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The highest temperatures you’ll experience in an Antarctic winter won’t be any higher than negative 25 degrees.It takes just one gale-forced wind blowing across a glacier that’s two miles thick, everywhere you look, to create a wind chill that’ll freeze your eyelids.You won’t find a more treacherous set of terrain than the South Pole.

The permanent station located here, is likely one of the most isolated places a scientist can be, and operating this U.S. scientific outpost, is also one of the most essential jobs a scientist can have.At one time only approved researchers and workers were able to be at the South Pole.However, in recent years this has changed. Wealthy tourists and adventurers can charter flights that will bring them to this desolate location.antarctic cruise

Sure, all they can see is mountains, valleys and oceans of white.There are no penguins closer than a thousand miles in any direction.However, there are people who long to visit the Pole just to have this rare experience and be able to say that they were that and that they did that.

Scientists and other official personnel who work and live at The Pole probably shudder at the thought of the station as an attraction, particularly as diesel bulldozers and cranes continue to develop the site.There are times when visitors arrive unannounced during the research season.You can’t exactly tell them to turn around and go home.

Antarctica is not claimed by any country; forty-three countries have agreed by treaty to protect this frozen landmass that is equivalent to the size of the U.S. and Mexico combined and study it.The three good-sized stations that the United States maintains at the South Pole are manned throughout the year, even through the pitch-black darkness of winter that lasts for eight months.There is an unwritten pact that demands that the crew provide assistance to all who journey to a latitude of 90 degrees south, whether they are there by invitation or not.great antarctic cruise

Visitors are not solicited since frequently they are not knowledgeable about the area and are not aware they are at 10,000 feet.They’ll just get altitude sickness, and get ill from dehydration and frostbite.

In 1975, the sleeping facilities of the dome were opened to accommodate thirty-three men.Today two hundred men and women clutter into every possible bed.Prefabricated bunkhouses made of plywood, canvas and plastic can now be seen stretching down the glacier and carry the nickname of Summer Camp.

Fresh water is supplied in abundance at Summer Camp, so no one goes without.Limited luxuries, like showers, flushing the toilet, even laundry come from melting ice using expensive $12 a gallon fuel.If you want to use the communal bathroom you have to make a slippery and teeth-rattling journey over the ice and through the cold. The temperature doesn’t change much even when the sun is blazing at 3 a.m.

Military escorts were assigned to Antarctica’s first female researchers.Now, women make up 1/3 of the summer support staff population and they are treated just like everyone else.The Pole, it seems, doesn’t discriminate, and treats all who visit with equal cruelty.

Research indicates that it takes three times as long to finish a basic task when people are working in extremely cold conditions.This happens because the brain is focused on producing more hormones for physical activity (to keep the body warm), resulting in less hormones being produced for problem solving.The conditions do not get any better in the winter.

All support personnel, except for a few, will take the last airplane sometime in mid February, to winter somewhere warmer and far more hospitable.That last airplane leaves a group of 28 workers who will live at The Pole for the six months that follow.They have to deal with endless night until salvation comes in October.