More South Pole Sites

One view of the 2006 w/o's (more)

Winter 2020   Allen Foster was was one of the South Pole Telescope winterovers..he finally left Pole in late December 2020 and got home in the DC area on Christmas Eve. Here's his home page, with links to photos and his blog. Nathan Precup was the 2020 BICEP Array winterover...he didn't leave Pole until late January 2021. Here's his home page, with links to photos and his blog. Summer 2019-20   Jocelyn Argueta, an educational theater performer in Santa Ana, CA (aka Jargie the Science Girl) worked with the IceCube (and Askaryan Radio Array (ARA)) folks in November and December 2019. She has some great stories and photos! Sarah Slack, a middle school teacher in New York City was part of the 26 January-26 March Thwaites Offshore Research (ThOR) project, an international undertaking aboard the Nathaniel B. Palmer in the Amundsen Sea. Things got complicated due to the COVID pandemic as well as a medevac which required a diversion to Rothera. Oh, there was also a Rolling Stone reporter aboard! Winter 2019   Robert Schwarz was back for the last time...his 15th winter! Lots of photos and video! Winter 2018   Raffaela Busse a German, is one of the 2018 IceCube winterovers. She's got a great blog going here with lots of photos and info...and she WON the Race around the World! Robert Schwarz... ...yet again for winter number 14! And the great winter aurora (and other stuff) videos are on his Vimeo site! Zeke Mills the 2018 food services supervisor, started this great blog here. He's the 1536th person to winter at Pole, and he and the rest of the galley folks created an awesome sunset dinner spread! Summer 2017-18   Sayer Houseal is a carpenter friend who has spent the past 3 summer seasons at Pole. This blog (which he started in 2011!) features lots of stuff he's been doing in the off seasons--I'm kicking myself that I didn't find this before. Sayer is the third Houseal to work on the ice...his uncle John worked a few months at Palmer Station in 1993, and earlier, his father's first cousin Matt was the wo physician at Pole in 1991 after spending the 1990-91 summer at Palmer. Sadly, Matt was killed in Baghdad in 2009. Oh...he was back in McMurdo in 2020-21 which is where the latest blog posts will take you. Lesley Anderson is a high school teacher in Chula Vista, CA, who with PolarTrec is working with the IceCube and ARA projects in December through early January. Follow as she describes the hole drilling and other stuff! Brad Benson is one of the senior South Pole Telescope investigators...he's back at Pole with a fairly large team. This year the big project is to change out the detectors on the focal plane with ones more optimally tuned...as well as other checks, tests, and maintenance. Excellent coverage here! Kelly Brunt is a NASA scientist...friend...and the principal investigator on a new 4-year traverse project to capture detailed GPS data and install lidar reflectors to validate ICESat-2 satellite data. The team--which includes friends Tom Neumann (scientist) and mountaineer Forrest McCarthy as well as mechanic Chad Seay, are on a 2-3 week traverse 145 miles north to 87.9ºS and then 190 miles west along that parallel before returning to Pole. Not many posts while they're underway...but here's the NASA blog about what they were doing! And...they'll be BAAAACK! Winter 2017   Sarah and Brett Baddorf ...a married couple, have settled in for the winter and started posting on this Baddorf family blog. Sarah is the winterover physician, and Brett is working in materials. Good stuff! Robert Schwarz... ...yes. Lucky winter #13!! James Casey is one of the two 2016-17 IceCube winterovers. He's got a great blog here with great photos and info. Eileen Sheehan one of the materials folks, started this great blog in June. Lots of tales and photos about the station and what she's been up to! Dave Riebel is the NOAA technician, one of the two people holding down the fort at ARO this winter. Oh yes, I can say he's a good guy as I actually got to meet him in October in Denver as some of the Polies were gathering for training. Have a look! Brian Vacha (archive site) was the summer/winter plumber. He has this excellent blog with many photos from his time in NZ on the way down, as well as more recent stuff, such as the ongoing project to replace the waste piping with PVC. Adam West is one of the station science techs this summer/winter. He's involved with many projects including a couple that will get him a fair distance away from the station. And he's also involved with the greenhouse. Follow along! Summer 2016-17   The South Pole Telescope (SPT) received a major upgrade this summer--its 3rd-generation camera (named appropriately SPT3-g), so a large team of folks were working on putting it together. One of these is Matt Dobbs, a professor at McGill University in Montréal, who has an extensive blog here. Looks like he's a serious runner! Also there was friend Brad Benson from the University of Chicago, who has been updating his blog. And another SPT person, Kyle Story, was back as well...to work on this project after two years away. He's a really serious runner--he won the South Pole Marathon held on 7 January! Amy Bender is also back at skipping one year...between all of these folks there is lots of good coverage of the new SPT-3g receiver installation. PolarTREC again sent teachers to the ice to work with researchers this summer, and they posted daily on what they've been up to. Two of interest are: Eric Thuma of Rochester, Michigan, was working with the Bartol/University of Delaware cosray folks on the second year of the two-year project to relocate the McMurdo cosray (neutron monitor) project to the Korean station Jang Bogo. Cosray has been the longest-running (56 years) USAP project. Kate Miller of Arlington, Virginia, was working with the IceCube team to update and maintain their massive buried neutrino detector. Of special outreach interest...Kate put together an extensive 20-minute YouTube video tour of the station, as well as a separate seven-minute tour of the IceCube laboratory. Available here... Winter 2016   Alex Teixeira was the 2016 preventative maintenance foreman...he started this new blog in preparation for his flight south in January...follow along! Hamish Wright was the 2016 winter physician...and a Kiwi! As such his blog is a great perspective on the American station and the weird American customs of the place, from the vantage point of a New Zealander...well worth following! Hannah McAllister one of the materials folks, had this appropriately titled "100 below zero" blog...lots of great info and photos from her...as well as from Max Peters! Amy Lowitz was one of the two South Pole Telescope folks this winter...her blog, titled "weblogarythms" challenges us to figure out how she numbers her blog posts...and contains some great stories and photos. Lindsey Clark was at Pole in 2014-15 as well as 2015-16, and was blogging well before that...but then she wintered in materials...discussing work, fun, drills, the medevac, and...well, that's winter at Pole. Enjoy! Oh...this link takes you to her most recent blog posts...she was at Palmer in 2019-20! Robert Schwarz ...yes, that amazing German was back for winter #12. And posting... Refael Klein the 2016 NOAA officer, posted this a blog on this page hosted by the Voice of America. His South Pole assignment was certainly "cooler" than his last post on American Samoa. Follow along! Summer 2015-16   Benzo (Benjamin) Harris a carpenter apprentice from Maine, put up a couple of blog posts at the beginning of summer...shoveling snow...what else is new? Winter 2015   Jeremy Bloyd-Peshkin was a mechanic helper for the summer...his first trip to Pole. But he scored a winter position in materials. Oh...he came highly recommended by friend David "Pablo" Cohn who of course was at Pole in 2010-11. Check out Jeremy's