Dry Valleys.........12/27-29
South Pole.........12/21-23
Ice Runway................12/6
Thanksgiving..............11/28
WeddellWorld.............11/12
Happy Camper School........10/30-31
Cape Royds............10/28
Cape Evans............10/25
My trip to McMurdo............10/22

The South Pole
Dec. 21-23
 

That's me....at 90 degrees South. If you look in the silver ball you can see the flags of the founding countries of the Antarctic Treaty.
 

Actually, this is the real South Pole...the pole just to the right of the U.S. flag.
 

I stayed in one of these jamesways. Everyone has their own "room" separated with curtains and plywood. They had a nice cozy feel to them and were quite warm. Too warm, I think.

Here we are under the dome. Three main buildings sit under this dome, which is just a cover. It is not insulated as you can tell from the steam rising out of this building. That dome will be ripped down in the next few years. A new state-of-the-art structure is being built because the dome is getting buried by drifting snow.

Jim Jackson, with the AST/RO telescope. AST/RO stands for Antarctic Submillimeter Telescope/ Remote Observatory. Jackson is measuring carbon in molecular clouds to better understand how stars form. How can scientists use telescopes under 24-hour sunlight? Antarctica provides ideal conditions for non-optical astronomy, such as infrared and submillimeter. Infrared astronomy is the measurement of heat given off by planets and stars, so the colder the background the better. Submillimeter astronomy requires constant and dry conditions. The South Pole has it all.

My plane back to McMurdo -- an LC-130 Hercules skied aircraft.

Our plane flew right over the Transantarctic Mountains and its many glaciers. See how the ice looks like a river?

CNN really captured the essence of the Pole in a recent article. Check it out here.