What is S2?
S2 consisted of a 'Jamesway' hut, generator, storage, and snow laboratory all dug in the snow, joined with a roofed trench and then covered over with snow, and a shaft which they dug down into the ice, 36m deep.
Over the years the snow has covered it all. But each year they returned and dug it out to do more experiments and take more ice samples.
When they finally closed the site (around 1966) they were living in an underground ice cave/tunnel, the hut and all, buried. Now there is a 15m deep shaft to the original dwelling which consists of a tunnel joining the hut and the 36m shaft.
Sound doesn't carry more than a few metres and the temperature remains at a steady -18 degrees.
The site is now considered too dangerous to visit, as it becomes more deeply buried each year. When visited a few years ago, one expeditioner described it as follows:
Everything has been crushed and distorted by the immense weight of snow above. The hut has bowed in the middle, so the floor rises and the roof drops, to touch in the middle. The kitchen table still stands but the roof now rests on it.
A tilley lamp lies crushed and distorted between. The passage sides are lined with stacked boxes, side on as shelves, and still full of tins of food. Cans of fruit salad, probably still edible, date back to 1963. There are even bags of flour, and oats, all the old wiring and switches still hang from the walls of the snow tunnel.
Karen K.
