T minus 4 days

So all my flights and hotels have been booked through my companies travel department, travel documents collected, and itineraries confirmed with the people I am meeting at various locations to conduct business.  Next Tuesday I start my journey to highest, driest, coldest, windiest, most isolated place on earth, the South Pole.  Some may argue if it is truly all those things,  I can neither confirm or deny it.  Its a large banner in my office, and it sounds good.  I think the trip overall should be fun, though busy.  Tuesday my co-worker and I leave Denver to go to LA.  From there we'll rent a car and drive to Port Hueneme, CA.  I was hoping to drive up the pacific coast highway and get some nice views and photos, but I think its going to be dark by the time I get my luggage, etc.  Maybe I'll luck out and get some nice pacific sunsets.

Thursday we then drive back to LA, and begin our long flight to the southern hemisphere.  We'll arrive at Auckland, NZ and then take a connection to the south island, and the city of Christchurch.  The day after we arrive, we'll be issued all of our ECW (extreme cold weather) gear, and the day after that, we board a C-17 for the flight to McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica.  Provided all goes well, we won't "boomerang" back to NZ.  That typically happens if conditions become to difficult to land at McMurdo.  Once there we'll spend a little over a week doing some work, and then prepare for our flight to the South Pole on an LC-130.   Spend just under a week there, and then begin the journey back to Christchurch.  Once we're back at Christchurch, we spend a few days going over their computer systems.  Currently I'm scheduled to arrive home on Christmas eve, but I hope to be able to catch an earlier flight home.

I'm seriously procrastinating on the packing side of things.  I've decided that I'm just going to pack one of my hiking backpacks.  The tricky part is having to pack clothes for New Zealand (it's their summer) and also for the cold of Antarctica.  Typically temps at McMurdo are from the 20-40 degree F range, but I should expect highs to be -20 at South Pole, and that's being optimistic.   At the time of this writing its currently -37.5 F with a windchill of -59.5 F.  You can get updates for South Pole weather here, or here.  Currently, McMurdo has a temp of 17.6 F.  Weather info here, and here.  I've been thinking of bringing some of my hiking gear and trying to go for a quick overnight hiking trip while in New Zealand.  We'll see how things work out.  It will likely depend on how much I pack.

I'll be Internet connected for most of the trip, though South Pole only has a 9 hour period of satellite connectivity each day.  I should be able to make frequent updates here though, and I hope to post a bunch of pictures to share with everyone.  Unlike my last trip though, I won't be renting a big huge expensive lens to take with me.  I don't think the photo opportunities will present themselves like they did at Palmer station.  I also need a good excuse to practice getting better with the equipment that I have, rather being frustrated not having the equipment I want.

So a little update on the Alpine Rescue Team thing, I went to one of the 2 prospective member meetings last Monday.  The other meeting is being held while I'm deployed.  31 new people attended that meeting alone.  Wow!  There's only 8-12 slots open and they haven't even had the other meeting yet.  Makes me kind of nervous.  I've been going to trainings, and trying to meet people and show interest, ever since I found out about them.  Hopefully that relationship building will help out a little.  I turned my application in (I was the first one), and will have first pick of interview times.  First come first serve.  Turns out that the person in charge of the perspective member stuff actually spent a season in Antarctica as well.  Maybe that will help too :)  They aren't necessarily looking for people with all kinds of mad skills, but more for people who have the time and are willing to give it to the team.  So I filled out the application trying to emphasize that my past experience have shown my commitment to those teams, and that I'm willing to provide the same kind of commitment to this one too.  We'll see.  Interviews will be January 11-13th.

So with that, it's likely that the next time I post, I'll be in California, so until then, cheers!