blog! Yes, Robert Schwarz ...was back for winter #11! Summer 2014-15   Maddy McKenna was a first-time met person for the summer. Here's her fun and informative blog about the place, the work, and the fun times...and her post-deployment adventures in New Zealand!. Jase Grimm was one of the cooks for the 2012 winter. He's done a bunch of stuff since then, but now he's returned for the 2014-15 summer...sharing his perspective on the local cuisine, the locals, and...whatever. Armando Caussade a teacher from San Juan, Puerto Rico, spent time in January working with the IceCube (and ARA) folks, as part of the PolarTREC program. And that of course included daily blogs and information in English and Spanish. Check him out... Winter 2014   Robert Citron was one of the guys running that massive South Pole Telescope (SPT) this winter...lots of great photos and discussion here in his "This Week in Pole" blog. And, Nicholas Huang was the other SPT winterover...check out his "frozen nose" blog here. Joe Phillips was the 2014 w/o NOAA officer...he does post some photos on Facebook but his better copyrighted ones are here! Ian Rees was one of the two IceCube winterovers, I got to meet him when he was in Denver for fire school. Follow along! And of course we have that indefatigable German, Robert Schwarz ...who was back for his tenth winter. Lots of photos! Summer 2013-14   Dave Glowacki was back again for the first part of the summer with IceCube; he has been down most seasons since 2006-07, all of which are well documented here. Winter 2013   Weeks Heist was back for his fourth winter, this time as WSM. He continues to post lots of photos of Pole as well as from his post-winter travels on this page! Robert Schwarz Yes, the famous German astronomer was back for his winter #9! Dana Hrubes after a year off back in Rhode Island, has returned for his seventh winter, once again keeping the South Pole Telescope (SPT) humming. He posts monthly reports here! Marie Mclane spent the summer working at Byrd Surface Camp and was the winter waste person...follow along with her AntarcticArctic blog...which more recently describes her experiences managing Summit Camp in Greenland. Felipe Pedreros one of the 2013 IceCube winterovers, was the first Chilean to winter. He's previously worked at the QUIET observatory site in the Atacama Desert, 5000m altitude...just a bit higher than Pole. He also posted this blog, DestinoPoloSur (in Spanish) with lots of pictures! Blaise Kuotiong is the other IceCube winterover...he was originally from the Philippines; the first Polie winterover from there! He put up blog posts and photos...as well as this alternative take on the South Pole experience. Summer 2012-13   Jeffrey Donenfeld was a summer production cook...he arrived at Pole less than 3 weeks after being hired! Not that he hadn't been trying for awhile...after checking out his current blog, have a look at this post from October where he describes his efforts to get hired over the past 4 years. Which panned out less than a month later. So be inspired! Birgit Hassler is a Boulder NOAA person...she had a brief trip to Pole in December 2012 to deal with some ozone measuring stuff. She has a good description of going to Pole for the first time...what she expected, and how it turned out. Highly recommended for others who will be doing that. Liz Ratzliff is a math teacher at Gaston (NC) Day School...as well as an electrical engineer. She spent 3 weeks at Pole in December working with IceCube (and ARA) as part of the PolarTrec program. You can follow along here. Here's an archived article from the Gaston (NC) Gazette about her venture. Brad Benson was back again this season...blogging about the latest SPT receiver upgrades, the latest new ground shield extension, and other goings-on around station. The SPT was also documented on... the South Pole Telescope Blog which included more details of the summer activities as well as a list of the latest scientific papers. Winter 2012   Cynthia Chiang (archive site) wintered with the South Pole Telescope...as she did during her previous Pole summers she has this amazingly prolific photo page! Robert Schwarz returned for winter #8, again with the Keck Array project. Enjoy! Dale Molé aka the South Pole Doc, or otherwise known as the physician. He put up this fine blog about the station and some of the stuff he's been involved in. Kathleen DeWahl was the last w/o cryo tech. In addition to keeping Steff's BICEP2 telescope well supplied with liquid helium, she watched a few other science projects and was a member of the medical team. She blogged about all of that and other stuff here! Carlos Pobes (archive site) the second person from Spain to winter, watching the IceCube project, put together an extremely intense web site and blog (mostly in Spanish) as well as significant outreach. He's continued his blogging activities since then, the more current stuff is here. Ethan Good was back again as one of the science techs for his third winter. He had rather busy summer as he was the only science tech for a time...a good guy that I wintered with in 2008. Now he's up for the next NASA astronaut selection process. I wish him luck! Summer 2011-12   Carla Appel previously wintered at Palmer and has also worked IT at Pole before...she was back this summer and continues this excellent blog...as well as this photo gallery! Kiell and Daniel (archive blog site) are a couple from Minnesota who were back working at Pole again this summer...great blog of current events as well as their travels and experiences last season. Kristina Albrecht was a summer comms person...watching out those windows at the aircraft and keeping tabs on the crossing beacon! AntarcticArctic is a new blog by Marie Mclane, a summer cargo person who's previously worked at Summit... Antarctic Cowboy, (archive site) was one of the cooks during winter 2010...he is NOT at Pole this season but rather he was cooking at the WAIS Divide field camp. Turns out they had enough internet bandwidth for him to post a prolific collection of pictures and stuff here...follow along! Or scroll back...previously he worked at the Toolik field camp in northern Alaska...earlier in the Caribbean... the South Pole Telescope Blog is back up for the rest of the summer...describing what's going on...installing the "guard ring," some reinforcement for the outer edge of the dish...and astrophysicist friend Bradford Benson showed up in early December to work on stuff...like the new polarization camera...and blog about it extensively here! Mikey Going Down is, well, Mikey. One of the summer cooks. His tumblr blog theme is "minimalist," so let's just say this blog is, well, that, and eclectic. I liked it. Hence the link here. Enjoy. Winter 2011   Dana Hrubes was back again for his SIXTH winter keeping track of the SPT. He kept a monthly report of winter stuff here. The SPT folks have produced an incredible number of papers of late, and astute Polies will recognize many familiar names and friends among the various lists of authors. Robert Schwarz yes, the iceman, was back for his seventh winter, this time with the Keck Array project, another submillimeter telescope, this one mounted on the MAPO DASI mount. Where Robert stashed all of his stuff after his 2007 winter. Stay tuned... Freija Descamps (archive site) is one of the two IceCube winterovers. Keeping with the international flavor of the dark sector, she's from Belgium, and she had this excellent blog! Jen's Blog is the work of the other Ice Cuber, Jens Dreyer. He's from Germany...so his blog has been in German...until now! He has how included translations...and aurora pics... The Adventures of Marco Polie is the amazing blog by CUSP/space weather tech Marco Tortonese! As I've been a serious South Pole runner, I am seriously impressed by his exploits on the skiway and elsewhere. Karen Grace Clark Grace, one of the materials folks, has this