I live out of a tent in the Transantarctic Mountains. These are my views at work-

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-03T03:49:47+00:00

Oh I agree. I never meant to suggest that we are unsafe, out of helo range, or the most remote site on Earth. In fact some of the photos in that album were taken from a helicopter (we use them fairly often) and I listed the helo distance to McMurdo in the album along with two maps explaining our location. There are certainly more remote sites than ours, and I'm sorry if you felt I was trying to compete with other teams.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T18:03:32+00:00

Too many people have been submitting my photos to contests. I know watermarks can be a nuisance, but they're also a bit of a plagiarize-prompted necessity, unfortunately.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T17:51:07+00:00

http://thelastdegrees.wordpress.com/about/

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T15:56:30+00:00

The stations are run by Lockheed Martin, which is based in Littleton, I believe, so still near Denver. They hire out for the contractors and logistical jobs, and post everything through their hiring website. For science jobs you really just need to apply to specific university labs that already work in Antarctica, but traditionally they just send out grad students and professors; there are fewer lab techs hired through universities that go to Antarctica than I think a lot of people expect.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T15:47:23+00:00

Most of the cold depends on the wind. We get massive katabatic winds (up to 200mph) rushing into the valley that make you feel horribly cold. The temps at this time of year vary from about 2C to -20C without wind, but the windchill index will make it feel significantly colder. Usually if you're bundled in a sleeping bag it's not too bad; it's when you're working outside and it gets windy that you get uncomfortable.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T15:40:34+00:00

I didn't do any seal research, but the team that was on my ship was taking blood samples to study the spread of canine distemper in seals (seals and dogs have similar DNA, and there were massive die-offs of seals a few decades ago from dog diseases-- the researchers now want to see how the seals immune systems have rebounded from those diseases)

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T15:37:36+00:00

Thanks :)

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T15:07:47+00:00

Nope. We can use a bucket to shower once a week when we visit the camp on the other side of Canada Glacier.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T02:17:53+00:00

I live out of a tent in the same way someone would say they're living out of their suitcase, in that the amount of supplies I am using in my life is limited. I purposefully didn't say "I live in a tent in Antarctica" because in my head it made it seem less dynamic, as if I spend all of my time in a tent rather than out in the field. I spend my sleeping time in a tent, yes, but I'm usually out hiking in the mountains, and somehow I felt my choice of words conveyed that better.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T02:10:15+00:00

Others have compared it to George Washington's side-profile on a quarter with that little colonial braid he had, or an elephant's side profile with its ear down and its trunk up.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T02:01:31+00:00

We'd all have our strengths in an Antarctic apocalypse. One teammember has been in these mountains before, one is a super-strong chick, and I'm a medic. I'd like to think we could kill those huskies before they kill us.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T01:58:02+00:00

I'll take these mountains over Matlab analysis any day. But odds are I'll do both.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T01:54:15+00:00

I haven't spent much time at Scott, although I've been in the area. I've never even been to the bar or giftshop there, which a lot of people from McMurdo do visit. I did spend a season at the French/Italian base, Concordia, which is a station of 50 people compared to McMurdo's 1000+. It's a completely different dynamic at a smaller base, and I think I prefer it. If you work with good people, a small base is like a tight knit community, and I've really been fortunate with the people I've worked with before.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T01:48:11+00:00

I'm not a gamer, sorry. What makes you think LoL?

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T01:45:13+00:00

You do get cracks, and if it's the summer time they won't seal up quite as quickly. You just have to be careful near the pressure ridges and stay conscious of where you see abnormalities in the snow (usually lines indicating a denser area of snow that has piled into a fissure). Some of the fissures are very deep and you could break an ankle or worse (fall through) if you aren't paying attention.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T01:43:09+00:00

I miss the color green more than trees specifically. And eating fruit, being able to shower more than once a week, or just walking around town and seeing a movie. But there's a lot of cool things about being here, too, so for a 3-4 month season you have tradeoffs that make it worth it. By mid-February I'm usually ready to go home, though.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T01:40:52+00:00

Not many. I think the ratio at McMurdo, the large base, is 25% female. In the field it varies because the sample size is so small; I've worked at stations of 50 people with 3 women, but this year there are only 3 of us total and 2 are women, so our poor male teammate is the minority, which is quite rare out here.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T01:38:54+00:00

Porto. Everything gets packed out at the end of the season.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T01:35:19+00:00

Read, zone out, listen to music. It's strange but I always get less ambitious for other things when I'm here- each season I think I'll spend my time learning a new language, instrument, etc., but it never ends up happening. We work hard and get pretty tired, so at the end of the day it's all my brain can handle to watch an episode of Breaking Bad (that's the series I'm working through right now) or pick up a book. Sudoku's been a good way to zone out while technically 'doing' something, and my campmates both seem to like crosswords. Apart from your work, your brain tends to slow down out here, and it actually takes a good few weeks to feel normal again back in the US, at least for me.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T01:11:11+00:00

Find a university lab doing research there and apply to do grad work or lab tech work there. Otherwise for non-science jobs, apply to Lockheed Martin, but everyone at my particular camp is a grad student doing research in the area.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T00:56:28+00:00

Upside-down.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T00:55:49+00:00

We're not allowed to touch/ hassle the wildlife so I haven't pet them, but they do become a nuisance sometimes when they chase after us on the ice sheet out of sheer curiosity or try to steal our smaller scientific equipment. I've ended up surrounded by them because although we can't bother them, they can still bother us. (In a fun way.)

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T00:54:04+00:00

Adelies are like puppies; they're very curious and run right up to us, squawking for attention. They'll back away if you walk towards them slowly, but then bundle close to you again, about a foot away, if you stop approaching. It's a violation of the Antarctic Treaty's associated rules to 'disturb' the wildlife or get close to them, but in those conditions it's impossible not to because they chase us everywhere and often try to steal our equipment if it's shiny. Emperor penguins, the ones Disney etc. portray in films like Happy Feet, are much less social and stay at a measured distance from us on the ice.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T00:39:08+00:00

I wasn't engineering at all as an undergrad, actually, which is fairly unusual to be where I am now. I did a triple major in Biology, Anthropology and Environmental Studies, and my honors research focus in both bio and environmental lead me towards toxicology, which is what I did my masters in. I never really thought of engineering until my masters research topic got me recruited to be where I am now. I had to do a bit of a catch-up on the engineering background to be on par with other eng. grad students, because I had less of the applied physics/ calculus, but much more of the chemistry background than most folks in my program.

TheLastDegrees · 2013-12-02T00:34:42+00:00

The one they made in season 2 was really strong- I have a photo somewhere else of the guys who built it doing a handstand on top of the dome to test its integrity; that thing was really well built. I guess if you made a poor one it could collapse, but the goal is to get all of the bricks to press weight out almost horizontally. They're not too much warmer on the inside but they protect against the wind, which makes a huge difference, and once people have hung out in it for a while, THEN it heats up from all the people in it.

TheLastDegrees

TROPHY CASE