Welcome to another report from us. This will probably be our last one from Antarctica before we hop on a plane to New Zealand on February 16. We've been busy the last couple of weeks and have a lot to tell, so you may want to digest this email in pieces. Like last time, the email does not have the photos. To see these, please go to our website http://www.jeanbert.com.

Jean flew to the South Pole right after we wrote our email on January 23. She worked in the one-person medical clinic there for five days while the regular doctor (who is on a one-year contract) got a rest in McMurdo. The South Pole will close to all traffic coming in and going out on February 15th. There will be a record 50 people isolated there until the first plane can come in next November. The number of people wintering at the Pole is unusually high this year because of the construction of a new station that will continue (inside) during the cold dark months. When Jean was not busy seeing patients at the Pole, she was out taking lots of pictures. Here are some of her favorites.

We'll start with the South Pole dome and entrance. Notice how the snow has built up to where the dome is almost buried. This is why a new station is being built. The dome is not strong enough to hold up snow. There are currently bulldozers full time digging it out.

This is what you see after you have walked through the entrance shown in the previous picture. The corridor straight ahead leads into the dome. The corridor to the left goes into a buried arch that contains the medical facility and fuel storage. The corridor to the right leads to the power plant and three new arches housing a garage, a future carpentry shop and a new power plant.

This is the entrance to the medical clinic. The sign next to the door says "club med."

This is the exam room in the medical clinic. This clinic has one exam room, two ward beds, a bed for the doctor, a bed for the station manager and one for the winter-over station manager. While Jean was in the clinic, she saw about five patients per day.

This is the view inside the dome. Note that it is not heated and the floor is snow. The building left of center with all the frost on it is the greenhouse. To the left of this is a dormitory area. The building on the right is the cafeteria, which down here is called a "galley."

This shows the inside of the "galley." There is seating for about 60 people, which can be a problem during the summer when there are 200 people on the station. Things definitely get crowded.

Here you can see the icicles that form on the inside of the dome from people breathing and the other vapors that are produced.

There are 23 sleeping spaces inside the dome. This picture shows the elevated dorm, which is a second place for people to sleep. It has about 70 beds and was built as a prototype for the new elevated station that is currently being built and expected to be completed by 2005.

People who don't get a space inside the dome, or in the clinic or in the elevated dorm, are housed in hypertats, shown here. These buildings are of prefab construction, have been named for the Flintstones (Fred, Wilma, Betty and Barney), and are quite primitive. You have to walk outside to a separate building that houses the showers and toilets. During the summer the temperatures at the South Pole are about -40 degrees (C or F). This will be the first winter that the hypertats will be inhabited. During the winter, temperatures drop to -80 F (-60 C). They are building a walkway so people are at least out of the wind when they go to the bathroom.

This area is called summer camp. It houses the overflow during the summer. These are plywood buildings with eleven 8 ft x 6 ft "sleeping spaces" in each structure. Again, the showers and toilet facilities are in a separate location. These buildings are not used during the winter.

This is a picture of the visible parts of the new station. The tube on the left houses a stairway that will connect to buried arches.

Here you can see some of the new arches that are getting built. These have been designed to be buried by the drifting snow. The arch on the left is the new power plant. The one in the middle will be the carpenter shop. The one on the right is the garage.

This picture shows the "geographic South Pole". This is the exact 90 degree south latitude point. Because this point is on ice and the ice moves, every year on January 1 the marker is moved about ten feet. The tent in the background belongs to five British women skiers who arrived at the Pole the same day Jean arrived, having skied 730 miles in 60 days.

Here are the five British women skiers when they had just arrived.

This shows Jean at the "ceremonial South Pole". This is located about forty feet from the "geographic South Pole" and has a semicircle of flags around it representing the countries that have signed the Antarctic treaty.

While Jean was at the South Pole, Bert also got a request to travel. In his case it was day trips to the Dry Valleys, fifty miles across the Sound from McMurdo. During one of these days, he went "heli-hiking" being dropped off at one automated data recording station and walking with one other person for 5 miles to be picked up at a second station later in the day. Here are some photos of his trip. Since Jean had the "good camera" these pictures don't have quite the resolution.

This picture shows the Beacon Valley where Bert went "heli-hiking." He had gone there with one other person to take data from computer boxes that were monitoring the weather and soil. The rocks in this valley are primarily eroded by the wind. This valley is positioned in a way that it hardly gets any snow and there is no water runoff. Even in the winter there is hardly any snow here.

This picture shows the Victoria Valley and the meteorological station whose data we collected. The glacier up the valley stops abruptly leaving a dry area for miles and miles. This valley had fewer boulders and very soft soil.

Here you can see Lake Fryxl, which is in the Taylor Valley. There is a field camp here that is used about three months per year. This is as far as the ice melts in mid-summer.

Also while Jean was at the Pole, a group of Russian scientists transited through McMurdo on their way to the Russian station at Vostok. This gave Bert the opportunity to practice his Russian, make new friends and learn about the Russian Antarctic program. Things are definitely more primitive in Vostok. This station is at an altitude of almost 14,000 feet, has only 25 people staying there and there are only three flights in or out per year. Vostok is where the coldest temperature on earth was recorded. In return for working there, the scientists are paid an equivalent of less than $100 per year. This brought to our attention once again how fortunate we are.

When we both got back together, it was time to take a cruise on the National Guard Icebreaker (the Polar Star).

Here you can see an overview of the ship.

This ship accommodated all of the town of McMurdo by taking half of the town on each of two half-day cruises. Here you can see the ice channel that it made.

During the cruise, we managed to see almost all the wildlife that can be seen here, including two kinds of penguins (Emperors and Adelies), two kinds of Whales (Minkes and Orcas), and two kinds of Seals (Weddells and Crabeaters). This picture shows some Orcas eyeing their supper and the Adelies deciding that this is not a good time to go fishing.

We are now both in the process of wrapping up our work and getting ready for our bicycle trip through part of New Zealand. Bert is finishing up a seal-weighing sled and documenting what he did. Jean is seeing a whole variety of patients --including the U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand who came through on a boondoggle and a worker in the New Zealand Base's cafeteria who went off the marked route and fell 20 feet down a crevasse. She has also been busy helping a rear-admiral in the Coast Guard with her report on how to improve the medical facilities in Antarctica.

Thanks for all of the responses we've received. We look forward to seeing many of you in the months ahead.

Best regards, Jean and Bert

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This page was last updated on \12/20/00.