South Pole Medical Center and a refraction sunrise

Jocelyn's and my new book has been published! Our new website is FatherDaughterCyclingAdventures.com from which the book can be purchased with links to CreateSpace (an Amazon publishing company) and Amazon. It will soon be out on eBooks also. Hint - We get a larger royalty from CreateSpace!

The United States Antarctic Program (USAP) contracts to the University of Texas Medical Board (UTMB) for all medical requirements including National Science Foundation (NSF) mandated deployment Physical Qualifying and medical services at McMurdo, South Pole, and Palmer (on the Antarctic peninsula) stations. Club Med is staffed by a physician and a physician's assistant (PA). 

Club Med

The South Pole Medical Center has a very clean, modern and efficient layout.

To the upper left are the surgical lights and below that is the X-Ray scanning computer. Scans are sent directly to UTMB in Texas for analysis.

All of the Antarctic physicians and PAs are usually given dental training. Unfortunately the current Pole physician and PA did not receive this training due to time constraints. Earlier this season I had a tooth break off at the gum line. I planned on getting this tooth removed by the McMurdo dentist when I travel through in November. But due to budget cuts there will be no summer dentist in McMurdo. An appointment has been arranged to have this tooth removed in Christchurch. It is not really painful, but annoying, and I don't want to fly home to Florida in this condition.

Along with the physician and PA there are seven of us on the medical trauma emergency team. We receive weekly training on trauma with once a month drills. This training will be very valuable on my upcoming bicycle tour. Every winter Polie is on one of the four Emergency Response Teams (ERTs)

A two bed hospital room complete with TV and VCR hanging on the opposite wall. There is a small patient on the right bed.

Portable X-Ray machine.

The lower black portion extends out and over the patient. A reusable film plate captures the image. This is then scanned, image sent to UTMB, then erased for the next job.

Every few weeks we have pizza on Saturday nights. Our excellent chef makes a delicious sourdough crust. This night all the vegetables on this vegetarian pizza were freshly harvested from the greenhouse.

This is the best pizza I have ever had. I really like the goat cheese.

The drift has buried the station sign legs. The snow has blown hundreds of miles over the polar plateau this winter.

In the distance are the RF building on the left, then the GOES and Skynet radome, and the SPTR radome - my work areas. In the foreground are various cargo berms.

Our flag is still flying. All directions point north!

The future is bright in this refraction sunrise taken on Monday September 16th at 3 am. The South Pole is one of the most beautiful places on earth.

The view from my exercise bike in the gym.

Let there be Light!

My daughter's and my new book is complete! 240 pages, 72,000 words and 80 pictures. The result of two Antarctic winters. The first book is currently being printed and will be sent to my wife Andrea for review. Soon to be published by CreateSpace and available in paperback and eBook at Amazon and at our new website FatherDaughterCyclingAdventures.com currently under construction. Or if you would like an autographed copy email me. mikey8590@gmail.com

Walking out to work at the radomes. I look like the creature from the 50's version of "The Thing".That is the planet Venus over the large radome. After five months there is light!

Coming in from work. It's a harsh continent! Unfortunately goggles are useless in this cold as the inside and outside instantly freeze and you can't see. I was still frost nipped on my right cheek as the wind worked its way underneath two layers to my skin. Ouch!

Since there is light, dark science research has come to a stop so the station's window coverings were removed. It is great to see outside my room again. What a morale boost!

A series of three pictures left to right from the 2nd floor observation deck. This is the communications/operations room (idle in the winter) and the main conference room on the right.

As I have said before it doesn't snow here. This snow is blown over the Polar Plateau and the first thing to stop it over several hundred miles is the station. The South Pole gets about three inches of moisture per year in the form of ice crystals. This is the driest desert on the planet.

The upper gym windows.

Our flag is still flying.

This morning the temp was up to -73. It felt refreshing! The windchill brought it down below -100 though. 

A view of the station. Photo credit: Jason

A very unique site - Venus passing over the moon. Taken September 9th. There's a lot of light on the horizon with the sun only 5 degrees below.

We haven't been able to see the dark sector (3/4 mile away) in 5 months. The South Pole Telescope (SPT) is on the left. In a few weeks when there is more light (to avoid the deep snow drifts) I will start running this path again. There are several who want to join me.

Polemart and the Beer Can

A pretty galley arrangement of flowers from the greenhouse.

The South Pole Store - Polemart

Milwaukee's Best Premium beer? Last resort maybe - not!

The store is all out of New Zealand beer. 

Hundreds of DVDs for checkout.

McMurdo doesn't carry liquor.

I enjoy the New Zealand Pinot Gris.

Not quite Walmart.

An excellent selection of television series.

 The "beer can" that includes a stairway that is attached to one end of the station. The bottom level is about 60 feet under the ice.

The door to the station 2nd level from inside the beer can stairway.

The top of the beer can.

The freight elevator.

In between the 2nd and 1st level. The temperature is a constant -60 F year round.

The 1st level door.

The window coverings will be removed soon.

Water, sewer and electrical is run from the station through the beer can.

It's cold inside!

This door leads outside. 

The bottom level 60 feet below the surface. This passage leads to the ice tunnels, power plant, logistics including all food storage, fuel tanks, and the Vehicle Maintenance Facility (garage).

92 steps from the bottom to the top.

In preparation for running outside again I having been running the beer can stairs.

Two videos and a geography lesson

I was checking the weather for a Sunday afternoon hike.

In a few months we will be seeing this scene again!

The land beneath the ice

The Russian Vostok Station is 860 miles from the South Pole and 11,400 feet (2,000 more than South Pole) in elevation. They are in the process of deep core drilling to reach Lake Vostok which lies some 13,000 feet below the ice surface. The lowest temperature ever recorded on earth was at Vostok Station in 1983 at -128 F whereas the lowest at the South Pole was -117.

The arrows point towards the 30 feet a year of glacial ice movement.

Vostok Station

The bedrock beneath the ice.

More than 170 million years ago, Antarctica was part of the supercontinent Gondwana. Over time, Gondwana gradually broke apart and Antarctica as we know it today was formed around 25 million years ago. Antarctica was not always cold, dry and covered in ice sheets. At a number of points in its long history it was farther north, experienced a tropical or temperate climate, was covered in forests, and inhabited by various ancient life-forms.