While on a recent federal research mission in Antarctica, Scott Farley saw elephant seals and watched an iceberg form - moments he recalls as highlights of the trip.
Farley, of Anacortes, spent November and December in Antarctica as part of NASA's Operation IceBridge mission, which measures ice at the Earth's poles in order to track changes as the global climate warms.
For Farley, a retired Navy pilot who spent years flying P-3 Orion aircraft out of Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, the expedition meant unpredictable weather and temperatures as low as about -40 degrees.
Farley and a crew he assembled through his company Fidalgo Aeronautical Services flew an aircraft outfitted with skis to enable it to land on Antarctica's icy terrain.
They departed Nov. 11 from Wisconsin, where the DC-3 turboprop aircraft was built, and landed in Antarctica six days later after stopping along the way to refuel, Farley said.
In Antarctica, they were joined by a team of scientists from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, the University of Kansas and NASA.
The pilots, mechanics and scientists spent about six weeks flying over Antarctica's sea ice, mountains and glaciers - a seemingly unending world of white, Farley said.
"The most memorable was flying into Shackleton Glacier. We would land on the glacier itself and it was beautiful. We had these mountains right next to us," he said.
