After two days of delays we have finally made it to Antarctica! I know our journey was easy compared to the stories I have heard of past travels south but I was so excited to make it to the ice that the whole time I felt like it was the biggest struggle. After all the delays when we got brought in to the

Waiting in line to board the bus to the C-17 at the U.S. Antarctic Program center in Christchurch, NZ

CDC for the second time (Center for Clothing Distribution for the U.S. Antarctic Program) I was trying to not get my hopes up of arriving on continent that day, but no matter the effort I was still day dreaming about what it would feel like when we arrived in Antarctica the whole waiting period. When the Sargent came in and told us it was time to prepare for our pre-departure briefing I was still trying to restrain my excitement, knowing that even if we got on the plane we could be boomeranged back to Christchurch at any point… even if we had already made it to McMurdo airspace. Before I knew it we were all donning our ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear and boarding the bus to the C-17 that would be (hopefully) taking us all the way to McMurdo Station, Antarctica.

As a quick aside, the ECW gear is bulky, warm and makes you feel like a real Antarctic explorer. It includes ‘bunny’ boots which you can see me wearing in the picture below. It takes a little getting used to before you can walk in them at a normal speed and even then you have a bit of what a ‘gangster-like swagger’ to your walk. The jacket is fittingly known as ‘big-red’ – it is super warm and cozy and probably my favorite thing in the collection.

A fellow scientist and new friend Aurora and I up on the flight deck

In preparation for our journey I had spent a lot of time excitedly googling images of what things would look like including the plane ride. Because of that, when I got on the C-17, and it looked exactly like what I had saw in pictures, everything just felt right and it really hit me that 5-6 hours from then I should be stepping foot on the Antarctic ice for the first time in my life. I grabbed a seat up near the front, put in my ear plugs (the planes are not insulated so it is very, very noisy) and prepared for departure. The ride itself was a lot smoother than I was expecting and we even got a brown bag lunch with not one but two sandwiches. There was a small window on the side of the plane you could walk over to during the flight and look out at, once we got over the ice I kept walking over there because I thought it was so cool to watch how the sea ice changed in look the closer we got to McMurdo and there were cool islands and mountain ranges you could see.Towards the end of the flight they started letting us walk up into the flight deck allowing us to see the whole panoramic view of Antarctica. It was totally and completely amazing.

Birds eye view of Antarctica from the flight deck

View out of the side window of the flight deck

Once we were about 20 minutes away everyone had to put on all the ECW gear, and I started to get butterflies I was so excited. Landing on the ice was a different experience entirely, it took a lot longer to slow down and you could feel how much the wheels were skidding on the ice. When the plane finally halted, a Sargent moved over to open the door and I put on my sunglasses and grabbed my camera and bags.

Photo of me walking off the plane and stepping foot on Antarctica for the first time ever

I was lucky to be close enough to the front that I could see the door and I’ll never forget that first view from out of the plane door. I remember seeing the flaggers in the distance without a single inch of skin out, which made total sense to me once I felt what -20 degrees Celsius air feels like. I could barely restrain myself from running to the door I was so excited to step out onto the ice.  When I was walking towards the bus that would take us from the Pegasus landing strip to McMurdo I just kept turning in circles looking at all the mountains and islands against the flat, expansive ice sheet. I felt like it was a hard thing for my brain to take in, the everything and nothingness of it all. I don’t think that has stopped yet, even as I write this I keep pausing to look out the lab window at the sea ice leading up to the Royal Society Mountain Range. Every time I look at it, it looks different. I guess that’s what keeps people coming back here over and over again. It is more majestic than my wildest imagination dreamed.

Photo of the C-17 on the ice

We have embarked on our expedition and taken the short jaunt from Corvallis, Oregon USA to Christchurch, New Zealand.  There are a few routes to get here but we went by way of Sydney, Australia so from departure on the first flight until landing in New Zealand was ~28 hours. While that is a long time, our flights were easy and comfortable and we even caught some sleep.  The time change is 20 hours between NZ and the west coast of the US so we are a bit confused by the day night cycle but its great to be on our way.

Christchurch is always a great place to be.  The botanical garden is among the nicest places to go for a walk with the local birds singing and plants you see few other places.  Plus, having left fall in the northern hemisphere and found spring in the southern hemisphere all the plants are happy and blooming.

Plants are blooming.

After a day of getting fitted with our ECW gear (extreme condition weather gear) we were turned loose on the city to see the sites.  However a scientist is rarely “done” and so part of that was sitting in our hotel rooms catching up on the myriad of work that doesn’t end just because you are not on the same continent that your job is.

Today, (Tuesday NZ time and Monday US time) we checked all of our gear in for the flight and just made the weight cut off. We are allowed (each) 85 lbs of checked luggage so needless to say, I had 85 lbs exactly and Sarah had 84 lbs.  Thankfully they don’t weight our carry on since we both are essentially carrying bricks worth of scientific gear.

Us packing “lightly”

The next part of the day is waiting to take off.  Now if you are used to being on a commercial airline this is a different beast entirely.  We wait for the planes to show up and to get the OK from weather and in many cases this is not a quick processes.  Currently we have been waiting at the terminal for four hours and have been bumped off the fast planes (C-17, C-5, or an Airbus) onto the slow plane (LC-130).  The LC-130 is super cool since it has skis on it but it means instead of a 5 hour flight we are looking at 8 hours.  This also bumps us into a forecast wind event and so might mean we don’t leave at all.  We are just in limbo for the near future and at the moment… Ok – never mind. We just got told we are not flying today.  Now we wait to find out where we are staying tonight and then we repeat tomorrow.  Hopefully with an early flight to the ice but we won’t know that we made it until we land on the ice runway.