good blog here... Christine Schultz was the lead NOAA officer for the 2010-11 summer/winter...she is working with veteran Johan during the winter. She started this interesting "all signs point north" blog during the summer. Summer 2010-2011   Holly Gingles, a Canadian materials person, went to McMurdo on Winfly, and her season included several weeks at Pole. With the help of her brother back home, she put together a fine series of 23 videos (and a trailer) of her summer life. Pole features include a station tour and an excellent documentary of the first marathon. She's back on the ice in 2011-12. Michelle Springer a summer cargo person. has a great blog with pictures. She wintered as a cargo person at McM... David "Pablo" Cohn was a new guy, the summer help desk person on temporary leave from Silicon Valley. He's got an extremely prolific blog here, lots of pictures, videos, and other stuff well worth a look! Oh, and if the blog isn't enough, he gave an amazing 54-minute tech talk at Google (his usual employer) in March 2011! Katey Shirey a high school physics teacher in Arlington, VA, was working this summer through mid-December with the IceCube team as part of the PolarTrec teacher collaboration. She posted pictures and stories on this page. South Pole winter 2010!   Dana Hrubes ...a rocket scientist, professional engineer, and good friend, was back for his 5th winter, once again keeping the South Pole Telescope (SPT) humming and generating lots and lots of cutting-edge science. Ella Derbyshire physician, was back for her second consecutive winter. And she added to her collection of Antarctic Gigapan photos (these are huge panoramas stitched together from many individual pictures. Enjoy! Chuck Reaves the safety guy, ran this rather informative blog with lots of pictures from here and there... Ethan Good one of the science techs, a fire team leader, fine musician, and friend from the 2008 winter, returned for the 2009-10 summer/winter. He continues to share his vivifying adventures on this blog. At the beginning of the winter he shared this list of links to the various science projects he was involved with...more cutting edge stuff! Shaun Meehan was back for another winter in the comms shop. In 2008 he was only 19, the second youngest Polie winterover in history, and an incredibly energetic and intelligent guy! Give him much love... Antarctic Cowboy, (archive site) otherwise known as Cody Meyer, was one of the most important people on station, a cook. I like to eat, and I really like his incredible food pictures as well as other station documentation! He was incredibly prolific! Nick Morgan was the summer/winter NOAA officer, who posted blog entries here on the Exploratorium's Ice Stories pages. He's put up some great stories, including that video interview with the outgoing 2008 winter guy Marc Weekley. This excellent section of the San Francisco Exploratorium's site follows a number of polar workers and explorers in both the Arctic and Antarctic. 2009-10 summer!   IceCube! A couple of great sites with blogs...first, one from the University of Delaware group which is heavily involved in IceTop, the surface tanks which accompany each drill string. This blog is active from 1 to 18 December. And now the IceCube team from Wisconsin also had a public blog (archive site) for the summer written by Laura Gladstone and Laurel Bacque. South Polack Dave Glowacki returned again in the second part of the season to work with IceCube drilling and data acquisition software Brad Benson astrophysics postdoc from the University of Chicago, returned for his fourth season of work with SPT, doing some of the delicate telescope rework as well as some less delicate activity--replacing the heavy batteries in the huge load leveler. Casey O'Hara is a physics and science teacher at Carlmont High School in Belmont, California. He spent the first half of the summer working with IceCube as part of the PolarTREC program...he posted journal entries (here) and corresponded with his classes back home. PolarTREC is another great resource which arranges for teachers to spend times with polar researchers. winter 2009... was a great group...including: Ella Derbyshire the winter physician, who brought an amazing collection of camera equipment along, enabling her to put together some huge panoramas stitching 30, 40 or more images together. She has some great coverage of some of the NGA expedition arrivals, as well as the winter carpenters putting the cladding on the A1 roof. Captain Splash on Ice is NOAA lead Marc Weekley, who had a good blog here, with photos of NOAA doings, Sunset and ANZAC Day ceremonies, and lots of other Pole goings-on, on both sides of the skiway! Patrick Cullis, Cully or Calvinball, is Patrick Cullis, the other NOAA guy in the 2009 winter. In 2010 he was back in Colorado with NOAA, where he is still working in the Boulder office. This is his photography web site, he has a lot of excellent work, hopefully more of it will appear here soon. His blog has moved on to current Colorado stuff. Jeremy Johnson was the work order scheduler, which means he had to keep track of all of those MAPCON charge numbers and send out those cat pictures when the time cards were late. And when he was not doing that, he put up some great writing and photography here. Harriet's Tomato really is Michele Gentille, who was the winter head chef. This blog is actually some fairly serious professional cooking stuff with a bit of South Pole on the side. It is important to know that the tradition of excellent food at Pole has continued from my first winterover through the present! Krissie Shiroma was one of the w/o weather team, she has a good met friend back in the Quad Cities (Davenport - Bettendorf Iowa/Rock Island - Moline Illinois) who put up her blog here. Krissie is good people. Nathan Greenland was the "freeze dried engineer" who arrived at summer's end to deal with DDC and air balance, winter construction, punch list, and all that stuff--yes, he had the job I had in 2008. Weeks Heist the facilities engineer who returned for a second winter in a row...one of only 4 2009 folks who spent the night here before. This is his huge photo collection including his current ongoing world travels in 2010, Antarctic stuff, and Appalachian Trail among other things. 2008-09 summer...   South Polack is another IceCuber Dave Glowacki who also showed up for the second half of the summer...as he did in 2006-07. Brad Benson an astrophysicist, was down for his third summer of work on the South Pole Telescope...which he finds time to describe here, among other things Polie. I met him again in Christchurch on 3 December just before he flew south. Cynthia Chiang was back again to help with the disassembly of BICEP...she started this year's site off with some pictures of fellow 2008 winterovers. Yes, I met her again in Christchurch as well. Evan Brost was a summer cargo person, but this wasn't his first season on the ice. He started off finding poetic beauty in his Jamesway room... Yuki Takahashi was also back to help finish up the BICEP I project...and I met him again at Pole. Austin Lewis was a summer GA...he finished up a West Coast cycling trip (all the way from Vancouver BC to Mexico) just before heading to the ice. 2008...of course!   