 131 days on ice, down to 127 days). The upper case dorms have bigger rooms, with a bathroom shared between 4 people, rather than a floor of people. I know a couple of people who were notified that they could move if they wanted to. They decided not to, since they are settled in to their room and they’ve actually got a great view, and the dorm they are in is empty enough that they actually have the bathroom to themselves, at least for now. So, it is possible that other people will feel the same way, and I’ll be able to procrastinate moving my stuff to one side of my room for a while longer.

I posted a couple of pictures on Facebook of my Halloween costume, but I thought I put a few up here for those that didn’t see them. I went as Tony Stark, which meant I could dress the way I normally do, and just added a home-made “arc reactor”, which consisted of recycled LEDs and computer part.

A work in progress. This is before I mounted the cover on it.

Finished product. I mounted the whole thing on the chest strap for my HR monitor, and stuck the battery in my pocket.

The weather has gotten a lot warmer in the last week. Warm in this case means that it has been in the teens and low twenties. And the wind has been low, too. All this means is that I’ve been able to stop wearing my big jacket, and have been running around in my Vakava jacket, or a sweatshirt, and maybe, maybe a hat. The warm weather has also started one of three McMurdo seasons: the slush/mud season. There have been ankle deep puddles popping up all over the place, especially around high traffic areas, which can make getting to meals a challenge. From what I hear, it will only get worse, up to some building requiring that you take your boots off before coming inside. Once the mud season ends, which is when the temperature starts to drop again and things freeze, we get dust season. Then sometime around last sunset we’ll get into cold/snow season, which will last throughout the austral winter and into winfly next spring.

Mt. Erebus from Arrival Heights. There is a little orthographic uplift happening, which is what causes the layers of clouds.

I think that I’ve said it before, but Arrival Heights, where a bunch of my projects live, has probably one of the best views of Erebus and McMurdo Sound on station. And I’ve got pictures to prove it. I keep meaning to bring my wide-angle lens up to take in the full view from the roof, but that hasn’t happened yet. I will post that when I finally get around to taking it.

Looking out towards McMurdo Sound

Along with the instruments in the Arrival Heights building, I’ve also got antennae out away from the building, and up in Second Crater (about a 1mi hike from Arrival Heights). About once a month I hike out to these, to check cables, realign antenna and just see what kind of shape things are in. Since it is technically away from station, I am supposed to bring a buddy along, for safety. So, at the beginning of the month Erin and Debb joined me to do just that.