The plane is a four jet cargo plane that can carry up to 65,000 tons of cargo.  We boarded the plane through the cargo hold, since this plane carries all passengers and all cargo in the main cabin. Behind our seats were 250 barrels of fuel that were being transported down to the camp, all of our luggage, and new food supplies for our stay. 

So after all of our delays and a quick look at the plane, we got dressed in all of our Antarctic clothing to board the plane.  Next to us in this picture is another New Yorker went to Antarctica to climb Mount Vinson Massif, which is the tallest mountain on the continent of Antarctica (just over 16,000 feet).  Notice the very large down jacket that Matt is holding!!!
 

There is enough room in the plane for up to 50 people.  We had a relatively full flight with climbers, south pole expeditions and about 8 of us who were just going down to experience the continent from base camp.  You can see that the passenger area takes up about 1/3 of the whole plane.  Also, you don't see much natural light because there are no windows in the plane - it was a strange feeling taking off without being able to see outside, and an even stranger feeling landing without seeing how things were going.  All in all, it was probably good that we couldn't see out.
     

Back in the cargo area were the buggies for an expedition that was traveling down with us.  There were two men who were using kites to drag their buggies from the South Pole back to our camp.  The trip is fairly downhill - accounting for an 6,000 foot drop in the 600 miles between the two bases.  They were sponsored by Kit Kat so there were a lot of Kit Kats that came down to camp along with them.
 

After 4 hours and 20 minutes, we arrived in Antarctica.  The runway is a blue ice strip located at the bottom of the mountains you see in this picture.  The strip is kept clear of snow by the winds that whip over these mountains.  As you can see, people were being very careful walking on the ice - it was very slippery.  And when you fell on it, you fell hard. 

The landing process was fairly complex.  This is a picture of the runway that we landed on - you can see that there are no indicators to show where the runway starts and ends and what direction they should land in.  The process of landing the plane is very interesting - fifteen minutes before the plane lands,  five people from the camp crew go down to the runway with mirrors and a wind sock.  Three people stand at the beginning of the runway and the other two are at the end.  There is one person holding the wind sock measuring the wind speed and relaying them to the plane.  If the wind is blowing too hard, the plane will need to wait to land.  The other four people are holding mirrors, two people shining the mirrors at the sun and the other two people deflecting the sun's light towards the plane so they have indicators of where the runway starts and ends, and the line on which they should land.

This is a picture of the entire runway - it is almost 2 KM long.  In order to stop the plane, they shift two of the four engines into reverse and use their anti-lock brakes to slow down.  They usually take the entire 2 KM to slow the plane down and then taxi to the hangar.  You can see in this picture why it is important for the plane to know the exact location of the runway - between the runway and the mountains, the ice becomes very uneven.
 

We walked from the plane into camp and got into camp at about midnight.  We had some soup, were told where our tents were and everyone went off to sleep to get ready for our first day "on the ice."