Taking the ice road to the South Pole
How do you haul gear to the bottom of the world? Hop a ride on a 1,000-mile road deep into the heart of Antarctica.
The long, cold road
How about then going another 1,000 miles into the Antarctic continent? Because that's where $18.5 million of stimulus money is ending up, about half of it for tractors to haul gear from McMurdo Station to the South Pole.
McMurdo is on the coast about 2,500 miles south of Australia, but the Pole is another 1,000 miles away. The "traverse" (what locals call the road) is hardly a paved superhighway, so it takes 43 days for the journey.
Specially modified farm tractors, made by U.S. companies like Case IH and AGCO, follow paths marked by bamboo poles.
NEXT: Going cross-country
