12/14/06

There are a lot of diversions down here to keep you busy. In fact most people are heard to complain that they are too busy. I mean we work 60 hours a week and then try to have a social life down here. Between dorm style living (which leads to a lot of random socializing) trying to see/do as much of Antarctica as possible and partaking in the activities that the Recreation department has planed, its hard to keep up. Speaking of what Rec has planned, I became a contestant in the beard growing contest. I entered the beard growing contest, because essentially what you have to do to participate is nothing. I excel at that. I figure that if I may get a prize for doing nothing, why not be involved. In fact there are only 9 contestants and there are supposedly 5 categories (including best overall, thickest heaviest-weighed to the gram, worst and something else) so my odds are pretty good. As I write this in fact, I am doing my darnedest to grow the beard, I only have six weeks left. I also need to start studying for the Geography Bee that Rec is putting on.

God science is boring. I remember all over again how much I hated it in high school, and why I still hate it. It’s boring. I know we (the workers of this station) are here to support science, and I know that when I leave I will be asked by many what science was going on down here. So I try, I try to go to the lectures and be involved in the discussions, but Mr Fargus lost me in 9th grade when he broke out the periodic table and I don’t think I’m coming back. I do know that one of the main projects this year is by a company named Andrill that is taking ice cores from deep within the ice sheets. But I’m not sure what they are trying to discover or prove. I want to want to know, but I don’t care. At least not after I am tired from working so much. Maybe if I attended more lectures (and somehow successfully stayed awake) I could answer friends questions that come in via email. Friends questions like, “do you worry about the increased radiation leading to increased risk of skin cancer, and what do the scientists have to say?” Or comments like, “because of you I watched an interesting documentary the other day about Lake V…… (It starts with a V and was probably named by a Russian, but I can’t quite remember the name) are you anywhere near it. I did go to a science discussion tonight, but mainly because there was said to be a plate of soft cheeses there, and my friend John Jackson (who set the thing up) asked me a million times to come. In the end though, I had to leave early and join the gang in the lounge that watches Sex in the City every Tuesday night. Sex was always much more of interesting topic to me than science.

Before I came down here I was telling people I thought the whole experience would be like that old cliche they say about owning a boat. They say that the best days are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. Well being down here I figured the best days would be the day I arrive and the day I leave. The day I set foot on the continent was a great day, and I really do look forward to the day I leave. Its not that I hate it here, in fact I don’t. But my life is a little too much like the movie Ground Hog’s day. And being a janitor is less than glamorous. Most of us are struggling with motivation, I am not the only janitor in that boat. The novelty of being here has worn off, and we realize we clean up after people 60 hours a week. Morale in the janitorial department is low, and there is a bit of a divide between the Winfly people (winter flight-August arrivals) and the Main body folks (October arrival). All of this I’m sure causes dismay to our manager, an amazingly enthusiastic (about janitoring) woman named Amanda. The catch of course is that Amanda has been in the janitorial arts for 12 years, where as all of us just agreed to clean shit so we could come to Antarctica. By choice we would all do something else. That is not true of all workers on the base, but that’s the story in the janitors world. So we struggle with motivation every day.

We have ourselves one smart continent here. Depending on where you were educated, there are 5 to 7 continents on this planet, but either way, this is the smartest one. It has the highest education level per capita of all the continents. Bare minimum everyone has a high school diploma. But of course there are many more bachelors, masters and PHD’s on top of that. I heard that last year there were more advanced degrees in the dish room than there were on the science teams here. Educated people will do whatever they can to get here. When I was discussing this fact with Casey my roommate, I told him that I had a BA in Geography. He informed me that the average income for geography grads from University of North from the year 1984 is about a million bucks. Michael Jordan was a graduating Geography major that year. So he chose professional basketball, and I went with janitoring. But for all his money, I bet he’s never been to Antarctica
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It sure was quite a weekend, there was a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. For starters, we had two days off in a row, which was amazing. I never knew how precious two day weekends were until I came here and they were gone. With only one day off you are torn between doing something fun or recreational and resting. Your body feels like resting, but your mind tells you that you came down here to do more than work, sleep, eat and shit (listed in order of the amount of time spent doing them) . Anyway with two days that dilemma is solved as you can go do something fun one day, and rest it off the next.
So what did I do that was fun? I hiked the longest recreational hike we have the option to do. I set out Saturday morning with Jesse and Travis (three janitors out to conquer the continent) on the 8.5 mile loop that takes us past Castle Rock and around to the Kiwi’s Scott base, then back to McMurdo. Until the day before we did the hike you were allowed to climb castle rock (which seems out of place, more like it should be in the SW of the US) as well, but they closed it until further notice. After all it was bringing folks some joy, so they had to nip that in the bud. Well actually it was probably a good idea, because I heard it was quite precarious to ascend, and many were surprised that it remained open so long. So in theory it will reopen after they secure the route to the top. But for now we had to just walk by the base of it.
The hardest part of the hike is not officially part of the hike as it is the steep hill out the back of town to get to the trail head. But before we left we had to go to the computer kiosk and file an e-foot plan. That is the way they keep track of us, so we don’t go wandering off into the big white, never to be seen again. We are supposed to log the hike we plan to do, who is going, and how long we suspect it will take us. If we are even 5 minutes late they start the process of looking for us. Of course we do have to carry a radio (from the firehouse) so if we are going to be late we have to call to extend our ETA. It is actually a good thing, and keeps us all safe. You don’t have to file a foot plan or carry a radio for some of the shorter hikes, but for this one you do. When you hit the trail head it is then a 3 mile gradual ascent to Castle Rock, marked by flags. Red and Green mark the trail and black mean danger, don’t come near, probably a crevase. Of course that is one of the major fears of walking on snow/ice/glacier is that you will walk over a crevase and fall in. So we stick to routes that have been already explored and flagged.

It took us about four hours to do the loop around to Scott Base, and it is probably the longest period in my life that I have been out in that sort of weather. It was about 30 F, but probably around 10 with the wind chill. So relatively warm for here, but still really really cold for a California boy that doesn’t really like wearing too many clothes. Actually that is tough and makes hiking seem harder to me. I prefer to hike in the SW of the US in 85 degree heat with Tevas, shorts and no shirt, and hop in a lake or river to top it off. But being all bundled up in big red, goggles, balaclava, neck warmer, gloves, insulated overalls, long johns, boots and thick socks is very cumbersome. Especially because the goggles often fog up, and it limits your visibility even more, and increases the clastrophobic feeling that is odd, considering the wide expanse of nothingness you are in. But the goggles have to stay on, for fear of snow blindness, which is similar to sunburning of the eyes I am told, not fun.

So we almost made the whole loop back to Scott base. In fact flagged down a shuttle about 300 yards from Scott base, but we were tired (8.5 uphill (seemed like both ways) in the snow is tiring) and had Thanksgiving dinner on the brain. We were lucky to flag down a ride actually because although the last 1.5 miles to Mcmurdo from Scott base is a road, it is still quite hilly. The driver teased us that we had not completed the loop, because we were a few 100 yards short, but the three of us were satisfied.