Happy Camper, the long version (and answers to questions)

So first, some answers to questions people have been asking.

I'm not exactly sure where the got the wood for all the crosses around here (there are a lot of them. They even put some up on the ice during their travels for the men who died on the way and they just buried there). Maybe it was left over from the ships, or they took some from the ships or the huts. I'm just not sure. I'll try to find out though. The Mary statue was brought down by the Navy I'm sure. That site was put up as a grave marker of sorts for the Navy Seabee who fell through the ice on a dozer. His body was never found, so they put up the Virgin Mary in honor of him. Our skiway airfield (which will be opening on Saturday, Dec 1st) is named in his honor as well.

Most of the black in the pictures is rock. The island I am on is a volcanic island, so we are on rock. It's really hard to picture it, but McMurdo Station is situated right on the edge of the ocean, basically, and it's extremely hilly because of the volcano and the winds. The winds blow a lot of the snow off the land, and in winter, it's too cold to snow. So the rock is exposed much of the time. It's not much what I thought of at all before I got here. You just don't expect Antarctica to have so little white. But farther inland, on the main continent and farther, everything really is white. Sure you can see some of the exposed rock on the mountains, but for the most part, you are surrounded by glaciers and snow. It's also a lot warmer here than I expected. Pretty soon, it'll be warmer down here than it is in PA.

We aren't exactly in a water shortage here, but they do ask you to go easy on the water. Things like washing full loads of laundry, turning the water off when you brush your teeth or wash dishes, taking short showers, are what they ask so you can conserve water. It's just a precaution. As for the firehouse, they let us flow water (and the water we were flowing that day was for Fleet Ops, for the retaining pond, so it was necessary) but they don't want us to do it too much for too long, but we are allowed to.

Most of the run was through town, though some of it went on the Ice Runway. All of the sea ice is grooved by machines, and then snow gets packed into it. It's slippery, so you have to be careful, but you can run on it.


I think that covers all the questions. If I missed one, let me know and I'll answer it.

OK, so Snow School, or Happy Camper. First we had to sit through some lecture stuff in a classroom before heading out to the site. Once we headed out, we sat in the Instructor's Hut (I-Hut) for some lunch and more lecture stuff. Then we got our sleeping supplies, our tents, stoves, food, and tools, and headed out to our site.

The first thing we learned was how to put up a Scott tent. These are pyramid shaped tents that are basically the same design that Scott used when he attempted to reach the South Pole. They can withstand 60-70 knot winds, and are fairly roomy inside. We used huge rebar like poles to anchor the corners and the sides, but the guy lines were staked out using 'dead man' staking, or 'T-staking.' This is when you dig a T shaped trench in line with the guy line, with the vertical part of the T going towards the tent. It gets dug about a foot deep, and then you put in a piece of stick (we used bamboo pieces) and wrap the guy line around it. Then all the snow gets shoveled back in and packed down as hard as you can get it, and the guy line gets tightened and tied with a trucker's hitch. It doesn't seem like it would hold very well, but the snow can pack down hard here cause it's so dry, and we had to dig them out when we broke camp in the morning.

The next thing we learned was how to make a Quinsey hut. This is basically a mound of snow hollowed out with a tunnel dug to get in. The easy way to do it was to pile all our sleeping kit duffel bags up and shovel snow on top of it. Every once in a while you have to stop to pack the snow down hard, and you keep putting snow on it until the walls are about 1.5 to 2 ft thick. Then we left it to set and went on to something else, and once it sets, you dig a hole at the base to pull the bags out. Once the bags are out, you have a nice little cave, and then you dig a tunnel to get into it (you want to lightly block up the bag exit hole, since that is on ground level, and a lot of cold air will get in that way. When you dig the tunnel, you actually want to dig it lower than the floor of the quinsey, so that it acts as a cold air sink, and all the cold air gets trapped below the floor, and the warm air stays in the hut. I had heard that it could get so warm, the snow would start melting and drip on you, but I didn't have that problem.

This is how we built our quinsey.

Here is our instructor having snow thrown at her. She climbed to the top to pack down the snow, and said we didn't have enough. So we threw some at her.

I actually slept in a quinsey that another class had built, and we excavated it for our own use. Once the snow sets, it gets very hard, though eventually they do collapse over time. The one I slept in had a very low ceiling, and I couldn't even sit up in it. It made it nice and warm, but it was hard to set things up without hitting the ceiling and getting snow all over you.

