Unique Places in Antarctica

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Several years ago, France and Italy agreed to develop a joint polar station at "Dome C", 1100km inland from the French antarctic station at Dumont d'Urville and some 3600 metres above sea level. The high points of the antarctic plateau are identified as Dome A, Dome B, Dome C, etc. This is only the third permanent inland Antarctic station and the first on one of the "Domes". It has been fully operational since only 2005. (The other two inland stations are the US Amundsen-Scott station at the South Pole and the Russian Vostok station at the Pole of Inaccessability, the most distant place from the coast.)

Concordia is at a particularly remote and featureless site, with only snow visible in all directions. But it has some valuable scientific merits which justified its selection. These include totally pristine air for climatological studies, ice depth suitable for deep ice cores, good atmospheric stability making it very suitable for astronomy, and a site suitable for seismology. It is also extremely cold, with an average annual temperature of about -53C. To find out more, the website link is given below.

Although it is improbable that you'll get there as a tourist, if you're at Dumont d'Urville at the right time, you can see the giant tractor trains starting on the 1100km run inland. They do this several times during the summer, taking about 10 days in (with fuel, food and supplies) and 8 days out (with all the wastes). We were lucky enough to see the convoy forming up and departing.

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my trip included falklands and south georgia island - if you plan to visit antarctica, go all the way!!! we also stopped at the south orkneys and south shetland islands. a 10-day trip is a waste since it takes 4 days just to get to the tip and back. you will see far more animals and the most spectacular scenery in the world doing the longer trip. save up and go.

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my trip included falklands and south georgia island - if you plan to visit antarctica, go all the way!!! we also stopped at the south orkneys and south shetland islands. a 10-day trip is a waste since it takes 4 days just to get to the tip and back. you will see far more animals and the most spectacular scenery in the world doing the longer trip. save up and go.

Antarctica IS off the beaten path! There's no need to prove yourself even more hard core by straying from the path when you get there. Specifically, follow the expedition leader's path because there is the real danger of falling into crevasses that you don't see, or falling off the cliff altogether. No joke. I was trekking up the hill at Paradise Bay and witnessed a friend stray until he was all of 5 steps away from the cliff edge. He couldn't see it from his vantage point and so had no idea. Don't tempt the elements.

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Take a closer look at this interesting windflag with distances to the most important places of "homesickness" of the Ukrainian team of Scientists in Vernadsky station. My favorite part of it was the windflag on top of it, showing a sled torn by huskies. In case that it is stormy outside, you will be able to take your photos of it also through the balcony of
the kitchen of the station, one of the officers there opened the door for me there so I was able to stand inside the warm house and take the picture of the distance-pole in the snow-storm.
15010 km to Odessa
15168 km to Kiev
8624 km to Sydney

The distance-pole in Almirante Brown shows the distances to some cities in Argentina,to the South-pole and also the Northpole and some other major cities like Tokyo etc., but when i compare the distances of the Southpole to the one of the north pole, I am sure there is a mistake in at least one of these distances ! The distances are given in nautical miles. 1 nm = 1,852 km
The distance from Almirante Brown to
Ushuaia is 620 nm
Buenos Aires 1825 nm
Tokyo 8865 nm
Madrid 6856 nm
South Pole 1513 nm
North Pole 9285 nm

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The Antarctic Polarcircle is a lot further south than 95% of all ships are sailing in the Antarctic waters. Mostly it is only on the itinerary of icebreakers like Kapitain Klebnikov and a few others. When you compare the distances to the pole, you may get quite easily with an ordinary cruiseship up to the northern icebarrier, about 800-1000 km from the Northpole, like I did many times, while I was working onboard of the cruiseship M/S Vistafjord.
While the northpole is just covered with rather flat ice that might totally melt in the nearer future, the southpole is covered by an "iceblock" that is held between various islands and it is more than 3000 meters high. very close to the south Pole there is a permanent american research-station.

Boothe Island / Isla Booth is the island that makes the western bank of Canal Lemaire/ Lemaire Channel with quite high rocky mountains,that were totally covered by snow in the beginning of December. In the west-side of Boothe Island, there is a port : Port Charcot
When I mention a port here it is certqainly not comparable to an ordinary port like in the rest of the world, it is rather a place to anchor a ship safely, protected against strong currants and winds.