South Pole Departure

Well, our first flight attempt out of here was yesterday. The plane took off from McMurdo heading for Pole, turned around and landed. They had a cracked windshield, possibly caused by a bird strike on takeoff. Penguins don't fly, so that was probably a skua.

This morning the flight was canceled due to bad weather in McMurdo. But there's a new scheduled flight for dinner time tonight that might work!

Once I'm back to the land of reliable internet, will post pictures from the last few days. And answer the last batch of questions I got. Look for that soon!

I did want to link two excellent articles from the New York Times for the Amundsen 100th anniversary of the achievement of the Pole which also highlight the modern Antarctica. Article and editorial.

Expeditions to Pole for this 100th anniversary season

For the 100th anniversary of the Amundsen and Scott expedition race to the South Pole.

Also found this specific to Norwegian commemorations of the 100th anniversary.


Here's some notes from an NSF person pulling together items for the anniversary.

There's a British Army effort in honor of Scott's failed expedition.

And a Norwegian Expedition currently enroute towards the Pole.