On this day back in 2018, I jumped on a plane to kick off what would ultimately be the most fun and rewarding experience of my life: a 14-month deployment to McMurdo Station to operate and maintain our two lidar systems which we use to study the properties and processes of the upper atmosphere.
It’s not necessarily easy to get to Antarctica. Anyone that goes to McMurdo or the South Pole station travels by military cargo plane from Christchurch, New Zealand. You can imagine the excitement and nerves I experienced on the 14-hour flight from LAX to New Zealand. Just a few months prior I graduated with my undergraduate degree and told Dr. Chu that I could be one of the winter-over students, but I don’t think the magnitude of this commitment really hit me until I was on the plane bound for New Zealand. However, all the nerves dissolved when I made it to Christchurch and started embracing my new surroundings.
What should have been a short stay of a few days turned into an extended “layover” due to weather-related flight delays. When I wasn’t studying the lidar systems operating in Antarctica to prepare myself for this huge endeavor, I took the opportunity to explore the area around Christchurch. My favorite thing to do was to hike around the dramatic ocean landscape of Sumner beach and watch the surfers that littered the water.
After about 3 weeks of repeated, early morning trips to the airport and flight cancellations I finally made it on the C-17 and was really about to get Antarctic journey started.
In the early 1900s, Christchurch acted as a gateway to Antarctica for polar explorers and now I was heading to the ice too!
I’m going to continue using our blog to post some recaps of my 2018 – 2019 season at McMurdo so keep following for more of what’s like doing lidar research in Antarctica!