Steffen Richter (archive site) was back for his sixth winter, his second with BICEP, and he's got a great blog with lots of pictures...the kite stuff...yours truly, oh, he was my next door neighbor. Dana Hrubes happened to be my other neighbor on the dome side of A1 first floor, as he was in 2005. For his fourth winter, he was here with Chicago this time...working on that famous South Pole Telescope. Keith Vanderlinde our Canadian PhD cosmologist for the winter, was working with Dana to keep that telescope humming, greased, and properly pointed...and he's got an excellent blog going here... Weeks Heist is the other engineer, a good guy hired about the same time as me, we both spent a few days together in the Denver office at the end of January. He has an extensive photo album from Pole and all over--including his 2000+ mile Appalachian Trail hike a few years ago. Shaun Meehan our winterover comms tech, who has a great story of how he ended up here for the winter at the last minute... Heidi Lim STILL known as "homeless Heidi." She was back in Medical this year for yet another record--the first woman with FIVE winters...she's got a great blog and she made great snacks to accompany our watching of the Sunday afternoon cooking TV shows...after a bit of travel she and Michael are headed for New York State where Michael will be studying at the CIA (no, not that one, but the Culinary Institute of America!) Ethan Good was the w/o CUSP tech, taking over from Jason Stauchy, who took over from Dana. In between walking around to all of those farflung science projects and drecting fire team 2, he put up this blog, and yes, there are vivifying photos too. Ethan G is NOT to be confused with Ethan Dicks who was back for another winter with IceCube, his fifth on the ice and his third at Pole. Tim... was a w/o 2008 power plant guy, not to mention one of our many musicians...he quickly saw the advantages of turning a traditional website into this prolific blog. Follow along with his tales and photos from the frozen desert... Nathan Bahls was back for another season at Pole with a winter this time. When I met him he was doing IT stuff, this time he was a summer cargoid before reverting to a w/o IT job. A great blog with lots and lots of photo pages. 2007-08 Summer folks, many of whom I met...   Henry Malmgren present IT manager and 2004 w/o, just got interviewed extensively by Computerworld. Along with a photo gallery from 2004 and now. And of course this got picked up by Slashdot. Glenn Grant was back for the summer, filling in again as the aurora science tech, well, he left, but we DIDN'T have a winter aurora science tech. Hmmm.... Glenn's site now includes an excellent photo gallery from his many years on the ice. BICEP folks from Cal Tech were back...to prepare things for the third and final year of obs...of course including repeat w/o Steffen Richter, who has put up some new amazing panoramas. Also here for the summer were 2006 w/o Denis Barkats, Yuki Takahashi...(his home page), and Cynthia Chiang who arrived in mid-January for the end of the summer. the South Pole telescope has this project web site with detailed information about the experiment...unfortunately the blog is empty for now, but another blogs by group member Bradford Benson is still around. Darryn Schneider 2000 w/o, Aussie, and more recently the IceCube computer guru, was back for the first half of the summer, this site features a great blog and link to his newsletters, not to mention some great history, including what must be the most extensive Wilkes Station history, timeline, and photo collection! 2007   Heidi Lim otherwise known as "homeless Heidi." Well, she had a home in Medical for the third winter in a row. Yes, Heidi has set a record...the first woman with FOUR winters. Robert Schwarz well, what did you expect? He was in in his sixth winter, a new record! Follow along, yes there are new pictures and a new guestbook! Have you had your milk today? Steffen Richter --that's right, he wintered with BICEP this time. Check out the updated site with photos, panoramas, kiting stuff etc. Cooking south again... ...is Michael Rehm...seems that Stephen Colbert wasn't done with him yet. Laura Rip was the winterover engineer...stuck with keeping the DDC up to snuff among other things. In her spare time she designed the 2008 Pole marker. Follow along with her blog. Stauch Blog (website http://www.stauchy.net/blog/may be infected) is but one prolific portion of the adventures of Lynette and Jason Stauch...Lynette was the safety person, and Jason was one of the science techs dealing with what used to be in the CUSP lab. They have lots of pictures here too.... 2006-07 Well, that summer is long over, but left over from that is...   the South Pole telescope which had updates and photos here. BICEP again has a prolific group of web sites, including returning veterans Cynthia Chiang (lots of good captioned pictures), as well as Yuki Takahashi (good pictures here too!) Glenn Grant is a science tech friend who has spent lots of time (and winters) on the ice, mostly at Palmer and Mactown. But he spent this past summer at Pole, filling in for Neal in the aurora tech business. This excellent photo site is documentation of what he's been up to over the years. Darryn Schneider the Aussie 2000 AMANDA w/o and more recent IceCube IT guru, put up this fine 2006-07 diary.... Stephanie Eide aummer cook, has this excellent eclectic blog with writings and photos that I somehow forgot to mention sooner--sorry Steph! John Jacobsen made his sixth summer venture to Pole, again with the IceCube data acquisition team. This is his latest blog with links to the earlier ones as well as his excellent photography. 2006   Brien Barnett was back for a second winter in a row, this time in the cargo business. He's got a great blog going this winter, as well as a fast-growing gallery including 200+ photos from this winter. Robert Schwarz that German astronomer, returned yet again for winter number five, again with QUaD. He revamped his web site address and that means even more pictures. Cheers! Greg's front porch... belongs to comms guy Greg Watson. Not to be missed is his video presentation of the grand opening of the Dodgy Bastard bar, photo coverage of the spring Berms golf tournament, and other photos and emails... Homeless Heidi otherwise known as Heidi Lim, the physician's assistant here for her third w/o, has only ventured into the blogosphere toward the end of winter, with some prolific journalism. Welcome her! Michael Rehm ...another cook with a great blog and a study on what the winter can do to you... Erik Kawasaki network engineer, put up this fine blog, for some reason with lots of pictures of food (?) ever do oiled eggs? Ethan Dicks was back for another winter, this time to deal with IceCube and all those new strings as well as the old ones...string along! Patrick McClure was the 2004-05 summer helpdesk guy...he returned for the full 2005-06 summer/winter. He has now posted links to many of those neat WHIFF film festival videos...not to be missed. A few summer 2005-06 folks...for some reason the BICEP folks were prolific with words and pictures:   Cynthia Chiang is the "physics chick" from Berkeley who spent the summer at Pole putting up BICEP and documenting stuff with great photos and video here. Brian Keating is another BICEP guy who visited in December. Evan Bierman is, yes, ANOTHER BICEP person with lots of pictures here. Neil Miller a RPSC engineer I worked with, put up this excellent blog...climbing photos...wonder if he let his hair grow back... Robert Friedman a University of Chicago grad student, came down to work on QUaD...he has a good virtual tour, a discussion of the QUaD telescope, and another identity with photos, one angry South Pole elf. Off Yonder is GA Cameron Martindell, with this illustrated blog...from on-the-job snow shoveling to digging out the entrance to that buried aircraft (917) a mile from the end of the skiway...this is the Antarctic section of his prolific site. 2005   Bill Spindler Yes, I was at Pole for the 2005 winter...now I've been away a couple months and just got reunited with my computer....hang on! Bert's South Pole Page Robert Schwarz was at Pole for winter #4 and soon will return for #5. Last winter he was working on the QUaD telescope project (a new CMBR instrument installed on the DASI mount at MAPO). His site is better than ever, with lots of excellent pictures from all of his time at Pole. This is the updated link . Steffen Richter another German here for