A Southern Thanksgiving

A Beautiful Afternoon at the Pole. The Main Station and the Murderhorn are directly behind me.

This year was my first Thanksgiving at Pole, and it did not

dissapoint! I had heard great things about the Thanksgivings thrown

way down south. After working a full day, my first impression came

from peering down the hall at the spread of hor d'oeuvres surrounding the

entrance to the dining area. Shrimp with shrimp sauce and lemon,

salmon locks with onions and capers, hard-boiled eggs, and sauce,

baked brea, a cheese and fruit plate... We tried not to eat too much,

keeping room for the main dinner.

John scooping out Salmon at Thanksgiving.

There were three shifts, and my friends and I were on the third. The

dining hall was set up super fancy with candles, table-cloths, nice

dishes, music and a video of a fireplace playing on the television

monitors. I felt under-dressed in my MountainHardware maroon

collared zip-top. Many men sported ties and many women wore dresses.

The food was great. Standard Thanksgiving fare: turkey cooked 3 ways

(baked, smoked, fried), mash potatoes, sweet-potato casserole,

green-been casserole, cranberry sauce, fresh salad (!), rolls, etc.

There were servers who walked around continually asking to re-fill

your wine glass whenever it got low. I ate a lot. Enough to be

thoroughly stuffed, but not crossing the barrier into regret.

We somehow ended up with the SPT people all sitting together, and

there was not a single woman an or table. My adviser was very

distraught by this. Hahaha! He eventually got over it and we had a

nice dinner.

After dinner, we were sitting around in the dining room drinking wine

and shooting the breeze, when Keith came back and informed me that

people were sledding on the Murderhorn!

The Murderhorn is this absolutely absurd and amazing pile of snow

right outside of the main station. A major task of keeping the

station running is removing snow drifts. Apparently they thought it

was a good idea to use bulldozers to push all of the snow around the

station up into a giant, peaked mountain. The thing must have been 30

feet high - it was almost as high as the 2-story-plus-stilts tall

station itself! I have been wanting to sled down it for a week now,

and wasted no time getting my Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear on.

The Murderhorn in all of its glory

Outside, there was a congregation of around ten people sledding on the

hill. Most of them were scientists from the Keck team. They had a

sled that is used to tow things behind a snowmobile, and a bike which

had been outfitted with broad snow tires, similar to the one on my

unicycle. The bike was awesome! We rode the easily slope where the

dozers had pushed up the snow, then began exploring the steeper sides.

I had a nice line with two drops, one into a middle-section, then a

final drop out the end. I crashed the first try on that, but stuck it

without falling the second time. We also rode a very steep slope

facing the station. My friend Jamie from the Keck telescope and I

were on-par, but this other guy had no fear and no skills. He tried

the steep one, and smashed on the bottom. We all thought he racked

himself, but apparently he just barely missed. We also had some great

boot-skiing down the steepest slopes, which was pretty great.

Sledding on the Murderhorn

Jamie and I decided to try a more technical bike line down the far

slope, which involved a steep, loose initial section, hopping over a

berm, turning left, hopping over another berm, then riding out to the

bottom. Jamie tried first, making it down the first slope. But at

the first berm he got pushed right and crashed. Then the other guy

tried next. He completely missed the line, avoiding the first berm

entirely and smashed straight into a big pile of snow/ice chunks. The

bike came to an immediate stand-still, and he went flying over the

handlebars, complete with a loud "Pop!" He picked up the bike and it

looked like the break had come off. Then we realized that the bike

frame itself had broken in two! The main cross-bar between the

handlebars and the seat had snapped! No more biking... We are going

to try to weld it back together.

And we will morn the loss of our most trust-worthy bike...

Jamie and I took one last sled run. Man, sledding is dangerous. We

launched off the jump at the bottom of the hill, getting at least ten

feet of air, and landing in the flats. I didn't lean back far enough,

resulting in a bruised tailbone and compressed spine. No more

sledding!

Apparently the entire time we were sledding, the medics had been

watching us from inside the station, waiting for someone to munch

themselves. Hahahaha! Fortunately nobody sustained any major

injuries.

After the sledding debauchery, we all headed off to summer camp for -

you guessed it - a dance party! At first it was a bit slow, but

within 15 minutes of us arriving the critical mass of people was

crossed and it became a classic South Pole dance party. Lots of

mildly drunk people blowing off steam, friendly faces of all ages. It

is a great atmosphere. They played one salsa song and I got to throw

down a few moves. Need to get back to salsa dancing!

I checked out of there shortly after 1am, and slept solidly until

10:30 this morning - actually the best I have slept at pole yet. A

late breakfast this morning, and I'm back at work. Good times!