McMurdo Station resembles a Colorado mining town during the summer with upwards of a thousand summer support and research personnel. Then comes winter and it looks more like a ghost town with a skeleton crew of (my year) 76 to keep the lights on nd do the research that can only be done in winter.
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McMurdo Station is on Ross Island, a volcanic formation about 50 miles off the coast of the Antarctic continent. The volcano is still active and terrain is very rugged -- just what the aspiring polar explorer (all of them young dumb men!) lives for.
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This is some of the only "dry" area on the continent. Once upon a time, these were Fjords but with the change sea level (a long time ago) these are now devoid of water ... but also strangely devoid of snow and ice as well!
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This was the "new pole" when I was there, but there is now an even newer one, making this the "old pole". See "Old-old Pole" for the one before this!
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There was a station built at Pole during the IGY (International Geophysical Year) and abandoned some years later once the "new" Pole station was built. The new one has since been replaced as well, making this original station the "old-old station".
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Antarctic research would not be possible without this airplane. With the 1 million dollar skis, these aircraft can go everywhere on the continent -- just not all the time. All air operations are restricted to the summer months, so these guys stay busy moving personnel and resupplying the bases before winter shuts everything down for 9 months.
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McMurdo station, and from there Pole Station, is supplied by a combination of ships and planes. All the big stuff arrives by one visit from a fueler/cargo ship every year. The ice breaker busts through the annual sea ice to allow this resupply to occur. I got to spend 24 hours to Shepard the resupply into dock.
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