winter #4, working on AMANDA/IceCube, he updated his site with photos from IceCube and elswhere, including some amazing kite aerial photography (KAP) David Bates inscrutable comms tech, is now working on Kwaj...great pictures here of his wife and lovely daughter! Dana Hrubes was also back from last year, holding down the CUSP lab and his various other science projects, which let him know to let us know when good auroras are up. His site is back too! Brien Barnett had a successful summer with the Sun in McMurdo....but at the last minute he succumbed to a winter job opening in the Pole galley. His blog is gone, he is now married and living in Poland. Patrick McClure was the summer helpdesk guy...he has an illustrated blog which reveals that the IT folks get to have all the fun climbing up on top of the dome... the 2004 w/o's   Pete Koson winter sm, had this page in the UNH alumni magazine. Interestingly, I met him at Pole in February 2005--he'd returned to work as a summer carpenter--something he's also done at Palmer. Troy Wiles the physician's assistant from Traverse City, Michigan, was featured in journal articles being published by his hometown newspaper, with pictures. Some of them are now archived on this search page, without photos, although access is limited to only a few pages without paying. Jules Harnett a comms engineer from Australia, watched AST/RO in 2004. This is her more recent website which doesn't have any of her old South Pole coverage. There are a few more of her crumbs here. Henry Malmgren, computer guy who wintered in 2002, returned in February to do it again, this time with one of those rooms with a window...in June he redid his site in his "global guy" image! In 2005 he wintered at Palmer, and in 2006 he was ensconced in Denver. I finally met him in person at Pole in 2008, he since moved on to a warmer place, Baghdad, came back to Denver, rejoined the Antarctic program, and in 2013 moved on to an energy company. Dana Hrubes was back for another year, this time with a new title of "Cusp Science Research Associate." Great site, not many Polies have also been to Thule (as I have) or the North Pole (as I have not). In addition to the monthly diaries, he has an excellent page on his science projects. Ethan Dicks was one of the AMANDA w/o's, continuing his tradition of a detailed journal. There's lots more on his web site including his prolific diaries about how rough life really was at McM during the late 90s winters. Plus he has an excellent illustrated historical glossary featuring all of those buildings at McM that have been torn down over the past few years... Sarah Kaye was back, this time to winter as the LAN/WAN specialist. She spent the 99-00, 00-01, and 02-03 summers at Pole in comms and IT (not to mention a winter at McM in 2001). This web site also features letters and photos from previous trips...most recently (in 2013) she's in Seattle working IT for the Coast Guard icebreakers. The 2003 w/o's who left behind pictures, diaries, and video.   Phil Broughton was the cryo tech...and quite recently (2013) he's been blogging here with occasional posts about the 2003 winter as well as stuff from his current life as a radiation safety specialist. His blog posts about, er, getting drunk in Club 90, gained him some feature articles in the Atlantic as well as the Guardian! Gary Knittel comms guy with an interest in Jeeps...his website appears to have vanished, but we still have a reminder that Tommy Toilet was still around at Pole back then. Jim Bacon another one of the comm guys, with some good pictures of Pole and another interesting place that both of us have worked at...Diego Garcia. Adam Swanson, an artist...his old website has disappeared, but this site has some excellent examples of his current art work, including some with an Antarctic theme (he also wintered at Palmer in 2008). Karina Leppik worked with the AST/RO project...her 2003 winter site is gone; this is an archived blog about her 2000-01 summer with the Teachers Experiencing Antarctica (TEA) program...where she also worked with AST/RO Paolo Calisse: the AASTO South Pole Diaries have been up since 1994, but this year the University of New South Wales w/o was this Italian guy from the University of Rome. This link is Paulo's diary in January 2003, but here you can select his stuff from earlier this season as well as the group who installed "AASTINO" at Dome Concordia. Paolo later moved on to the UK and was working on the CLOVER project for Atacama, Chile. Bert's South Pole Page Robert Schwarz back again! He spent two winters in a row (!) at Pole, 1997 and 1998 (well, with a break) working with the AMANDA project, and he was back for the 99-00 summer. He has an AMAZINGLY extensive collection of pictures including some new ones from this year. This is the link that works...or if not try this one. Shayne Clausson was the w/o LAN guy, in his spare (!) time he's been a deejay and otherwise has been documenting stuff. That site is gone, but there are a few articles he wrote for his college alumnni site. Steffen Richter is one of the AMANDA (Antarctic Muon and Neutrino Detector Array) folks who was back at Pole now for a third winter. HE did it the first time in 1998 and was back for another winter in 2000-01...when he put up some amazing sunrise and medevac pictures plus that infamous medevac video that the FAA hopefully has never seen... The 2002 w/o's attempted (with difficulty) to fill the internet with neat stuff... Sean Kelly and Holly Troy old friends, originally created the "South Pole Dudes" web site together. Sean was a comm tech, and Holly was a computer guy who didn't winter. Holly rebuilt the site, which now includes pictures from his more recent summers at McM (the Pole stuff is the "2001" stuff from him and Kathrin) Kris Perry met guy, had an excellent 2002 which has disappeared, as has his 2004 w/o site :( Henry Malmgren, w/o lan/wan guy, created this page with dispatches and photos on his winter as a stop on his "world tour" which continued as he ventured around the world...and back to Pole in February 2004 for another winter. Here's his new website. Judith Spanberger was the construction materials person, and in her spare time she reported for the Antarctic Sun. This detailed account of her winter is a feature article in the 2/2/03 edition, it features many of Jon Berry's photographs. The 2001 w/os, who experienced the first ever winter medevac and lived to tell the tales.... Nathan Tift was one of the met folks during the 2000-01 summer winter...hes got an excellent journal and photo site here! Mary Hogan was first at Pole as a heavy equipment operator in 1978. She since became a registered nurse and wintered in 2001 where she of course became involved with the Dr. Shemenski medevac. This archived page gives her story. John Bird, ARO guy, and his wife Jennifer have several neat pages of photos...including a unique shot of the dome from a kite flown directly above it! Jerry Macala the winter manager, has this blog entry which links to a 2010 "The Story" interview about the year at Pole. Steffen Richter wintered for the second time in 2000-01...witnessing (and filming) the first winter medevac in darkness and -95°F temps...he was back in 2002-03. Jeff Kietzmann comms guy, has worked at many parts of the world almost as bleak and isolated as Pole...including Palmer where he spent a couple of austral summers, and McMurdo where he wintered in 2002! His blog is gone, but still around is this fascinating savethedome.com web site now managed by Jerry Macala. Stephen Hudson was one of two folks working on the one-year SPARCLE (South Pole Atmospheric Radiation and Cloud LIDAR Experiment) project, in a hut at the edge of the Clean Air sector near ARO. Here's his current home page which features some more recent pictures from Yukon and NWT. After he got his Ph.D in 2007 he moved on to Norway. Mike Town (archive site) another