I left for my 15th trip to Antarctica today (August 17th) and I have pretty mixed emotions about it. On one hand I am very excited to be going to Antarctica again and getting to see and experience an environment that is so different from my everyday life. I feel so fortunate that my career as a polar scientist and professor has allowed me to visit and work in Antarctica so many times over the past 31 years, starting with my first trip in 1994 when I was a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin.
As I have gotten older, married and had a daughter the excitement of going to Antarctica is tempered by the sorrow of being away from the people I love the most – my wife Liz and daughter Sabrina – for an extended period of time.
Since we knew I’d be away from home starting in late summer we made the most of our time together earlier in the summer. We went on a few trips including a week in North and South Dakota visiting several parks and other sites.
But it is the normal, everyday things that I miss most when I am away – hearing about what Liz and Sabrina did each day, sharing meals with them or taking evening walks on the open space trails in our neighborhood.
Another thing I’ll miss while I am away is riding my bicycle. I am an avid cyclist and ride every day. In fact, I have ridden at least 15 miles every day, and averaged over 40 miles of riding per day, for the last 518 days, since my last field campaign, in Kiruna, Sweden, in March 2024. Not being able to ride my bike outside will be a big adjustment for me on this trip, although I plan to ride a stationary bike in the gym in McMurdo Station.
The trip to get to Antarctica is a long one. It started today (Sunday August 17th) with more than 24 hours of flights from Denver, CO to Christchurch, New Zealand. (I am part way through this 24 hour stretch of flights right now as I am writing this blog post). From Denver I flew to Los Angeles. After a 5 hour layover there I had a 12.5 hour flight to Auckland, New Zealand. This was followed by another 3 hour layover and then a 1.5 hour flight from Auckland, on the North Island of New Zealand, to Christchurch, on the South Island. I arrived in Christchurch late on the morning of Tuesday August 19th, having lost a day when we flew across the International Date Line. The trip from home to Christchurch took more than 24 hours.
Because I am traveling to the Southern Hemisphere the seasons are flipped and I am leaving behind a hot Colorado summer for a cool New Zealand winter. High temperatures at home have been in the 90s F, topping out near 100 F a few days, for much of the past few weeks while temperatures in New Zealand will range from the 30s to 50s F. I’m not sure if I am ready for this change from summer to winter in just 24 hours.
After spending a few days in New Zealand I will continue my trip to Antarctica. Right now, I am scheduled to fly to McMurdo Station, Antarctica on Friday on a US Air Force C-17 plane. The weather will make another step change with this flight with temperatures consistently below 0 F and possibly dipping down to -40 F or colder – more than 130 F colder than the temperature at home – once I arrive in Antarctica.
Another big change going from summer to winter is day length. At home right now the sun is up for more than 13.5 hours. In Christchurch the days are 10.5 hours long while in McMurdo, on August 23rd, the sun will only be up for 4 hours.
I am in for a lot of change in the next week and I’ll try to share what that is like in upcoming blog posts.
Thanks for reading.
