The Highest Spot at the South Pole: The Roof

The Highest Spot at the South Pole: The Roof

Today, a quick exploration of the rooftop of the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Photos.

Getting up to the roof involves going out on one of the decks, and then climbing a narrow ladder.
2012-11-25 Station Rooftop and Pole - IMG_0910-1600-80

On the roof, there are safety lines strung up all over the place – in strong storms, it’s required to clip in. These lines were installed by Flexible Lifeline Systems.
2012-11-25 Station Rooftop and Pole - IMG_0921-1600-80

The view from the top. From left to right, you can see: The Beercan leading to the underground service corridors, vent towers from the power plant, spoolhenge, summercamp (blue tents), “the golfball” – our satellite uplink, a DHC Twin Otter operated by Ken Borek Air, the ice runway, triangular comms antennas from the emergency comms office in the station lifeboat, an emergency Iridium data uplink antenna also part of the lifeboat.
2012-11-25 Station Rooftop and Pole - Rooftop Summercamp View-Edit-1600-80
2012-11-25 Station Rooftop and Pole - IMG_0944-1600-80

Also on this exploration, I found the south pole’s Campbell–Stokes Sunshine Recorder, which I previously blogged about.