There it goes, the last LC-130 of the season taking off from the South Pole. The image below shows the passengers who boarded that plane, and below that are all the bags belonging to the departing passengers, stacked up inside prior to loading. And that’s IceCube winterover Yuya in the final photo, shown marshalling one of the planes. So that’s it—the station has officially closed, leaving 42 individuals at the Pole to take care of business during the winter months. To start things off right, most of the crew took advantage of newly opened quarters and moved themselves into larger rooms. Then, as tradition holds, the galley cooks prepared a special station-closing dinner, after which all three versions of the movie “The Thing” were screened.