Here's some shots, the inside of the quinsey I slept in, the doorway (tunnel) and the whole thing.




Of course, in the real world you wouldn't have a bunch of huge duffel bags to pile up together, nor would you likely want your bags with all your survival gear stuck under the snow for an hour or 2. So most likely you'd be just making a huge snow pile and then hollowing it out completely, or finding a snow drift and doing the same.

After making our giant quinsey and leaving it to set, we learned to set up regular 4-season tents (just like you'd find on any mountain in the US), cut blocks out of the snow to build a wall against the wind, and to build trenches. A snow trench is basically a hole in the snow with smooth walls, just wider and longer than you are. It gets dug about 4 or 5 feet deep, and then you cut blocks to lay on top of the trench (the blocks are wider than the trench, so they aren't actually laying on you). You place the blocks across the trench except for the last one, climb in and pull the last block over your head. Some trenches can get really elaborate, with a deep trench dug and then bunk slots cut out for you to sleep. We had 4 people sleep in trenches, and they said it was quite warm, but I couldn't bring myself to sleep in one. It looked too much like a coffin, and while I'm not claustrophobic, I just wasn't feeling that one.

Here is a Scott tent, with a little regular dome tent in front.


Once all that was done, the instructors gave us some suggestions, and then left for the I-Hut, which was several hundred yards away. We finished our snow wall and set up our kitchen. We boiled water for hot drinks, and the dehydrated food we had for dinner (pre-packaged...I much prefer making my own).

This is what our camp looked like.

After I ate dinner, I decided to go to bed. The quinsey I slept in wasn't very tall, and even I couldn't sit up in it. I had gotten a regular mummy sleeping bag, which I forgot I didn't like because it doesn't let me move around as much as I like. I was plenty warm, after I changed my clothes and socks and settled in, but it took me a while to fall asleep. Once I did fall asleep, I woke up every hour or so, I'm guessing when I tried to change position. So I didn't sleep very well, but I managed. I was up and out at 5am, just because I was sick and tired of trying to sleep. I went to the bathroom, changed my clothes, and went over to the main camp (my quinsey was a bit farther out than the others) and got some hot cider mix to warm me up. By about 0630, most people were up and about, and we started breaking camp while everyone got breakfast. By 0830 we were done and had dragged all the supplies and our baggage back up to the I-Hut and put everything away.

The rest of the day was spent learning how to operate a VHF radio and a HF radio. We talked to South Pole a bit, and then had scenarios where we had to put the skills we learned on Tuesday to good use. We also did a white-out scenario, where we had to put white buckets on our head and try to find someone outside. I'm sure it looked hilarious, but it was hard.

Once that was done, we did a final debrief, and packed all our stuff up and headed back to town. I managed to get some good shots of the landscape on that side of the headland before we left. Erebus was erupting, though the wind was blowing the plume away from us, but it left a nice cloud ring around the middle of the mountain. I also got one of Castle Rock, which is a huge rock (perhaps an Erebus bomb, or maybe just a piece of rock sticking up) in the middle of the glacier. There is a hiking route out to it, and when the ice isn't too bad, you can climb up it. I hear the views are incredible.

Once we got back to town, we unpacked everything and got it ready for the next class, and then watched 2 videos, learned to strap ourselves into a helicopter, and then we were done. I got back to my room, took a shower and started a few loads of laundry before heading to dinner. I got back and watched some DVD's while waiting for laundry to finish before going to bed. It was so nice to go to bed.

Thanks to the beautiful weather and the lack of ozone in this part of the world, I managed to get a decent sunburn on my face. It's mostly toned down now, but last night you could have used my face as a flashlight. I think a good bit of it was wind burn too. I was wearing sunscreen, but I was sweating a lot too, so I probably needed to reapply more often. I also have raccoon eyes from wearing sunglasses, and a line just above my eyebrows to my hairline where my hat was. It's the typical Antarctic sunburn.

Here's a shot of Castle Rock.


Mt Discovery with Scott Base in the foreground.


Mt. Erebus. You can see the plume from the eruption blowing out to the back, and the ring of clouds around the middle.

A shot of the early morning sun through clouds.