Car mechanic quits Colorado job for $80K gig in South Pole with minus 60-degree temps
A Colorado car mechanic decided to leave his job at a car dealership in the States for an unusual gig — at the South Pole, the coldest place on Earth.
Jeff Capps, 33, moved 9,000 miles across the world for the job in Antarctica — where temperatures often reach negative 60 and half of the year is in total darkness, according to SWNS.
He immediately applied for the $80,000-a-year mechanic position at the US government-owned Amundsen-Scott South Pole research station when he learned of it in 2019 and hasn’t looked back since.
“One day an old friend came by and said they needed a mechanic to work on snowmobiles in the South Pole – I thought ‘sign me up!'” Capps said.
One of the big draws, he told the publication, was that the job requires just six-month stints in the South Pole — giving him “pretty much zero expenditure for half the year.”
The mechanic compared the atypical job to being deployed on a ship due to its isolation from the outer world, with the closest shop some 2,000 miles away.
“We call it our spaceship, as it’s 700 miles from the next nearest research station,” he told SWNS. “We’re totally isolated from everything.”
But also like living on a ship, the 43 people who live and work at the self-sufficient station have everything they could need inside the facility, including chefs who cook their meals.
“If you don’t open the door – it just seems like you’re in a nice hotel,” Capps said. “We have a great team of chefs. It’s room temperature inside and you can just walk around in a t-shirt.”
The 43 staffers and researchers become like a close-knit family over the six months of working and living together without much interaction from outsiders.
“You build an extremely close community as you see the same people every day, it’s all pretty nice until you open the door outside – then that all changes,” he said, noting the one big downside.
Temperatures near the South Pole station — described as “the coldest, driest, windiest place on Earth” by NOAA — average a bone-chilling negative 60 degrees in the winter and Capps often works outside to fix trucks and snowmobiles used by the crew.
The mercury dropped to a shocking negative 76 degrees once when the mechanic was working in the winter weather.
“You’d think you’d freeze to death instantly, but it’s a dry cold, so it’s actually not as bad as it sounds,” he said. “The worst bit is if the cold hits any part of your skin which is uncovered, you get a sharp burning sensation – it feels like your skin is being stabbed with a knife.
Another extreme weather element in the South Pole is a lack of sunlight. There is no sun for six months of the year and complete daylight for the other six. In the winter, the sun never rises and in the summer, it never sets.
“In winter it’s crazy outside – it’s always dark as the sun sets once a year so it’s six months daylight then six months darkness,” Capps said.
The darkness, however, does allow the Southern Lights to shine through.
“We also see the aurora borealis almost every day – it’s good work if you can get it,” the mechanic said.
Despite the darkness and isolation, Capps counts the social life on the job as one of its best aspects. He called the parties at the station “legendary” and even met his partner, Michelle, at the station two years ago.
“We are all like a big family – we have arguments and stuff but you still kind of respect each other,” he said. “We all give each other crap, but then we all have parties and drink whiskey together.”
The six months of downtime has allowed Capps and Michelle — who works in catering at the station — to travel all over the world together.
They’ve done trips to New Zealand, Australia, Turkey, Dubai, the UAE, Yemen and are currently in Oman, according to SWNS. They plan to return to work in Antarctica next year.
