Only in Antarctica...Part Uno

Over the course of the past month, we have learned of some absurd, ridiculous, and downright peculiar things while living in Antarctica.  So we have decided to share them with you in some fun filled easy installments…

 South Pole Traverse: The American Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is located 995 miles South of McMurdo.  To supply it with all the fuel that is required to run the station year round, they have the South Pole Traverse team  go out on  tractor-like machines pulling sleds with inflated balloons of fuel on the McMurdo-South Pole Highway (nothing more than a flagged route on compacted snow).  These machines top out at a back breaking 7 mph and it takes them about 50 days ONE WAY to reach the South Pole.  They also pull trailers for the drivers to sleep in and a small kitchen. Last year a storm rolled in overnight burying the tractors up to the roof with snow and delaying them a week.  The next day the British roll by in their souped up vans driving on top of the tractors’ roofs which were at snow level.   Rumor has it that these machines do have cruise control and they are planning on having every other machine be manned…brilliant or potentially disastrous….only in Antarctica!

Did you know that if a Weddell Seal reaches maturity and dies it will probably be from DROWNING?! The Weddell seal requires air and often they have to use their teeth to gnaw a hole into the ice.  When they get old and their teeth become worn down they will no longer be able to chip away at the ice and will drown. 

Antarctica is the best place to find meteorites.  That’s because everything is white and if there is a large black rock on top of the snow it’s probably a meteorite!

 McMurdo Station is located on Ross Island.  Currently, the Ross Sea is frozen and the ice is expected to break up around January/February.  While the ice is solid they have an Ice Road which is a path flagged out and checked regularly by the F-Stop team to deem it safe for travel and free from crevasses and snow bridges.  The green flags marking the way are on BAMBOO poles…in Antarctica!!!

McMurdo has a surprising number of receding hairlines.  This has nothing to do with Antarctica.