2017-18 Aerial Photos--January 2018

A higher altitude view of the elevated station, showing the backyard and the skiway as well.

Here's a different view looking more southeast...showing the summer camp and berms. This season, more of the summer camp Jamesways were converted into storage or workshops, and the major berm digout/cleanup effort continued. (USAP Photo Library link to original.)

From the same angle, but a bit closer in. There is a LOT of activity going on behind the station!

A higher altitude view, showing more of the snowy wasteland beyond the End of the World. Note the open steel frame structure visible in the upper left center--that is being used to create new ice tunnel escape raises as well as to allow removal of snow carved from the tunnel walls and roof. At left center you can see evidence of snow removal from above the buried arches, using the new snow blower and other equipment.

Looking east from the Destination Alpha end of the station. At the upper right end of where snow has been removed from the LO arch...is the location of the new 2018 Pole marker--almost on top of the arch and close to the air vents on the upwind end. Also note...someone in Big Red is on the roof of the B2 science lab. (USAP Photo Library link to original.)

Another view from a slightly different angle...hmm, that person is still on the science lab roof. And the drift in front of the station is being dozed away.

Back around toward the upwind end of the station, with a backhoe working (USAP Photo Library link to original.).

Looking upwind at the back of the station and the backyard. In the far background from left to right: DSL/SPT, MAPO w/Spud/Keck, the tourist camp, and ARO. (USAP Photo Library link to original.)

Looking upwind again, this time a bit closer in. In the center, the snow hauler trailer is being loaded. Oh yeah, there's another Twin Otter on deck.

Looking northwest, wing A1 is in front. My room during my 2005 and 2008 winters was A1-105. the fourth window from the right on the first floor. Good friend Dana Hrubes was next door to me in 103, from where he'd control the South Pole Telescope. Hmmm, in this photo there are two people on the B2 roof and two more on the B1 roof (!) (USAP Photo Library link to original.)

A view looking east, perhaps as the aircraft is heading toward the dark sector. Someone is still on the station roof. (USAP Photo Library link to original.)

Heading into the Dark Sector, here's DSL with the South Pole Telescope at right and the BICEP3 instrument at left on the roof of DSL. Oh...the structures "are" pretty much level, but the ramp does slope as the two structures have different foundations.

MAPO...with the SPUD instrument on the roof. Astronomer Robert Schwarz and machinist Steele Diggles will be hanging out here again this winter. To its left is the Building 61 substation and emergency generator structure.

The tourist camp...operated by ALE (website). People who have paid in the upper figures ($) to fly here get to sleep in those tents; people who got here under their own power paid even more.

Here's a view of the photo mission aircraft from the roof of the elevated station, with the Dark Sector in the background.

A parting shot, as it were--a look at the station looking south from several miles away...something you
might see if you were flying to McMurdo, well, if the aircraft you were on had a large rear window.