Wintering Over at the South Pole

This just looks cold, and it should at 11,000 feet, but it's only a mountain peak in Breckenridge, CO. Good skiing, though. (That's me, looking alpiny.)




THIS is cold. Minus 65F and dropping, as winter descends
on the South Pole. That's my friend Jeff, on the left, and one of his overwintering comrades freezing their patooties off.

Jeff has a blog, ANTARCTICA!, also on Blogger, that everyone should check out. It's not often that we know people who do this sort of thing. It brings to mind scenes from horrific movies like John Carpenter's The Thing, or on occasion when I'm feeling morbidly gruesome, Donner Pass. In all reality it's probably similar to any other high end adventure, mostly tedium punctuated with moments of terror or awesome beauty, often at the same time.

I am so proud of Jeff. I first got to know him years ago when he was still working at Robinhood Marine Center, as a Senior Dock Attendant. He was freshly graduated from college, and flailing mildly, as we often do after finishing eons of school. Even then he was making So. Pole noises. Mmmh, hmm, we would say, cool idea. Then he got a stint interning as a weather observer on Mt. Washington, which turned into a job. He got used to extreme weather, and winter isolation, and even at one point heroic action in the face of terrifying emergency, when he discovered a fire in the utility room. They put the flames out, but had to be evacuated. Quite the story, it made the regional evening news. Jeff's resume, nicely filled, finally qualified him for a position at the South Pole.

He went down last October, at the beginning of their summer, all day, no night, the busy time in Antarctica, filled with the comings and goings of scientists, political VIPs, C130s, and trips to MacMurdo. All that has ended, the last C130 has flown out, and the sun is setting, and setting, and setting some more, until it finally sets for the Long Night.

Try to imagine the mental and emotional preparations you'd have to make for an experience like that. We humans are not, as a rule, nocturnal creatures. Darkness, because we lose so much of our sense of sight, fills with so many other things. The inner life of our souls ratchets up a notch and asks us to pay more attention to it. I wonder, does it become a semi-dreamlike state? Imagine also what it must be like to make those forays into the bitter cold night when the Aurora Australis is flaring. Dreamlike, indeed. Is the best preparation perhaps just to remain open to what the experience brings, sorting things after its all said and done?

I think of Jeff almost daily. He is a good and true person, with a beautiful ,sunny smile that draws people to its light. What a great thing to have in a long night.