Patriot Hills is a nice spot. Well sort of, its very pretty to look at, really rather good to eat at, but not so great when the weather is concerned. The wind blows constantly here, which is why the camp is actually here. The wind screams down from the mountains and strips the top layer of snow off, leaving slippery, polished blue-ice, that very large Russian transportation aircraft can land on. Unfortunately most of that snow ends up in the tented camp a little bit to the north. When I say the wind screams, I mean it just absolutely howls through the camp, throwing up whirlwinds of snow, battering tents, and putting spindrift into any available orifice. It’s a tangible presence here twenty-four hours a day. Anything not locked down is gone with the first ferocious gust. W...

The Polarstern has been breaking a canal into the sea-ice for some days now to open a way for the Naja Arctica to the shelf ice edge near the Neumayer station. It is on the sea-ice in front of Neumayer where the colonies of Emperor penguins are. That we know, and every now and then whole groups of adult penguins pass by on the ice. Well, we have seen grown-up penguins before, but I would have loved to see the young ones, especially since they are so close! We can not get to the colony, but the penguin chicks ae nice enough to come and visit us. And so I am standing on deck until 2 a.m., watching a group of young emperors on their first trip to the water. This sight is really the nicest I have ever had of any penguins. ...

13 Jan 2008 86.05767 deg S, 55.06667 deg E, 3251 meters above sea level Maximum & Minimum temperatures: - 25 to - 36 °C It was with mixed feelings that we finished the last science stop. On one hand, it was good to know that a very successful field program was completed. On the other hand, it was a bit sad to know that the field season comes to an end soon. After lunch we packed up. A lot of reorganization was needed since only three vehicles are operative now. After dinner we started out on our non-stop driving to the South Pole. All vehicles performed well and the spirits were once again high – “only” 600 km to go… - Jan-Gunnar Photo: Last night when all four vehicles were operative (Photo: Jan-Gunnar Winther)...

It’s been a few days since anything really happened. There was the New Year, which was ushered in with much hilarity and scotch, and the helo-hanger party where the blue grass and rock bands from Ice Stock played again. And there was the visiting members of Congress that we had to talk to, and several fire drills, but conspicuously there wasn’t much work to be done. Weather has not been our friend, and we have had some logistical knock on effect from the plane crash that our group was involved in earlier in the season (Google "Antarctica Basler", to read-up on it, if you are so inclined). I’m writing this from the belly of a LC130 ski-equipped Hercules aircraft. Four of our team, myself, Brian Bonnet, Don Voigt and Thomas Nylen (yeah him again) are l...