I arrived back in Antarctica Friday afternoon. As a gaggle of poofy red-coated Antarcticans descended the ramp at the back of the C-17, the temp was -35 ambient, -67 with windchill. The sun rises at 11a and is down again by 2p, but lots of long beautiful twilight makes surreal blue and purple and pink shadows on the mountains and the ice. But the days are getting longer quickly, and the equinox–the day of equal daylight across the globe–is just a month away, so I’m savoring the hours of darkness while they’re here.

Lastnight several of us went out to watch the auroras all dressed up in ten layers of down and gore-tex. The stars were amazing and gorgeous veils of green light shimmered over the mountains to the south but we could only hack it for about 45 minutes before the icicles in our eyelashes made us cry (and the snot froze inside our noses) so we ran back inside for more bailey’s and coffee.