Alright, time for some pictures from Pole!
Here is me taking a selfie after landing. Note the national guardsmen standing with the rope near the propellers. They don't turn them off (due to the extreme cold) so that guy is standing there with a rope so you don't accidentally reenact a scene from Indiana Jones.
And here I turned around to take a picture in front of the main building and station sign. Note that this was at 1 am (not that the time zone is super meaningful at Pole.
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This is another shot of the main building at Pole. This is where everyone sleeps, eats and entertains. There is an Amundsen-style tent in front right now that people could sign up to sleep in (I didn't...).
A view from the other side, where the berthing modules can be seen:
The "arches," basically garages.
The IceCube Lab (or IceCube Counting Lab, in both cases, ICL), in the middle of the IceCube detector. The project I work on is IceCube "adjacent" and we use some of their lab space and server room space in there. I believe it used to be an elevated dorm in the distant past. Those two "silo" towers hold a bunch of cables that go down kilometers into the ice as the IceCube detector. They were clearly designed in Wisconsin. In the foreground you can see a beacon... that's where the skiway crosses the path to ICL.
View from the top of ICL of station (right) and MAPO (left). MAPO used to house the AMANDA experiment and now hosts some iteration of the BICEP telescope. The astute viewer can see the Antarctic Logistics Tourist camp in the far left and the atmospheric sciences building in the background.
The Dark Sector Lab (DSL), which hosts the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and another iteration of the BICEP telescope on the left. MAPO still on the right. A ton of the people on my floor at UChicago work on SPT, so it's funny to run into a bunch of people you know at the South Pole...
Want to go to the South Pole but you're not a scientist and don't want to work as a contractor? Have no fear, for the mere price of 70,000 USD you can stay at the Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions South Pole Camp! About a mile away from station, you can stay in the comfort of a luxury tent. And you're not allowed into the station except to the store to buy souvenirs. We were invited over here for Christmas (no tourists at the time, just the staff). Funny thing is that South Pole Station is on New Zealand Time (since it's supplied via McMurdo via Christchurch), but the ALE camp is on Chile time since it's supplied out of Punta Arenas.
Here is the Ceremonial South Pole. The South Pole version of the bean with a bunch of flags from the original signatories of the Antarctic Treaty:
Here is me on Christmas standing stupidly in front of the Ceremonial Pole. In retrospect, maybe I should have worn a less touristy shirt.
The geographic pole, on the other hand, moves a little bit every year. This is because the ice slides over the Earth slowly. On January 1st, I got to participate in the ceremonial moving of the Pole, where we each got to hold the new pole marker before it was unveiled. Every year, the Geographic Pole gets a new pole marker made by the winterovers. The tourists were also here for this, one of them wanted a picture with me since he thought we looked similar. I should have gotten his contact info... maybe he could fund my experiment. This is the marker this year:
If you did not already surmise, the terrain there is very flat and boring. Here is me driving a pisten bully to one of our detectors (located 6 km from station). The pisten bully is comfortable and hilarious to drive (it's like a video game with a joystick), but the snowmobile is much faster and more exciting (no pictures though...).
Me doing some surgery on one of my detectors. You can see the pisten bully in the back.
A sundog
Unlike McMurdo, you get your own room. My room however was very small
The galley. The food was mostly good, but of course very little in the way of freshies (fresh fruit or vegetables). Christmas dinner was the best... there was prime rib and... SALAD!
And finally, for now at least, I noticed this sad little building on my way out: