The South Pole Traverse

There is an ice highway from McMurdo to the South pole (1600km) which takes 40 days (!!!) for the convoy to arrive. I was wondering how it was possible for tractors to take 40 days to go that far, thats only 40km a day, and they stop at night, so thats only 4km an hour on average.

Then I saw what they are towing…

They drag portacabins behind them to sleep in, plus massive bladders of fuel, repair sheds, huge amounts of cargo.

I have nothing to say except this is profoundly awesome, and have any of the Antarctic dopers been involved in this?

Semi related, a woman set the world record for (tri)cycling to the south pole in 9 days, beating two men who used more conventional fat bikes
http://www.icetrikes.co/community/ice-blog/world-record-set

Brian