How to get to Antarctica

My deployment date to Antarctica (October 30th) is nearly here and I have arrived in Christchurch, New Zealand (a little early to see a few sites before heading down to the ice). I've had a few people ask how you get to Antarctica so I thought a short post on how to actually get there would be appropriate. Our main base of operations will be out of McMurdo, which lies roughly south of New Zealand. The U.S. also has a few other stations around Antarctica (notably Palmer Station, south of Chile and Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station at the South Pole). The only viable options for getting to Antarctica (aside from the cruise ships that leave out of Argentina) are to take a military boat or aircraft. For our purposes, we will be boarding a ski equipped Air Force LC-130 aircraft that will depart from Christchurch and land approximately 7 hours later in McMurdo (assuming we don't have to turn around and head back to Christchurch halfway through the flight if weather conditions turn bad at McMurdo). The United States Antarctic Program (USAP) representative that I met at the airport here stated that there have already been some delays in getting people down to the ice because of bad weather that has delayed the scheduled flights. They are hoping to get caught up soon and back on track. There were about eight other people on my flight to Christchurch that were also bound for Antarctica and were going through training yesterday with the hope of flying down today. I am not sure if they made it down or not. The last conditions reported at McMurdo (from 6 am this morning) indicated a temperature of 12F, with sustained winds of 30 knots and a wind chill of -10F. The National Science Foundation does maintain a couple of webcams (https://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm) focused on McMurdo that update in near realtime, which give a good view of the station from both sides. As of now, my limited weather forecasting skills for that region indicate we should be ok to make it down on Monday (Sunday in Colorado time) and hopefully that continues to remain the case. By now, our equipment should have made it to Christchurch and will either be flying down with us or has already been flown down ahead of us (provided that it wasn't bumped to make room for people to get down there because of the delays). I anticipate this will be my last blog entry until I make it down to the ice, after which I will start posting a little more regularly.

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