SPARCLE guy, had perhaps the most imaginative site I've found. Here is some of what is left. But he's now in France for his postdoc! Dana Hrubes one of the science techs, has a monthly journal with pictures, plus links to all of the science projects he dealt with. Dana's also been to the North Pole, and he's got some great pictures and stories from that end of the world too. (Dana was back for the 2004, 2005, 2008 and 2010 winters!) Andrea Grant the other w/o science tech...this is the new address of her Pole page. She has frequent great diary entries and pictures, complete with photos of all of those trash cans in the science building and documentation about what to put in them! Winter 2000...folks who finished up the winter as part of the largest crew in history... Darryn Schneider wintered watching the AMANDA project...and he was back on the ice for some of the past few summers so I finally was able to meet him. This is a fresh 2006 incarnation of his web site, which also includes the story of his 1996 winter at Casey and other historical stuff about Wilkes. Robo Doc Thompson left Pole quickly to recover from surgery in ChCh for a ruptured disc...something he suffered from for 8 months. He described his pain earlier on his CBS News site, fragments of which are still on line. And a year later, here he discusses the Pole medical jinx. Winter 1999... a year that put Pole in the public eye... Lisa Beal was an IT person at Pole in 1999 when all of the Doc Jerri stuff went down, and she includes her excellent review and commentary on the "Icebound" made-for-TV movie. She also features a couple of excellent presentations on the history of women on the ice, and links to older PolarPals stuff. Lisa also spent time on the research vessels. Joel's Web Page ...is long gone. Joel Michalski was the NOAA leader for the 1999 winter. He kept up a fascinating diary including lots of photos of the place as was in 1999. His web site is gone, but he got national news coverage during the airdrop, this is the link to several pages of his photos and commentary on the NOAA web site. Mike Masterman was the 1999 w/o occupant of that corner office in the science building, the one with the windows. Not his first winter. Before he became sm, which stands for Site Manager these days, he wintered in 1995 as a cmbr beaker, and this link is my archive to his site about that winter. Also, here's an archive of Mike's article in the New South Polar Times. Here is what he is up to nowadays. Winter 1998...ok let's keep going! Steffen Richter was one of the two Germans working on AMANDA...along with Robert Schwarz. Robert Schwarz was back for his second winter in a row...this is his relocated 1997-98 page with lots of pictures. Jon Conrad was the electrician...this winter was not his only trip to Pole. Other good people and places... AASTO This was that webcam page for the joint Australia-US CARA consortium that runs the AASTO (Automated Astrophysical Site-Testing Lab) among other things. It was a prototype for a future remotely-controlled unmanned plateau observatory. They completed that phase, the AASTO module and telescope mount were moved in January 2004 over near ARO for use by the Vulcan South project (archive page) which searched for extrasolar planets. Dana Hrubes worked with this project during the 2004 and 2005 winters. The project was ended in December 2005. This page does include other good stuff including their diary pages from Pole and Dome C for the past 10 years or so. Another AASTO/JACARA page is here, it includes lots of pictures and stories from earlier seasons. Charlie Kaminski watched this project in 1999 in his spare time. Adventure Network International invented nongovernmental air travel to the ice--they had to buy their own DC4 in 1987 to demonstrate that year that large wheeled aircraft could land at Patriot Hills. More recently, they have newer bigger aircraft, the camp is now at Union Glacier, and their successor company is Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions LLC (which this now links to). You can go to the ice too... Allen Cull wintered at Palmer in 1979, and he's got some great historical photos, sitreps, and familiar names from the old days at Palmer when they had a BIG glacier. Here you can find out what Dick Wolak and Mike Pavlak ('75 and '78 Pole sm's) REALLY did when they ventured over to Old Palmer! Allen also was a cargoid at McM and Pole in the 80's. So far he's got the record for the "oldest" Antarctic web site I've found, and he's recently added more pictures. Antarctic Art... For many years NSF has supported the "Artists and Writers Program" which gives these people the opportunity to create works of art based on the unique Antarctic environment. One of the painters, Lucia deLeiris, has made 3 trips to both sides of the continent, she has many amazing watercolors of the birds, animals, and scenery. Back before the NSF program, Navy artist and officer Standish Backus accompanied Admiral Byrd to the ice in DF-I (1955-56) as an officer. Here's the Naval History page describing Backus...most of his Antarctic (and other works) can be found on these search pages...but one of the most classic images is not. Here are two versions of an awesome mural that was on display in the mess hall for a number of years--a color version (369kb) from DF-I veteran Patrick McCormick (his caption may help explain why this isn't on the Navy historical site), and a much larger B&W version (3.9mb) from 1960-61 winterover photographer's mate Bruce Raymond. Also...Robert Charles Haun went along as the Staff Artist of Task Force 43, most of his time was spent at Little America V...and the most complete collection of his works can be found on these search pages. The Naval Historical Center has put together an expanded web site featuring the Deep Freeze I history, illustrated by the works of these two men. Unfortunately, the Deep Freeze I operations summary, which they once posted here, is up no longer (although my archived copy is here). Pole has been visited as well--early in the 1960-61 season Arthur Beaumont showed up and did some watercolor work (outdoors, with antifreeze). A bit later, during the 1995-96 season, Kim Stanley Robinson showed up to explore all of those subterranean tunnels that he described in his book Antarctica. Here is the NSF page which describes the program and lists all of the participants with links where available... Antarctic Connection For many years this site was operated by friends Tom and Gloria Hutchings, who worked on the ice and at Pole more than once. I met Hutch (not the first time) at Pole during the 2005-06 summer. They sold the business a couple of years ago; more recently, the new owners of the site offered some travel packages and has some information pages, but nothing for sale directly. At the moment the site seems to be vacant :( Antarctic Logistics & Expeditions is the successor company to Adventure Network International, which had been originally founded by Pat Morrow, Martyn Williams, and Giles Kershaw in 1985. After Giles was killed in a 1990 gyrocopter accident on the Jones Ice Shelf, his wife Anne Kershaw operated ANI for a number of years. AL&E currently operates the Union Glacier camp and support private tourists as well as governmental projects there...including trips to Pole and climbs of Mt. Vinson. The company had purchased ANI in 2003, but they did not fully rebrand all of their operations to AL&E until 2016. Antarctic Philately Pole person Scott Smith is a major contributor to this site. There's a lot more than stamps here--the site includes an extremely thorough history of Antarctica in general and the American pre-IGY presence in particular. Antarctic Stations This is an excellent compilation of Antarctic research stations from Wikipedia... Astronomy...physics...links updated October 2017. Sooner or later I knew someone would come along and