Amber on Ice

This is a pic from the Geographic South Pole Marker looking towards the new station. They have just finished putting the siding on this summer. The other shot is looking back towards the station and you can see they haven't finished siding it. The station is 2-stories high. The areas that stick out are called pods and are for berthing areas. They have a basketball/volleyball court, exercise room, band room, greenhouse, galley, conference rooms, lounges, craft room, store/post office, food storage, computer room and a few laboratories. My jaw dropped when I walked into the new station. It is completely state of the art, like walking into a new wing of a university or something. Everything is completely brand new.

The round-tin thing on the one side of the station is what they call the "Beer Can". Its several flights of stairs and a cargo lift used to hall materials up from the underground tunnels into the station. My second day there we walked up and down this thing a couple of times and I thought I was going to die. They even wrote on one of the steps "You're halfway there". Some Polies (South Pole People as they are known) will run up and down the Beer Can for exercise.