The entrance to the geodesic dome there that houses the research station is just a gentle slope in the snow, but it's nicknamed Heart Attack Hill because even walking a few steps can leave you breathless. You're lugging around so much survival gear. Each person carries about 35 pounds of cold weather gear that you get before you go down to Antarctica, just to stay alive. Beyond the physical challenge there, the South Pole is also the closest thing that I can think of to what it must be like to live in a space station. Humans just can't exist at the Pole without a cocoon of technology.
Nothing is alive there naturally.
There's no bacteria, no mosses, no insects, no plants of any sort. Nothing is alive. There's no smells. There's just a muffled silence with the snow that's actually eerie. And also, everything's just a little bit off from everyday life everyplace else.