write a good history of some of the science. Here's a 2004 refereed paper by B. T, Indermuehle, Michael Burton, and S. T. Maddison titled "The history of astrophysics in Antarctica" (1.7 mb) and accompanying table of telescopes (27 mb). One source site is this Australian JACARA key papers reference page. Beer is a good thing to have at Pole, sometimes the supply chain works well and sometimes...well...home brewing has been going on for awhile, here is an interesting article by 1996 w/o Jason Dorpinghaus, with some of the finer points of the art. And here's another of his articles with a bit more about life at Pole... BOOKS! I was actually going to do an Antarctic books page once upon a time, but Billy-Ace Baker has put together a much better one--many pages actually, with much detail and commentary. Yes, he actually HAS all of these (but there are a few he hasn't read yet)...here's his home page CARA The Center for Astrophysical Research in Antarctica (CARA) WAS the multiproject consortium that operated most of the science stuff located across the skiway, from 1990 to 2002. This page is the beginning of their "Virtual Tour" of Pole which features lots of maps, pictures, and links to the science projects CDR Jim Waldron was the OIC of the VX-6 detachment that wintered at LA5 in 1956-57. At one time the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch had a link where you could read his CDrom book about the experience, including early Deep Freeze days, lots of stories and photos of his winter, and his flights to Pole and elsewhere. I have a copy, but the links to see or obtain it are no longer out there. Chris Bero's Frozen Planet (archive) Chris wintered in 1996 running the IR telescope at CARA, and put up quite an impressive web site for 1996...or today for that matter. Have a look at his pictures and email journals--try each of the links on the landing page. Where is he more recently--here's a 2014 archive of his website. Updated...yes, there is life after Pole. Cool Antarctica Paul Ward wintered with BAS at Signy...that means he was there for TWO years 1985-87. Since then he's created this excellent site with extensive historical information, photos, links, diaries from recent w/o's, not to mention stuff to buy... Educational sites I occasionally get asked for recommendations. While I'm prejudiced enough to think all of the links on this page are educational, what follows is a list of sites which are more specifically relevant to kids, lesson plans and K-12 interests. Some of these are older sites and all of the links may not work... "Live from Antarctica 2 from NASA; Scholastic.com lesson plans; Stuff from the Information Please almanac/encyclopedia site; Enchanted Learning Antarctic animal printouts; Antarctic Projects from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Matthew Lazzara's journal from the 2002-03 season with the UW-Madison automated weather station team; Ferraro Choi and Associates is one of the design firms that worked on the new station. Here are a couple of construction photos, but the floor plans and most of the better pictures are gone. GARBAGE! Well, sort of. Since the early 1990's the program has been removing all trash and waste from the continent. Some of it (the food waste and similar junk) is kept frozen intil it is incinerated), but the good stuff like vehicles, old computers, furniture etc., is auctioned off by the salvage contractor each year near Port Hueneme. Watch this space for the next auction schedule. Gary Brougham Gary wintered in 1971, he has outdone me with what is the "earliest" w/o web page I've found. He's got some pictures of the place which he changes out from time to time...latest includes the Peter Snow Miller preparing the dome foundations Glenn Grant has wintered several times at McMurdo and Palmer, he was back at Palmer for part of the 2003 winter, and again for the 2003-04 summer. Yes, he's visited Pole, and he's created this fantastic literary work, including some great commentary on Doc Betty, medevacs and other events... Palmer... Faraday... those shrinks... Green Flashes Andrew Young has compiled more information than anyone might have imagined! He has lots of technical data, photos, animated GIF simulations, and references to what can be seen (so I'm told) from skylab around 21 March and 21 September if it isn't cloudy. Plus some links to Pole sunset pictures by Rodney Marks and others... ICECUBE is the next generation of AMANDA, a massive one-cubic-kilometer neutrino detector project costing upwards of $250 million and managed by the UW folks in Madison, Wisconsin. The first of perhaps 80 detector strings was installed in 2004-05. Images of Antarctica is friend Seth White's web site. He wintered at McMurdo in 2002-03 as the science tech, and went back in the 2003-04 summer with the Biospherical radiometer project. The 2003-04 trip included a visit to Pole, and this as well as the rest of the web site is filled with a detailed journal and lots of good pictures. In May 2004 he spent two weeks at Palmer, in August 2004 he was at Summit! With camera. Such a job! He returned to Summit briefly (wow! a 2-day visit!) in May 2005, and has since returned to Thule as well as McMurdo with UNAVCO...he spent the first half of the 2006-07 summer there... The late Jackie Ronne of course wintered with her husband Finn at East Base on Stonington Island in 1947. This site has lots of pictures, tales, books, and photos of her visit to Pole on 7 December 1971. She was the eighth woman to visit Pole, and half of the first husband-wife team. Jim Mastro first wintered at McMurdo in 1982, and returned over the next 14 years for another winter and many summers, mostly with wife Lisa, whom he met on the ice. He's put together this intriguing site with information on history, population, culture, and other stuff that you may not find on a blog elsewhere. Oh, he also wrote the book "Antarctica, A Year at the Bottom of the World" based mostly on his first winter. Some names were changed... Read the book! Photographer Joan Myers had a grant to go everywhere and take pictures...she has an extensive journal, this is the start of her visit to Pole in November 2002. Jake Angelo traveled to McMurdo and Pole in 2002-03 to review the telemedicine equipment...he has an excellent page of pictures here. John Jacobsen has some pictures from the 99-00 season, as well as photos he and Kurt Woschnagg took of AMANDA in January 1997. Actually he's done lots since then, this is is home page which he's revamping, and the older stuff isn't up yet. Joint Arctic Weather Stations (JAWS) were set up by the US and Canada in the late 1940's at such places as Alert, Eureka... these and the early Arctic ice stations, complete with Jamesways, predated the IGY Antarctic program. and many of the Arctic participants later went south. This MSN community has many pictures, messages, and historical information on the message boards. Keith Dreher wintered in McM with the Navy in the 80's, and came back again in the 90's, most recently for the 1998 winter with ASA. Among other things, his photo collection includes the formal NSFA decommissioning ceremony at Building 165 in February 1998, and also the Antarctic oil color works of artist David Rosenthal. Kym Newberry was at Mawson for the 2002-03 summer working with a penguin study group--his second trip there, the first winter was 2000. He has fine illustrated collections of illustrated email dispatches from Australia's oldest mainland station, which was originally established during the 53-54 season. Marc Pomeroy was at McM for the 99-00 summer, but he's also logged a bunch of time on the research vessels, and he wintered at Palmer in 1997. An older site, but it is well worth checking out his virtual tour of Palmer Station and the interactive boating map! Marty Lyons was a comms/computer guy during the 1991-92 summer. What is Marty doing