The ICE has melted for me.

Well my time on the ICE has come to a end. I flew back to NZ on the 22nd. I will be hiking around NZ then going to Thailand. I should be back state side by the end of April. For now this blog will be put on hold and might end cause it about the ICE but my ICE melted. It might get a new title and keep going but we will see. Please feel free to write to my email address.
later
nicholasgiger@hotmail.com

Supply Ship

After the fuel tanker left the M/V American Tern arrived with all the food and supplies.

All the large gray stuff on top is going to make a wind mill for the Kiwis. We're going green here.

it's a short one this time.

Tanker!

When the Ice Breaker Oden breaks its way in the mood of the base changes from blah to we are almost out of here! You see alot of people in the computer lab finalizing travel plans and looking for there next crazy job.

This year the ice edge was about 60 miles out. The Oden makes its way in breaking a path for our fuel tanker and our supply ship.

Here she is breaking the ice up next to the pier.
And here is the Fuels Departments "dog and pony show" for the season. The USN Larrence H. Gianella. She had 5.5 million gallons of fuel for us. That fuel will keep everything at the South Pole Station and McMurdo running for the next year. That's right just one year!

While we were off loading our fuel the Oden snugged up next the Gianella and rested for a couple days .

We used 1200 feet of 6" hose per valve and as you can see we had 5 valves. Here are the Pier Valves where the hose connects to the hard line running up the hill to the bulk tanks on the other side of town.

Here is the other end of the 1200 ft hoses connected to the tanker valves. That's Tonya in brown making sure everything goes smooth on the boat. Each hose was under 100PSI and moving 1800 to 2400 GPM. If something was to happen the hose it would have gone bad quick and made a big mess.
Here are the numbers for this year. We worked 12 hr shifts so we had 24hr coverage.
Mogas: 121,353 AN8: 4,928,693 JP-5: 486,294 Gallons
Start time: 1/22/09 15:31pm
Stop time: 1/24/09 7:25am
Total time: 40 hrs
We moved over 5.5 million gallons of fuel without incident.

Castle Rock and Hut Ridge Hike

One nice sunny Sunday afternoon Matt Rombach and I went out on cross-country skies to do the 9.3 mi Castle Rock Loop.

Here is the rock face.
and some shots from the top. the blue out there is sea ice.

On the climb to the top. Good thing for the rope.

More views from the top.

The shadow that the rock cast. Yes there are people down there.
Here you can see the trail we skied in on.

And you stay on the trail marked with flags so you don't fall into a cervass.

Hut Ridge Hike.

Skua! This damn bird is protected down here. They know when all 4 meals are each day and they wait outside and attack people with food walking from building to building. Sometimes they will take your hat right off your head and fly away with it. Knock on wood the basterds haven't attacked me yet.

Happy New Year

Well we had a great new year here, 5 live bands, lots of drinking, and after party's. Each new year we have whats called IceStock. In years past even the mud people have showed them self's but not this year.
A pic of the stage area.

Hell we even had our own coffee shop. This I think was called the nail game. The object here was to knock the hammer on the side of the block then try and hit your nail. This all had to be done in one smooth movement. Sounds easy right well the hammer had two points on it and mix that with some, ok alot of beer and it is harder then you think.

To help us ring in the New Year we had some special guests. Father Time and Baby New Year.

Wait if its midnight why is it still light out? Because it is...

After the bars closed around 1am we went up to a old 1 million gallon fuel storage tank that they use for tire storage now. The only light in this whole tank was the two strands of x-mas lights in the center or when somebody opened the door.

All that airborne crap in the pic is a little bit of dirt, and rust from the steel floor. Not the cleanest air here.

I think i went to bed about 4am.

South Pole Ice Tunnels

The Ice Tunnels were dug in the 50's or 60's when the Navy built the original station. They are used for transporting fresh water and raw sewage to and from the station. They are 30 to 60 feet under the snow and are COLD!

This is the door to the tunnels because the pole is always moving the gets tweaked and won't close all the way.

Here is a map of the tunnels.

The temp in the tunnels is always in the -60's F. Here's proof. This is the coldest place I have been.At the end of some of the tunnels you might find a sign like this. Must be part of a game the winter over polies play.

There are emergency exits in the tunnels but they aren't the safest.

There many things people have left in the tunnels. Here are some pic.
The famous Russin Sturgeon.

A pig's head. I kissed it. And a frozen bottle of Crown. At one end of the tunnels we found what keeps us from falling off the bottom of Earth. It was really hard to even lift your foot to walk around this thing. After spending about an hour down there we were cold and had to leave plus dinner was about to be served.
Here I am just after getting out of the tunnels.

Well that's almost all from pole. Go ahead leave a comment.

What I did for fun at the South Pole.

You can't have all work with no fun at Pole. So here are some pics and a video of what I did for fun.
We can make snow angels.

We went out and watched the C-17 do the once a year air drop. This was the same plane that I flew on from Christchurch to Antarctica. They air drop 60,000lbs of food and cargo in 3 passes at 1,000 feet. Then they did a fly by of the station at 300 feet.

We can hang out in the gym and play volleyball, basketball, dodge ball, or what ever you want to play.
We liked to sit out on out deck at 1am after work and listen to our new Gettoblaster that they ordered 5 years ago and they got it when I was there. That night the temp was around -10 degrees. That is Buttercup (Yes he likes to be called Buttercup. Not Butter not cup just Buttercup.)in the black and green. He worked at Pole this summer as the Lead Fuels Operator aka one of my bosses. This is Amanda she works in Waste. She deals with all of out trash.
After hanging out on the deck we took the snow mo out to the end of the ski way. Well the snow mo only seats 2 so i jumped in the sled and took some video.

So what happened here is Buttercup slowed down a little bit and turned a little bit then started to speed up alot. You can see in the video when this happened I knew I was in trouble. Good thing I was wearing my helmet.

We would play Bear, Cowboy, Ninga for some crappy job nobody wanted to do. Like refill the Premix Tank. Dan turned with the Bear and I was a 6 shootin cowboy that shot the Bear and won. I still helped him the Premix.

This pic was taken on Dec 10 at 2:24am. This Buttercup working as the Postmaster for the U.S. Post Office at the South Pole. It is a official Post Office. He even had to take a short test to work there. But why was the Post Office open at that hour. It was open for the swing shift that got off at midnight.

One day Buttercup and I went into the Old Dome to check it out and look at what we found.


They use it for "cold" storage.

I know were in the south but I think this is a little much.

Hard as a rock!



And best of all Christmas Dinner. To bad I left before then.
My first Thanksgiving Dinner at the South Pole looked liked this. We had all the normal Thanksgiving food.

After a meal like that I had to go to my office.

That Olivia Newton John is one hot mama!

The couple nights before I was to leave I had three last things to do. First was to turn on the sana. Second and third was to go take some more pics out at the Pole. Here the tv scroll in the galley. I'm not in that pic.

Sweet sunglasses and Hawaiian shorts.

Sorry the second pole pic is "X" rated.

This was as close as I could get with my GPS.
Well that was my time at the South Pole. Please feel free to comment.