McMurdo to South Pole

After about five hours of interrupted sleep (probably four hours of sleep altogether) I got up to check on my flight. And found out that the flight would actually depart. So I had to remove all the sheets from the bed, pack all my stuff again, and head to the check-in building. We were eight people waiting for the transport to the aircraft which promised some more legroom for the flight from McMurdo to South Pole. We got on the shuttle, and it took us, again, about one hour to get to the ice runway. It’s just about 12 miles, but the snow road was in pretty bad shape due to a storm that blew through a few days earlier, and because of the warm temperatures that make the snow and ice melt.

We had to wait at the airfield then for a while which gave me the opportunity to take some pictures of the airfield (with one of the famous LC-130s) and Mt. Erebus, the volcano that is close to McMurdo station. I just read on Wikipedia that it is the second largest volcano in Antarctica, and the most southerly volcano on earth.

We boarded our plane, the eight people from the van, and 3 others that had been shuttled there with a different vehicle, and then we were on our way to the Pole. As you can see there was MUCH more space in the aircraft this time, and the flight was only about three hours. It was still noisy, though…
Since we were only a few people on the plane, there was plenty of opportunity to go up to the cockpit and look out of the front of the airplane. Again, the views were just spectacular!