nowadays? Among other things he made a FOURTH (unsuccessful) attempt to get to the North Pole in 2002...hopefully he'll get this new website going soon. Mike Savage wintered in 1980 with only 16 others including his future wife. In addition to the group picture outside the front door, this page has links to other members of the group and many other amazing historical pictures. Here's his page with a 1982 shot from D-59 of the tail of 321, before it was dug out and salvaged. NASA Mike Mike Comberiate has been involved with Pole comms for many years. I worked with him when we built the comms utilidor and moved antennas in 1989. A few years ago Mike and other SPTR (SP TDRS satellite Relay folks went to the NORTH Pole and made the first phone call from there to the dome...featured on NPR. Here's a "picture" from the funny papers . Updated link... New South Polar Times Okay, the original site is gone, this is a link to one of those archive sites. Yes, they've saved everything. The Pole stuff here is mostly several years old but still amazing reading! The most recent stuff is from the marine tech on the Gould during the 1998-99 austral summer. BUT there is also an incredible online book by Marty Sponholz who wintered at Plateau in 1966. The preface was written by Rob Flint who wintered at Vostok in 1974. (The NSPT email list is no longer at this location, it has been moved to a home on Yahoo HERE). the NOAA ESRL Global Monitoring Division with photos, historical and science info about their sites at Pole as well as in Alaska, American Samoa, and Hawaii. not to mention the webcam. NOAA Photo Archive Included here is the Antarctic section of a MASSIVE library of photos from various times and places, including many interesting Peninsula and sub-Antarctic island places that I have visited (or wanted to)! The photos are not all captioned, but there are many from Pole w/o's Fred Walton (1968), and John Bortniak (1979) Old Hutmans Association (!) is an organization for former Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) employees...a great many of whom have worked on the ice and at Pole...from IGY up to, well, now. Check out the list of names and photos! This frame is an article from their Spring 2004 newsletter, the home page is here. Only the lonely The Pole w/o experience has long been studied by professional and amateur psychologists and others, in part as a step toward figuring out who should winter over, or fly to Mars. This site from UC Santa Cruz tries to get inside 1996 w/o Chris Bero's head. Paul Siple Two excellent biographies of the first Pole SSL...the polar philately site features one originally published in the Ice Cap News, and this page from the Weather Doctor site is another. Both describe his life from the "boy scout with Byrd" days at Little America up through his death in 1968. Pete Furtado wintered in 1985 in the cargo department, and I worked with him during the later 80's. Some fine photos from that era bring back memories of the place and people! Polar Philately This is the introduction page to what was formerly the Polar Philately Mailing List, which includes some interesting photos and historical information, as well as a link to the list itself. The site is no longer being updated but it has some excellent links and information. R/V Polar Duke Farewell Tribute A look back at one of the more pleasant ways to visit Antarctica between 1985 and 1997, with stories, logs, and pictures from some of the more interesting cruises. I made 11 crossings to or from Palmer on this fine vessel. Too bad it couldn't come all the way to Pole! RADARSAT 1997 satellite photo images, released in October 1999, from all over the continent. Also "movies" simulating trips by Scott, Byrd and others. This page is presented by NASA (Goddard), the data comes from a Canadian Space Agency satellite, here's the CSA RADARSAT-1 Antarctic main page with the composite photo map of the entire continent and links to many other images. (My copy of the marked-up Pole map released by NSF in 1997 is here) Robert Williscroft a 1982 w/o NOAA guy, has this page of photos on his website, including the fuel bladder fire...and he recently started adding a slide show with new photos. 70 South A comprehensive site by Brendon Grunewald in Munich...Interactive and updated daily with the latest news and information on and about Antarctica. Scott Smith Old Pole Scott wintered at McM, has been at Pole for many summers including 2003-04. This January 1997 page describes a venture to remove hazardous stuff and old fuel from Old Pole. That place is very easy to get lost in; Scott assured me that he used a better map than the one on his site!! Simon Hart Simon was from Leeds in the UK. He ran the SPASE array during winter 1996. The "South Pole Air Shower Experiment" is a search for cosmic rays; the original array was a bunch of wooden boxes built in front of the fuel arch in 1987-88. The current project is over in the Dark Sector Steve Warren (archived page) was (and still is) a professor at the University of Washington when he wintered in 1992 studying climatology; this is a short diary from that winter, including tales of airdrop and midwinter camping. Not his first trip to the ice; his 1988 visit is pictured on an Australian postage stamp, one of few Polies to be so honored. More recently in 2000-01 he visited Pole as a PI on the SPARCLE project (here's an archive of Stephen Hudson's SPARCLE photo page) Teachers Experiencing Antarctica (and the Arctic). This program was run by Rice University and NSF. Until 2005 it sent teachers to the ice to assist in science projects and relate their experiences via diaries and email with classrooms back home. Many of these folks spent time at Pole. This site is an archive, the replacement program "ARMADA," run by the University of Rhode Island, is more global but has a few Antarctic and Arctic projects. Tony Hansen spent time in the Dry Valleys during 2002-03, 2001-02, and 2000-01, and was at Pole for the 96-97 through 98-99 seasons, taking data on pollution inside the garage arch and other places where people work...he has some interesting diaries and streaming videos of...offloading the beer into the old now demo'd freshie shack, among other things. Things have changed, in 1977 we had to get up at 0530 to put it upstairs in the pool room... Travels with Oso con Migo Al Oxton never worked at Pole, but he's a friend and good guy anyway! Drill down and find out what really happened at Black Island in the mid 90's (bear with me). What's he up to now? Here's his most recent newsletter... Updated links...Welcome to the Ice Robert Holmes worked with AWS's from 1992 thru 1999-2000 so he's been all over the continent. This site hasn't been updated much since then, and more recently he lost his website, but this link is to an archive saved by the Web Archive Project. Not every link works but still it is an amazing resource with news, trivia, reference works , and old stories/links from real OAE's!. VXE-6 as a squadron was decommissioned in 1999, but there are lots of alumni who have been flying in those 130's and other older aircraft since IGY. They have several good places for amazing pictures from the REAL old days and lots of sea stories...there is Dave Riley's Antarctic Newseum with many strange stories right off the home page. And then there is Billy-Ace Penguin Baker who wintered 4 times, his page features the links to the Polar Times and the OAE mailing list (also on the web) for very salty stuff...well, I was in the Navy for 4 years and can recommend it. And then there are Joe Hawkins' pages which feature many great old ice pictures...check out the OAE section! William Arens wintered in 1996 as the CUSP guy, along with Chris Bero. His site seems to have disappeared, it had some good photos and facts, not to mention his mohawk picture and his documentation of the October 1996 hammer incident at McMurdo...