Echo Base or South Pole Station....

Hey everyone! This is the first post from the South Pole, aka the Bottom of the World, aka my home for the next (however) long months. To bring you all up to speed: I was told yesterday at 1000 hours that I would be leaving at 1145 hours to South Pole Station. My flight originally was for Thursday (today), but what happened was that there was they combined all the flights (40 people/3 Flights) and had them all go on an LC-130 rather than a Bazler aka a DC-3. No worries, I did my rushed packing...then I said bye to all my friends at the Fire Department, and hoped on the plane. We flew for 2.5 hours, 800 miles due South to the South Pole Station. South Pole is at about 10,000 ft on average, but does feel higher due to barometric pressure. I think today we hovered around 10,300 ft. Walking, even climbing stairs can make you out of breathe. I consider myself pretty fit, and I've been working out a bunch; so this whole winded thing is very odd to me from walking up 12 stairs! So, as I almost collapsed bringing my stuff from the plane (Mom, Dad I'm kidding...poetic license), a couple polies (slang for people who work down here) helped me with my bags to my room. I'm living in the main station, which was built in 2008. It is very nice, and I am very thankful that I am living in the station. Many people live in jamesways affectionately referred to as "Summer Camp". They aren't far from the main station, but everything (Food, Computer lab...etc) are in here.

Lets see it was -85 bellow freezing today and I worked/walked outside for several hours. I can see why people loose weight down here, your body is working overtime to burn calories to warm itself up. Today, we basically were setting up our ARFF rig that we will be using for the flights. Primarily that will be my job down here, that and fire inspections. Our small group of 3 of us (for now, 3 other join us later) augment the fire brigade down here. We assist them with training and we operate under them in any incidents. This is because we don't respond to fire calls if we are doing flight operations, the Air Force requirements essentially dictate why we are here.

Thus far living and working down here is AWESOME! I love it and I'm glad I'm here all season, the group of people are really cool, and I will have a hard time not to write whole essays on what I'm doing and what I experience down here. The "Dome" which has housed the South Pole Station for many years is being torn down this year. It right now is holding food and other various cargo in it. So I'll grab photos of that for everyone.

The underground tunnels are at a warm -50 degrees, reminds me of a certain movie...I think Greggy Smalls knows what I'm referring to. Matt Bramante if you also are reading this...I'm sure you are enjoying the references. And to all my other nerdy friends...I know you guys are smiling as well.

So my internet time is really limited. I'm hitting a "spare" satelite, so this is an extra 2 hours we get of internet today. Usually we get 10 hours daily...but it changes. I can get phone calls and internet in my room! Which is neat. I'll upload more pics later, but I think this will hold most of you over for now. Stay Safe and enjoy.