I had dinner last night with the winter-over for the South Pole Telescope. This would have been his last dinner at a restaurant for the next year if our flight hadn't been cancelled this morning. This is his fifth time wintering over. He will be there from now until at least mid-October 2010, most likely into November. That's almost an entire year.
I asked him why he keeps coming back: he told me about the beautiful night skies, often with spectacular aurora, the community of people formed around those who have done this for many years, the simplicity of it all, focusing on your work, surviving. As a drummer, one of his favorite years was when he wintered over with an engineer who used to be a professional guitarist. They had some really great music going and he learned a lot about music.
This brings us to the question: would you ever want to winter over? Here are some statistics.
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I think the test is that they ask you "Would you be willing to winter over?" And if you're actually crazy enough to say yes, then you're out. Only if you say no are you allowed to winter over! (Little joke I heard down there...)
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