There is also time for the winterovers to meet other winterovers and start team bonding exercises; after all, no flights leave the South Pole after the station closes near the end of February until it reopens in October. This year, Camille Parisel and Alicia Fattorini are the IceCube winterovers, and as you will read in the linked article, they are not new to running experiments in remote environments. Camille even winterovered for IceCube before — how cool is that?!
So what exactly do winterovers do during the winter? Everyone has a job, and everyone also helps out with chores around the station to keep things clean and tidy. Camille and Alicia are in charge of maintaining the IceCube detector. This means they will carry out tasks needed to keep the detector running for as much of the time as possible. Sometimes they will need to walk out to the IceCube Lab in the middle of winter! Good thing they are well prepared with gear and safety measures. In their free time, winterovers find a variety of activities, hobbies, and traditions to keep up their spirits and enjoy themselves. Traditions include special meals for the sunset and sunrise, celebrating Christmas in July, and various contests like eating a donut hanging on a string with no hands. I know, that last one is a little funny, isn’t it? But that’s what it takes to make it through the winter here — humor, patience, staying busy, and good spirits.
Before those of us here for the summer depart, there is a lot of work to do! In the next couple of weeks, IceCube Upgrade team members will be busy.
