Getting around town

(This post is culled from my other blog for the third and fourth grade classes at St. Joseph Elementary.)

Every day I go for a 30-45 minute ride (only ~ 7 miles) from McMurdo Station out the the Long Duration Ballooning site (LDB).  I spend so much time on various forms of transportation that I thought you might like to know about them.  Certainly getting around on snow and ice takes a special kind of machine, so there are some real interesting ways to get around town here. Some of the vehicles are from the original establishment of the base in the 50’s. They built them to last then. Here are pictures and descriptions.

Derelict Junction

All of these are picked up at Derelict Junction, a rather nondescript mudhole/bus stop by the dorms.

A Delta

The Delta’s are odd all wheel drive vehicles that are kind of like articulated buses. Passengers ride in the box and bounce around. The wheels are big to avoid getting stuck in mud and snow.  The box is very cramped. The windows are small and usually fog up so badly or are so dirty that you can not see out, and you can get seasick in there.  There are sick bags in the box for such occasions. If you're lucky you can ride in the front seat, and the view is much better. You can see ice pressure ridges, where the Ross Ice Shelf is pushing up against Ross Island. The shelf is fed by a glacier which dumps a tremendous amount of ice in it, and it has to go to sea, but our little island is in the way.

Ice pressure ridges near the Transition.

Ivan the Terrabus

Ivan the Terrabus –  I love the name.  Ivan is more comfortable but slower.  You can see out the windows.  The view is quite spectacular.

Van

Vans– these get used when the temperatures are colder and the ground is frozen.  Notice how large the tires are.

Snowmobiles– no doubt you have seen these before.

Tractor pulling a helium tank

Yours truly on snowmobile

Tractors galore– earthmovers, forklifts etc all use treads, not tires, since tires would get mired in the muck. Note the trailer in the picture also has treads. They work well on ice and raise a lot of dust in town.

4 wheeler

4 wheelers – the LDB crew could not live without theirs during my last visit. They have little sleds they haul stuff behind.

Planes and helicopters – The C130’s and LC130’s (in air) haul passengers and cargo (the L means it has skis AND wheels). The are operated by both the “Kiwi” (New Zealand) Air Force and the New York wing of the US Air National Guard. I came in on a C17 this time, and a C130 the first time. The C17 Globemasters are operated by the US.  There are also planes called Twin Otters (on ice in photo below), which go to field camps deep in Antarctica because they can take off and stop on a dime, and helicopters, for nearby drops.  They are piloted by Canadians.

C130 in the air; Twin Otter on the ground in front of a tractor.

Icebreakers and research vessels: I toured both the research vessel (Nathaniel B Palmer) and the icebreaker (Swedish icebreaker Oden) in January 2008.  These are both highly specialized big boats. You should be able to find a lot of information about them on the web.

Icebreaker Oden

Nathaniel B Palmer